Shia Islam | Jotup

Death of Marine commander scarred by 1983 Beirut bombing serves as reminder of risks US troops stationed in Middle East still face

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

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Gen. Alfred M. Gray Jr., who died on March 20, 2024, at the age of 95, was seen as a legend for his heroism in combat.

Key Points:

Gen. Alfred M. Gray Jr., who died on March 20, 2024, at the age of 95, was seen as a legend for his heroism in combat.
But despite his military success, Gray, who went on to serve as the 29th commandant of the Marine Corps from 1987 to 1991, will always be associated with one of the darkest days in U.S. military history: the Beirut barracks bombing on Oct. 23, 1983.
The terrorist attack killed more than 300 people, including 241 U.S. service personnel under Gray’s command, although he was stateside at the time of the attack.
As a scholar currently doing research for a project on that attack, I can’t help but note that Gray’s death comes amid a surge of violence in Lebanon and at a time when U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East are again being targeted by Islamist groups funded by Iran.

Marines in Lebanon

Gray’s experience with U.S. involvement in Lebanon underscores the dangers American troops face when deployed to volatile areas. On June 4, 1981, he was assigned to command the 2nd Marine Division and all the battalions that went into a war-torn Lebanon from 1982 to 1984.

It began on April 13, 1975, and, similar to the upsurge in violence in Lebanon now, it was fueled by events south of the country’s border.
Palestinians expelled or fleeing from what became Israel in 1948 ended up as refugees in neighboring countries, including Lebanon.
By the mid-1970s, over 20,000 PLO fighters were in Lebanon and launching attacks on Israel.
In 1982, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee, invaded Lebanon and occupied Beirut with the intention of destroying PLO forces.

Day of attack

Minutes later, a similar attack took place in the French quarter, resulting in the deaths of 58 French paratroopers.
To this day, this event remains the deadliest single-day attack for the United States Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.
The Beirut barracks bombing was a personal affair for Gray; his troops were in Lebanon, and he had visited them just months before the attack.

After the bombing, Gray attended over 100 funerals of the service members killed. He also offered his resignation over the incident – the only senior officer to do so. His request was declined.

Lessons from 1983

One could draw many parallels between the Beirut barracks bombing of 1983 and current events.
In August 1982, President Ronald Reagan expressed his grave concern over Israel’s conduct in Lebanon and warned Israel about using American weaponry offensively.
Forty years on, American troops in the Middle East remain a target for much the same reason.
There is another parallel: Just as the group that claimed responsibility for the 1983 Beirut attack was being financed by Iran, so too today are the groups responsible for attacking U.S. bases across the Middle East.
Spurred by failings involved in the 1983 bombing, Gray sought to reform the Marine Corps after the tragedy, with greater focus on intelligence-gathering and understanding enemy groups.

Mireille Rebeiz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Eurasia Group publishes "Top Risks" predictions for 2024: "A year of grave concern"

Retrieved on:

Monday, January 8, 2024

NEW YORK, Jan. 8, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Eurasia Group, the world's leading geopolitical risk advisory firm, launched today its much anticipated Top Risks 2024 report, offering a stark assessment of the year as a geopolitical minefield characterized by three dominant conflicts: Russia vs. Ukraine, Israel vs. Hamas, and the United States vs. itself.

Key Points:

These are some of the key takeaways from Eurasia Group's Top Risks 2024 , the latest edition of the firm's flagship thought leadership report.
The report is co-written by Eurasia Group president and founder Ian Bremmer and chairman Cliff Kupchan.
The report explores in detail the domestic and global consequences of a victory by Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
GZERO Media, part of the Eurasia Group umbrella, will host a Top Risks livestream with Ian Bremmer, Cliff Kupchan and a panel of leading experts.

Hamas and Hezbollah: how they are different and why they might cooperate against Israel

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The most critical additional threat to Israel is from Hezbollah, the militant group and political party based across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon.

Key Points:

The most critical additional threat to Israel is from Hezbollah, the militant group and political party based across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon.
Hamas and Hezbollah are both backed by Iran and see weakening Israel as their primary raison d’etre.
Hezbollah has not yet fully entered the current conflict, but the group has exchanged fire with Israel, across the northern border with Lebanon.

What is Hezbollah?

Its ideology is focused on expelling western powers from the Middle East and on rejecting Israel’s right to exist.
Hezbollah’s military force continued to develop after the Lebanese civil war came to an end in 1990, despite most other factions disarming.
In 2021, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters (though other estimates range between 25,000 and 50,000).
Other Lebanese parties accuse Hezbollah of paralysing and undermining the state and of contributing to Lebanon’s persistent instability.

What is Hamas?

