/ 15 February 2007

Iraq war tests unity among US Muslims

Leaders of the United States Islamic community are fearful that sectarian slaughter tearing Shi'ite and Sunni communities apart in Iraq is testing unity among Muslim immigrants in the US. Imams, analysts and community leaders say the daily round of truck bombings, kidnappings and slaughter pitching former Sunni and Shi'ite neighbours into civil war in Baghdad has raised tension among Muslim immigrants nationwide.

Leaders of the United States Islamic community are fearful that sectarian slaughter tearing Shi’ite and Sunni communities apart in Iraq is testing unity among Muslim immigrants in the US.

Imams, analysts and community leaders say the daily round of truck bombings, kidnappings and slaughter pitching former Sunni and Shi’ite neighbours into civil war in Baghdad has raised tension among Muslim immigrants nationwide.

There are an estimated six to seven million Muslims in the US, of whom about 2,5-million are immigrants. The majority of them are Sunnis, who have lived peaceably alongside Shi’ite neighbours in cities from California to New York for decades.

However, sectarian tensions appeared to flare in Detroit in January when vandals attacked two Shi’ite mosques and several businesses, following the execution of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, at the hands of Shi’ite hangmen. No arrests were made.

Analysts say there are also signs of growing sectarianism among Muslim students on US campuses, where in recent months some Sunnis and Shi’ites have formed, or are considering forming, separate student associations.

Meanwhile, commentators say there have also been reports of heightened tensions between Shi’ite and Sunni inmates serving time in some US jails.

”It is a cause for concern as the problems and strains between Sunnis and Shi’ites in the Old World appear to be following them to the US,” said Mohamed Nimer, a researcher with the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

”If those tensions remain buried, they could explode in some communities.” he added.

Growing divide

Sunnis and Shi’ites share most tenets of Islamic faith, although they differ over lines of succession to the Prophet Muhammad and other legal and theological issues.

Relations between the two groups have traditionally been strong in the US, where for decades they worshiped and lived together in urban enclaves from Los Angeles to Detroit and New York.

”Many cities had just one mosque — if at all — that was used by Muslims from both groups,” said Liyakat Takim, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Denver.

Takim said differences began to emerge with increased immigration to the US from across the Muslim world in the 1980s, which was accompanied by rising sectarian tensions in the Middle East in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

”Now with what is happening in Iraq … and with globalisation … all those differences are being exported into America,” Takim said.

US Sunni and Shi’ite leaders stress that relations continue to be good between the two communities, who now worship at more than 1 200 mosques nationwide, although many are sufficiently concerned at the prospect of sectarian strife to have stepped up intrafaith meetings nationally.

”We want to help one another to improve communication and make sure that the politics and also ignorance won’t come to our communities and divide [them] in the name of Shi’ites and Sunnis,” said Mohammad Ali Elahi, a Shi’ite cleric who is taking part in an ongoing dialogue with local Sunnis in the Detroit area.

”We never had this problem in the US [and] we are concerned,” he added.

Pluralism tested

While US Muslim leaders are concerned at maintaining strong community ties, many feel that talk of a sectarian rift stateside is exaggerated or even alarmist.

Victor Ghalib Begg, of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, said the recent vandal attacks in Detroit may have been carried out by individual immigrants from Iraq, although they were unrepresentative of broader sentiment.

”They may bring some of their differences here, God knows. But is that reflective of the larger Muslim community?” Ghalib said in a recent telephone interview.

”Give the community a little bit more credit for its American, pluralistic values … there’s six million of us here … it’s not a community wide problem,” he added.

The view is widely echoed among US Muslims both in Detroit and beyond, who stress the continuing good ties between both groups.

However, some suggest that maintaining that relationship in the months and years ahead is also in some measure dependent on finding peace in Iraq, where hundreds of Shi’ite and Sunni residents are slaughtered each week in a gruelling round of sectarian violence.

”When we talk about peace and dialogue, everybody wins, when there is war and bloodshed, everybody loses … including the Shi’ite and Sunni communities in the US,” Elahi said. — Reuters