This is the fourth installment of our weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident Shiite and United Arab Emirates citizen will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: What are the feelings in the UAE and the Middle East in general towards the current situation in Iraq? Do people regard it as a civil war, and what do they think will happen to Iraq after the United States leaves? What are the thoughts on the US presence in the Middle East? And finally, what are the thoughts on foreign militants also fighting in Iraq (ie. Iranian involvement in Iraq, Al-Qaeda, other Mujahdeen forces)?

Answer: The situation in Iraq is as we all know very bad indeed. The media doesn’t show most of the events but it is commonly known to be atrocious, and I won’t say that the US is in control or has ‘won’ the war. Only that it is physically present and getting beaten up all the time. The general opinion in the Middle East (UAE included) is that the suffering of the Iraqis is not acceptable. USA pursued this war for its long run regional interests, with the only good part being that Saddam Hussein is gone and there is democracy now.

There are mixed opinions everywhere regarding the internal Iraqi conflict. Some call the Iraqi situation a civil war; some call it sectarian violence etc. We don’t know why the people fight amongst themselves and we want it to stop. We just can’t see an end to the violence in the near future. My guess is as good as yours in the case of what will happen if the US leaves Iraq. It could be that everything goes back to normal. It could be that the sects slide into a full scale civil war. My guess is that everything would either go back to normal or there would be a bit of fighting here and there, small incidents, not much.

Almost everyone thinks that the US is there for its regional interests and to be the self elected policeman of the world. Many of us say that it will have to learn its lesson the hard way like Israel, i.e war with Iran. This opinion is held by almost everyone (non-Muslims included) except for extremists, who are against Shias and Iran. We think that the US presence has no positive effect and is making matters worse. The US military’s behavior is quite as bad as the terrorists with cases like Abu Ghraib.

Firstly we don’t know the details about the foreign militants for sure. Those who kill each other (innocent civilians and fellow Iraqis) are considered as weird idiots — outliers as such. We can’t understand their reasoning behind the killings. Iran denies any involvement so like how the media accepts the USA’s ‘mistakes’ and ‘apologies’, we accept Iran’s as well, i.e. if it is involved at all. The US tries it best to lower down Iran and has gotten the support of many countries by intimidation.

Currently we Shias are not in a state of war against anyone. What Muqtada al Sadr does is wrong and is considered as an American agent paid by the CIA. None of our Grand Ayatollahs (a handful of them at any given time) have declared war so it is a tie for us to be patient. All of Grand Ayatollahs are united so if one gives a fatwa, the others know about it and they don’t go snapping, disgracefully at each other like some politicians. Ayatollah Sistani (whom I take as a source of emulation of Islamic laws) has called for peace and patience continuously so if a Shia goes and kills someone with the intention of defending his country or Jihad or whatsoever, he has committed a major sin.

I have spoken about terrorists earlier and the same applies over here. They think they are doing Jihad but the fact is that they are not. They have misinterpreted Islam. That is one reason why we Shias have the system of Taqlid. We basically follow an expert for Islamic laws and all these experts are united amongst themselves with negligible differences of opinion. This prevents intolerable acts like the ones from these Mujahedeen’s.

Many people suggest that the US is behind all the killings in Iraq. They slip in bombs into cars at checkpoints. They pay hard cold cash to Mosque clerics to make their followers fight people from other sects. They make many ‘mistakes’ which fuel the peoples’ anger.

We do not know enough about the situation in Iraq because of the media censoring reports. But we sure do want the USA to leave as soon as possible and peace to return.

Technorati Tags: islam, middle east, iraq, american invasion, united states military, occupation, iran, insurgency, muslims, shiites, sunnis, kurds, effects of us presence

This is the third installment of our weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident Shiite and United Arab Emirates citizen will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: Can you talk about sex and society in the United Arab Emirates and in Islamic culture in general? What is temporary marriage and how does it function in Islamic law and faith? Is there premarital sex and can you talk about the relationship between sex and religion for Muslims?

Answer: Temporary Marriage is a practice allowed for Muslims when they need to engage with someone from the opposite sex for multiple reasons but for a fixed amount of time and a less ‘connected’ relation.