The group was founded in 1987, in Gaza, as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a prominent Sunni group based in Egypt.
Emerging during what’s known as the first intifada or uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, Hamas quickly adopted the principle of armed resistance and called for the annihilation of Israel.
Opposed to the peace process, Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, established itself as the primary force of armed resistance against Israel.

How are Hamas and Hezbollah different?

What’s more, as a Sunni organisation, Hamas does not share the Shia religious link to Iran that characterises Hezbollah and most of Iran’s proxies.
As a result, while Hamas no doubt benefits from Iran’s patronage, it tends to operate more independently than Hezbollah.
In contrast, Hamas has received support in the past from Turkey and Qatar, among others, and operates with relative autonomy.

How popular music videos drove the fight against the Islamic State

Retrieved on:

Monday, September 25, 2023

Sunni Islam, Violence, YouTube, Music, Failure, Culture, Grande, Research, History, Muslims, Caliphate, Prophet, IS, Turkmen, Man, Battle, Happiness, Confusion, Muhammad, Social media, Entertainment, Book, Nightclub, Arms industry, Shia Islam, Islam

In response, tens of thousands of Shia men joined a complex patchwork of militias to fight against IS.

Key Points:

In response, tens of thousands of Shia men joined a complex patchwork of militias to fight against IS.
In our research, we have taken a novel approach, examining the many popular music videos produced by these militias.
These music videos drew on a complex cocktail of historical myths and contemporary clergymen to mobilise Iraq’s Shia population to fight the IS.

Foundational myths, historical grievances

One video shows images of militiamen driving towards the front-lines and firing from a bunker at IS targets.
The singer extols the religious virtues of fighting the IS by comparing those killed today with the Shia martyrs at the Battle of Karbala:
We fight our enemies.
Our martyrs are similar to the martyrs of Karbala.
The legend of the Battle of Karbala has come to symbolise the historical injustice of the Shia faithful at the hands of the Sunni majority.

The Shia jihad against the IS

The popular music videos produced by different Shia militias also draw on fatwas (religious edicts) issued by several prominent Shia clerics in response to the violence of the IS.
In 2014, Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa announcing a jihad (holy war) against the IS.
He called for a mass Shia mobilisation, arguing
It is the legal and national responsibility of whoever can hold a weapon to take up arms to defend the country, the citizens and the holy sites.
As the singer recites each verse, the footage shows heavily armed Shia men posing in front of a tank.

Mobilising young men

These videos serve as a unique archive of the war against the IS, demonstrating the ways in which these militias found novel ways to mobilise young men to fight by drawing on a rich catalogue of Shia religious symbolism as well as the fatwas of clerics like Sistani.
These evocative and poignant songs played an underappreciated and under-examined part in mobilising young men to fight back against the horrors of the IS, indicating the powerful role popular culture plays in contemporary warfare.

Women can now undertake Islamic pilgrimages without a male guardian in Saudi Arabia, but that doesn't mean they're traveling alone -- communities are an important part of the religious experience

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

The new rules don’t apply just during the Hajj.

Key Points:

The new rules don’t apply just during the Hajj.
Women can also perform the Umrah, known as the “lesser pilgrimage,” or other routine pilgrimages such as ziyarat that can be undertaken any time of the year to Islamic holy sites, without a “mahram,” or male guardian.

Saudi Arabia and the West

Nevertheless, in some patriarchal societies where sexual harassment is common, restrictions are put on women irrespective of religious affiliation.
However, Saudi Arabia is an exception.
Colonization created a dichotomy within the world where Islam was often seen to be the opposite of the values of the West.

Insider perspectives

To some it may appear to violate the norms of Western egalitarianism, but it’s an ancient practice meant to encourage a spiritual intimacy and fellowship.
These barriers, erected for women in Saudi Arabia in the 20th century, are being removed in accordance with the older prophetic tradition of women’s independence.
For example, the first wife of the Prophet, Khatija, was an independent businesswoman who initially hired the Prophet as an employee for her trading caravans.

Community and camaraderie

The ultimate truth in Islam is the unity of God, and a Muslim pilgrimage is a manifestation of that unity through integration and service to the community.
Additionally, Islam is a religion of right action in which individuals find realization by integrating into the community.
The communal model of pilgrimage helps them go through a physically demanding schedule of ritual observance and creates camaraderie, that continues beyond the pilgrimage.

The Nation of Islam: A brief history

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

May 2023 marks 98 years since the birth of civil rights leader Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little.

Key Points:

May 2023 marks 98 years since the birth of civil rights leader Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little.
Malcolm X was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, or NOI, and helped to lead the organization until he left in 1964 – the year before his assassination.
Thanks largely to Malcolm X, the NOI is now a household name, but its teachings remain controversial, particularly among Muslims.

