One god, many wars: religious dimensions of armed conflict in the middle east and north africa9/8/2023 ![]() ![]() Religion and how it is interpreted is playing an increasingly significant role in the conflicts across the Middle East. ![]() Although this is an arguable and controversial assertion, the Arab uprisings and the collapse of the nation state - to some degree artificially created by colonist powers - placed more of an emphasis on religious, rather than nationalist identities. The question of who is a believer and which interpretations of Islam are truly part of the faith is a central question that Muslims are struggling to answer, particularly since the Arab uprisings began in 2011. Zarka's perspective is not necessarily shared by some Sunni Muslims, and these include believers who are not in extremist groups, such as ISIS. They are dhalal, which means ignorance and deviating from righteousness. My reason is that they are ignorant and lack knowledge. But I disagree with those Salafists who say the majority of Shia are kufar. "Are the Shia real Muslims?" I asked him. Zarka holds firm to the belief that various interpretations of Islam should be accepted, and that includes the way Islam is practiced among Shia Muslims, who some Sunni Salafists believe are kufar, or unbelievers. "Trying to plant the seed of secularism in Muslim societies is like trying to plant a tree near the equator," he told me. His first response, when I met him in December in his well-appointed home in Alexandria, was to dismiss secularism. ![]() Bassam al Zarka, a sophisticated and highly intelligent Salafist leader in Egypt, eloquently explains the answer to the question Muslims around the world have been asking since 9/11: Whose Islam is it? The faith of Salafists like himself? The religion practiced among more secularist Muslims? The religion interpreted among state-sanctioned scholars, such as those at Al-Azhar university? ![]()
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