Temp Marriage can be done for any amount of time. In the eyes of God you are lawful to each other. Once the period of the marriage expires, the couple are free to go and are ‘divorced’ automatically. But after that period the girl or woman has to wait for four monthly menstruation cycles before contracting another marriage. This prevents many problems. But in this time, if they want, the couple can marry each other again. There are a few other conditions and rules which need to be followed in Mutah and they prevent corruption.

Mutah (Temp Marriage) is not done only for sexual pleasure but for many other reasons. Technically speaking a boy or girl who have reached physical maturity can engage in Mutah. Physical maturity is defined with particular
rulings.

In many countries like Iran,I have heard, Mutah is quite common but I have personally not come across people engaging in Mutah. To engage in Mutah, the girl says a specific sentence in Arabic which basically means that she is engaging herself in Marriage for the agreed time and Dower. Then immediately the boy replies Accepted. These are the only formalities required and the couple are engaged together. For this declaration, no witnesses are required but there is no problem if there are. The dower is a small present to the wife from the husband.

Mutah is you could say a private thing and does not have anything to do with the UAE’s law. Otherwise it is done in the same way around the world.

Talking about sex is absolutely allowed in the UAE without any, as far as I know, law which prevents it. If someone has a problem with you then matters get serious otherwise if you talk with your friends in a responsible way then you are good to go.

In Islam also discussing sex is allowed provided you do not have a bad intention or you are not aroused leading to a major sin. Sex is discussed for educational purposes in fact our Infallible Imams have given us instructions on mating which are, according to science today, correct and recommended.

I personally have not come across people engaging in temporary marriage. It is allowed, practiced but people only use it as a last resort. They try to control themselves and given the right advice at the right time, people manage to pull off their teenage and young adult life without mating. There are many ways of controlling oneself and a person just needs to manage his lust properly. The reward for control over ones mind, temptations and emotions, not just in lust, is more than that of defending ourselves by war. War comes under Jihad Asghar (Lesser Struggle) and this control comes under Jihad Akbar (Greater Struggle).

Premarital sex is not allowed in Islam as it is a form of fornication and comes under a Major Sin. I don’t understand why someone would want to have premarital sex when one can engage in temporary marriage.

Of course, as said above, we can talk about the relation between sex and religion. Your perceptions towards Muslims seem to be one where Muslims are totally cut off from sex and that sex is a sin. Sex is in fact highly encouraged and given that you have the right intentions, it comes under worship of God. Sex gets rid of our sins very quickly.

This however has to be done under the Sharia rules which really help the society in the long run. They might seem harsh but this opinion should not remain when one studies their philosophy, reasoning and logic.

Previous Installments of Ask a Shiite: Shiites & Sunnis and Perceptions of the United States in the Middle East.

Technorati Tags: sex in the middle east, intercourse, dating, ask a shiite, temporary marriage, united arab emirates, sexuality, society, islamic culture, sexuality, premarital sex, god, allah, religious practice

This is the second installment of our weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident Shiite will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: What are the philosophical and moral differences of Sunni and Shiites? In your experience, how do the two groups regard and perceive each other? Is there really as much hostility between the two groups as we are led to believe in the American media?

Answer: The Shias and Sunnis are the two major sects in the religion of Islam. At the time of the Prophet’s (AS) death, there was a conflict upon who would succeed the Prophet. This conflict was not a typical one which comes to a person’s mind.

The Shias believe that Imam Ali (AS) was the rightful successor to the Prophet. Imam Ali was the Prophet’s son in law as he had only one daughter and the three others were adopted. Imam Ali was also the Prophet’s cousin. He was the first person to accept Islam when the it was revealed to the Prophet. He was only 10 years old when he accepted Islam.

The Sunnis believe that the first rightful successor was Abu Bakr, a friend of the Prophet. The first four of their caliphs (leaders) were called the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The second caliph was Umar ibn Khattab, third Usman ibn Affan and the last one Imam Ali.

What happened was that when the Prophet passed away, there was a meeting in a hut at a place called Sakifa. Only the Prophet’s so called companions were present. The fought amongst themselves and couldnt decide on a caliph. This meeting was a few hours after the Prophet’s death without the opinion of any of the other Muslims. Their intention is of course not known for sure but it is suggested from the behavior that the people were power hungry. Umar stood up and supported Abu Bakr and forced everyone else to do the same. This is all accepted as authentic by both Shias and Sunni.

