On Syiah and Sunni

Recenty I came across an interesting book. The book talks about the concept of Politics in Islam. While the topic is about the politics in Islam, the author seems to be more interested to talk about Sunni and Shiite. I guess, the author wanted to narrow down the scope of his book by looking at Sunni (Those who follows Prophets tradition) and Shiite (The followes of Ali) perspective. Actually I came across this issue of Shiite during my secondary school days. In form three to be exact. I have a friend whose brother (studying in UKM I think) is very fond of Shiite. Since his brother is into this Shiite group, he is also curious about it. Being a kid, I guess my brain is not capable of looking at this Shiite issue beyond whether it is HALAL or HARAM. A quick reference to Jabatan Agama or Ustaz2 will tell you that Shiite is HARAM. So the issue died down as I don't want to occupy myself with something HARAM.

Fast forward twenty years later, here I am again reading something that touch on Sunni and Shiite. Now being an adult who do a lot of analytical think, I began to see that there is more than HALAL and HARAM to this issue. Apparently Shiite started as a group that disagree with the selection of Saidina Abu Bakr R.A. as the caliph, they insists on Saidina Ali R.A. This disagreement soon grows into more complex issues which finally lead to the formation of Shiite Imamah (Ja'fariah) etc. While we want to downplay Shiite influence, the fact is they used to be major player of the Islamic world whether through proxy (Buyid Dynasty) during Abbasid Empire or forming their own empire such as Fatimiah (in Egypt) and Safavid (Nearer to Modern Day Iran) a contemporary of Othmaniah Empire. To this day, they have a big followers in Iraq, Lubnan, Kuwait and Syria not to mention Iran.

It strikes me that is it odd for us to summarily say they are Kafir just like that?? Where does this kafir judgement come from by the way? Ja'far Sadiq (one of the Shiite Imam) is the teacher of Imam Malik (of Mazhab Maliki), the Shiite Imams are all Ahl-Bayt (The family of Rasulullah SAW) so are we suggesting that they are not muslims?? Is it that our prejudice towards the Shiite can be traced to the hatred of Umayyad Caliph's?, or our (the sunni) rivalry during the Fatimiah reign or Safavids (which is closer to modern day Iran)??

Before you start arguing from the point of view of aqidah, what I want to say is that all of these Sunni-Shiite division is more of a tragedy to me no more no less. Sadly this tragedy leads to the divergent in term of interpretation of the religion. While reading this book, I keep asking myself, If I where with Saidina Husin during the clash with Yazid (the Sunni), or seeing the mistreatment faced by Ahl-Bayt during the Ummayad (many are killed and jailed) , even I will support this Shiite group but again life is not that simple.

I think the time has come for us to bridge this gap, to sort out our misunderstanding, to declare that the sunni no longer treat shiite as enemy vice-versa.. The day of Ummayyad, Abasid, Ottoman are long gone.. let us bury all the hatred and together we stand united as Muslim. That is better than starting to label this group goes to hell or that group goes to hell... On what group goes to hell? Well just leave it to Allah.

p.s: Wikipedia offers a variety of topic regarding Islamic History Sunni and Shiite Alike. Feel free to check it out then you may be feeling the same way as I do.. hmm ye ker.