A radical alternative to Christianity?

Fard, a peddler by day and preacher by night, established the NOI in 1931 in Detroit, Michigan.
He taught that God was a Black man who taught the first human beings Islam.
Fard also taught that Christianity was “the white man’s” religion and a corrupted form of Islam used to promote white supremacy.

Malcolm X and the NOI

Malcolm X joined the NOI while incarcerated in 1952.
Malcolm X was suspended from the NOI in 1963 for his comments about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, during an OAAU event in New York.

A new era

In 1977, however, a protégé of Elijah Muhammad’s and Malcolm X’s named Louis Farrakhan “restored” Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam.
Fard, the NOI’s founder, and his successor Elijah Muhammad did not seem to know much about Sunni or Shiite Islam’s teachings.
As the group grew after World War II, Muhammad and other leaders became more familiar with mainstream Islamic tenets.

Not universally considered Muslim

The NOI’s unique theology is one of the reasons the group is not accepted into the Ummah.
Other forms of Islam maintain that God is eternal, nonhuman and singularly divine.
NOI Muslims did not practice Ramadan until 1988, when Farrakhan instructed members to fast “with the entire Islamic world.”

Changing attitudes?

For example, in 2000, NOI members prayed with Houston Muslims during Ramadan, allowing the NOI to connect with other American Muslims.
The lack of sustained pan-Muslim events might suggest that, even when religious practice aligns, there remain obstacles to the building of relationships between mainstream and NOI Muslims.

Can China broker peace in Yemen – and further Beijing's Middle East strategy in the process?

Retrieved on:

Friday, May 5, 2023

After nearly a decade of grinding conflict, Yemen looks to be inching toward a peace deal.

Key Points:

After nearly a decade of grinding conflict, Yemen looks to be inching toward a peace deal.
The recent breakthrough in Yemen has been undergirded by a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, facilitated by Beijing in March 2023.
It has the potential to reduce rivalries and strengthen stability in Yemen, along with other countries prone to sectarian violence, including Lebanon and Iraq.
But it has also led to speculation over China’s emergence as a major regional player in the Middle East.

Fragmentation and regional dynamics

But given the role that the rivalry between the regional powers has had in fueling the fighting, international observers have expressed optimism.
The disintegration of Yemen began with the collapse of its central government in 2011 after the Arab Spring uprising.
Hadi’s government struggled to establish itself in Aden and eventually relocated to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he resigned in 2022.

China’s path through Saudi Arabia

According to the World Bank, in 2013 China was Yemen’s second-largest trading partner after Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, China has maintained formal diplomatic and economic ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates – each of which back militias involved in Yemen’s war.
In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has visited both the UAE and Saudi Arabia to underscore Beijing’s growing role as a partner in the region.

What’s to gain from peace?

The UAE can influence Yemeni factions it has provided military and financial support to, including the “Security Belt” forces affiliated with the transitional government.
However, the Emiratis’ goals may differ from those seeking a unified, independent Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, of the three, stands to gain the most from peace in Yemen.
The talks were the first direct negotiations between the two sides on Yemeni soil since the war began in 2015.

The thinking in Beijing

Rebuilding a war-shattered Yemen and establishing a stable government may take time – and the investment required to do so might outweigh short-term economic gains.
Moreover, China already has a military base in Djibouti, giving it access to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait even without peace in Yemen.
Priorities in Washington have shifted to strategic concerns in East Asia and Ukraine, leading to a diplomatic opportunity for China – one Beijing is seemingly keen to exploit.
For China, it provides opportunities for another diplomatic success from which it could emerge as a reliable partner in a changing geopolitical landscape.

The invasion of Iraq defined US' foreign relations – but in popular Iraqi literature, the war is just a piece of the country's complex history

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Some Americans have largely forgotten about the invasion, despite the fact the Sept. 11 attacks that precipitated it still loom large in U.S. national memory.

Key Points:

Some Americans have largely forgotten about the invasion, despite the fact the Sept. 11 attacks that precipitated it still loom large in U.S. national memory.
Even during the heart of the war in 2006, most young Americans could not find Iraq on a map.
For the past two decades, Iraqi literature in particular has undertaken a deep excavation of its recent past, going far beyond the confines of the U.S. invasion.
In other words, while many in the U.S. have focused on Iraq through the lens of the 2003 invasion, these events are not the heart of contemporary Iraqi literature.