The declared this to the all the Muslims. Everyone accepted except the partisans(Shias) of Ali. History shows that this small group of people were very loyal people. Imam Ali was a person who was very close to the Prophet, a person on whom the Prophet relied on and trusted. This is also accepted by both Shias and Sunnis. When the Abu Bakr and his followers found out about Imam Ali and his stance, they dragged him across the streets with a rope
around his neck, burnt his house causing a door to fall on the Prophet’s daughter leading to her miscarriage.

Imam Ali did not accept the new rule and his followers continued following him silently. He remained silent for the sake of Muslim unity. Silently he used to help the the first three caliphs from making critical mistakes. Umar himself has said that if Ali had not been there I would have perished. This is all accepted by both Shias and Sunnis. Imam Ali’s stance gives us a very high end example of patience.

The Shias believe that Imam Ali was the first of 12 Imams. An Imam in this sense means someone who is better than everyone else in everything. They are someone who are living examples of a perfect human being. Later on when Umar was dead the people came to Imam Ali and asked if he would accept the leadership but on four conditions. The first condition was that Imam Ali would give his rulings according to the Qur’an. Imam Ali accepted, then the next one was that his rulings would be according to the Prophet’s Sunnah. Sunnah is what the Prophet said, did and accepted. Basically it is what the Prophet approved of from his actions and sayings. The Sunnah is recorded from different narrators. Imam Ali accepted this as well. The third condition was that Imam Ali’s rulings comply with Abu Bakr and Umar’s rulings. Imam Ali asked them if the two went against the Quan and Sunnah and if they did then why should he accept the condition and if they did not then the two had wrong leadership. The people went silent on this and went and made Usman the third caliph.

After Usman the people were sick of the caliphs rule as it had messed up the society and they wanted Imam Ali to take up leadership. He accepted with a lot of reluctance and set about putting the society right. Basically Shias believe that the successor to the Prophet has to be divinely appointed whereas the Sunnis do not and they take Abu Bakr as the first caliph. One of the caliphs even said that he would go astray and the Muslim population should put hi right if he does so.

From this ’split’ many other differences arise amongst the Muslims. Some narrators were accepted in bringing forward the Prophet’s Sunnah. All the differences between Muslims comes form this main split. But even then the Muslims, at least the Shias, have to consider the others as their Muslims brothers and have to stay united. Creating differences between the two is not allowed for the Shias.

Quite a few other factors also led to the difference there is amongst us. But even then it is not such that we consider each other as from a totally different faith. The most important things are accepted unanimously in both the sects. For example our declaration of faith is the same in both: There is no deity(worthy of worship) except for Allah Muhammad is His Messenger

Most of our differences are quite ignorable. The Shi’ite perception towards the Sunnis is quite tolerant. We consider them as fellow Muslims, we treat them like any other person and leave our differences for Allah to judge. We generally ignore the differences.

The Sunni perception towards us quite mixed. Most of the average Sunnis accept us like we accept them. But some extremist groups or some people to whom our (Shia) message has not reached treat us as non-Muslims and even think that killing us will send them to heaven. Normally these people hate us and think that we should be oppressed and if we rise, we will overwhelm and oppress them back. But this perception of theirs is quite wrong. I am a Shia and I know my religious leaders well. We want all Muslims to be united and we would never oppress them. We have been oppressed since the death of the Prophet and that kind of oppression more or less continues till this day. at one point of time the oppression was such that the Shias were almost ‘extinct’. Muslims leaders have been more or less oppressive people in history. We Shias almost never had power. It is recently that Iran was made, Iraqi being liberated but on the other hand possibly occupied and our message is getting to other parts of the Muslims world.

The media in most cases over exaggerates the differences and sense of enmity. They do not, as I have said earlier, show how the Muslims are uniting. There are so many unity meetings where world leaders take part but none of that is shown. All that is shown is how the Muslims are fighting amongst themselves and hence an image is created that the Shias and Sunnis are at each others’ throats all the time. As said before terrorists create the problems in the world for Muslims because they rise form within Muslims and say that they are doing it for Islam, so everyone thinks that they represent Islam and the Muslims even though they do not.

To summarize it all, Shias believe in a divinely appointed leader because divine matters can not be meddled with by fallible people, Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr was the closest ‘friend’ of the Prophet and try to justify the reign of the caliphs, our differences were quite hostile earlier on but we are moving towards unity at a snails pace and the terrorists mess things up for Muslims and they do not represent Islam and finally the western media exaggerates our hostility and plays down our unity.

Technorati Tags: religious divide, islamic sects, shiites, sunnis, divisions in muslim faith, allah, prophet muhammed, explanation in differences, iraq, iran, middle east, muslim world, arabs, perceptions of each other

This is the first installment of what will be a weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident expert will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception from his own eyes. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: What is the overall effect of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict on Muslim perspectives of the United States role in the Middle East? And what is the general perception of America given the current political climate for Muslims?

Answer: The simple answer is that there is no difference on the US image in these circumstances except that the muslim sentiment and rage is building up and is giving us all the more reason to fight back. This question is kind of an easy one not too detailed. But I have still given a bit more of my opinion on this ‘topic’.

This Palestinians conflict has been going on for decades and as far as I know for sure, it will not end unless the Palestinians are given back Israel. Our opinion about the USA has been the same for quite some time. It creates wars between countries and has been backing up Israel since the beginning because of some conspiracy. Some of us who study this matter deeply, like me, believe that the USA and Europe are controlled by Freemasons and groups like that who want to bring about the New World Order. Thats why they are successful and some sort of religious reason is behind the occupation of Israel.

We believe that the Palestinian occupation is absolutely illegal and to tell the truth most of us cant understand how and why you actually support Israel. It seems to be like a no brainer to go against Israel, looking at how they were formed. A general sentiment has been created amongst the Muslims that they are being targeted by the west because Islam teaches us the most about standing up against oppression and because we do not want the American culture to be ‘imported’ into our community.

Now you might ask why do Muslims commit terrorism even though we say that we are the most peaceful religion? Well there are some Muslims who have different opinions and thats why we are not yet totally united as should be. Most of the terrorist attacks that take place areby a small sect called the Wahabbis. These people I can assure you have very messed up thoughts.

Their scholars are not exactly educated and are self proclaimed. They think they are doing the right thing but they are not because making a big decision like Jihad bis Saif (Struggle with the sword) requires a LOT of knowledge, experience and the matter needs to be thought out from many different perspectives with all the Islamic laws in consideration. This is not an easy job. There are only a few people in the world who have this ability. Some of them are Sistani and Khamenei. In fact I think these are the only ones who do have the ability.

So these terrorists are actually not even educated and their mental horizon is very narrow. They do not represent Islam and their ‘version’ of Jihad is flawed. For example, the 9/11 attacks were not jihad because killing travelers in jihad is not allowed, likewise todays civilian attacks are not allowed because women and children cannot be targeted and only those who openly come to challenge can be opposed back. Racism is not allowed in Islam so killing Americans because they are Americans is not allowed.

I read one of Usama bin Laden letter on a blog and it said that he targets American civilians because their tax money goes to killing Muslims. This is wrong because the Arab governments are the ones who actually invest in the USA, their oil money is stored in US banks etc. So why not target Arab countries?

Secondly during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (A.S) the enemy armies were surely built form tax money. So why did the Prophet also not target civilians? This shows that targeting Americans is wrong.

Now up until now the only Islamic government ever formed is the current Irani Government. It’s decisions are monitored by Ayatollah Khamenei. The only so called ‘terrorist’ group who opposes Israel rightfully is Hezbollah. One little proof: the Qur’an says that in jihad you attack them in the right manner and we will make you victorious. Its a promise. Now what is Hezbollah? A small group of highly motivated and trained militants who fought against one fo the worlds most powerful army and guess what? They won!

The Qur’an’s promise has been fulfilled. What are our Sunni brothers doing on the other hand? They have fought I think 5 wars and lost all of them. I dont really think thats jihad. Those wars were not thought out with Islamic guidance and so they lost.

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