Literary timelines of Iraqi history

The short stories of Hassan Blasim and Diaa Jubaili, two modern Iraqi storytellers who have both found critical acclaim in Western media, offer a way to understand some of the literary narratives of recent Iraqi history.
Their stories present the U.S. invasion and its consequences as part of a longer history of foreign occupations and internal political violence in Iraq.
This history of violence, their fiction suggests, has roots in the mid-20th century.
Somewhat improbably, many of their stories creatively retell a broad swath of Iraqi history in just a few short pages – an undertaking that might make a historian or political scientist break out in hives.

Simple ideas

One day, he catches a “giant frogman” who has been living in the river since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
By virtue of its geographic position, Basra was at the epicenter of the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s.
But Iraq also experienced political revolutions in 1991, during which armed Kurdish and Shiite minorities attempted to depose Saddam.

A closer read

Where Jubaili’s stories are often absurd and vaguely humorous, Blasim’s prize-winning short stories are hard to read.
In the 2014 short story “The Hole,” a man fleeing masked gunmen in Baghdad trips and falls into a deep pit.
Also sharing the hole is the corpse of a Russian soldier from the Soviet-Finnish war, waged from 1939 to 1940.
After a few pages, a woman covered in electronics fleeing a dystopic, futuristic robot falls into the hole, as well.

Arab Americans are a much more diverse group than many of their neighbors mistakenly assume

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

In 2022, Joe Biden made history as the first U.S. president to recognize the month, which he did again in 2023.

Key Points:

In 2022, Joe Biden made history as the first U.S. president to recognize the month, which he did again in 2023.
States such as Illinois and Virginia have passed legislation to make the celebration an annual event, and dozens more have commemorated it.
From TV stations to entertainment media, people of Arab descent are often stereotyped as violent, oppressed or exotic.

Arab Christians

For many in the United States, this overlap seems natural, given how often Islam is conflated with Arab identity.
But just as most Muslims around the world are not Arab, not all Arabs are Muslim.
During the first significant wave of Arab immigration to the U.S. in the late 19th century and early 20th century, families more often than not were Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian Christians.
While the Arab community in the greater Detroit area, a short drive from where I live and work, is majority Muslim, that sets it apart from many other Arab communities in the U.S. Arab American Christians are themselves diverse, identifying as Protestants and Catholics, and with a variety of Eastern Christian traditions, such as Antiochian and Coptic Orthodoxy.

From Mizrahi Jews to Shiite Muslims

Arab Jews, often called Mizrahi Jews, have existed since ancient times and helped shape Arab heritage through their philosophical, poetic and political contributions across centuries.
To be sure, Israel’s establishment and its occupation of Palestinian territories has complicated Arab Jewish identities, with new forms of antisemitism becoming more common within many Arab communities.
Over half identify as Sunni, 16% as Shiite and the rest with neither group, according to a 2017 Pew poll.
Finally, many Arab Americans identify with no religion at all, or with other faiths beyond the Abrahamic traditions.

Many nations, one box

Arab heritage not only includes a variety of religious traditions, but encompasses a wide range of ethnic and racial identities.
It is difficult to make generalizations about Arabs, whose skin tone, facial features, eye colors and hair textures embody the rich histories of human migrations and settlements that characterize western Asia and northern Africa.
And Arab identities in the U.S. are becoming only more complex, given the diversity of national backgrounds reflected in the more recent waves of Arab immigration from the 1960s to today.

Complicated identities

The term Afro Arab is growing as a term of self-description for Black Arab Americans seeking to make space for their multifaceted identities and heritage.
Black communities are a part of every Arab country, from Iraq to Morocco.
These dual identities are still fraught, given the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism within some Arab communities, which often stems from the legacies of the trans-Saharan and Ottoman slave trades.
Still, Tunisia’s president recently provoked outrage after he gave a racist speech targeting African migrants and Black Tunisians.

500-year journey

Based on true accounts, Lalami narrates how he was enslaved and brought to current-day Florida by 16th-century Spanish colonizers.
If heritage months are an opportunity to celebrate the diversity of America, the diversity of the Arab community itself should not be overlooked.

Muslim World League Convenes Sunni and Shiite leaders from Iraq in Makkah to Bridge the Divide

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Beyond these senior leaders, the depth of support from both sides demonstrated the unwavering commitment to fostering real change in local communities throughout Iraq.

Key Points:

Beyond these senior leaders, the depth of support from both sides demonstrated the unwavering commitment to fostering real change in local communities throughout Iraq.
The Muslim leaders and scholars gathered in the Holy City of Makkah demonstrated their commitment to promoting these values."
The leaders agreed to establish a new coordination committee which will serve as a direct platform for resolving disagreements within Iraq where Islamic leaders can foster unity and address any disputes before they escalate.
The senior religious leaders will continue to focus on teaching the Prophet's true message and aim to ease sectarian tensions in Iraq across their diverse followings.