Egmont Paper n°35:
Fearing a 'Shiite Octopus'. Sunni – Shi`a relations and the implications for Belgium and Europe

Author

Jelle Puelings - View the full report .

Executive summary

During the last five years, and more specifically since the US invasion of Irak,
different Sunni policy makers and religious actors have ventilated their concern
for what they see as the rise of Shiite Islam. Although the condemnation of Shiism
by more rigorous currents such as Wahhabism is hardly new, recently different
governments in the Middle East have taken concrete measures against Shiite
actors. The same ‘Cold War scenario’ the region witnessed immediately after the
Iranian Revolution seems to appear again, making Arab Sunni voices reverberate
up to Western policy makers, who start to worry themselves about the role
of Iran and its allies. In this paper we will try to give an evaluation of this alleged
shift in the Sunni-Shi`a power balance, and point out the possible consequences
for Belgium and the EU emanating from this controversy.

We have treated the subject from two different angles. First of all, we looked at
the level of regional politics and tried to formulate a context in which we have
to see the Sunni fear for the conception of a ‘Shiite Crescent’, a geopolitical
construction in which Shiites take over power in the Middle East, thus making
the region the backyard of Iran. We pointed out that it is a nationally focused
socio-political movement, aiming at emancipating the Shiites in their own
national context. The transnational system of religious guidance, the marja`iya,
is at the same time both a diversified, non-uniform source of religious and social
ideology, and a drive for Shiite political participation and adaptation. The Iranian
role in this construction is to be seen in the light of its hegemonic aspirations,
through the way of a pragmatic foreign policy. Its relations towards
regional allies is largely tactical, and not to be overestimated. The Islamic
Republic uses Shiite Islam more or less as a political instrument, surfing the
wave of the Shiite movement more than actually steering it. We conclude this
section with a first set of recommendations towards Belgium and the EU for
their policy in the Middle East.

The second part focuses on the actual Sunni-Shi`a relations, varying from a
Wahhabi hostility towards the religious identity of Shiism to a search for rapprochement
and coexistence. Within Sunni circles like the Muslim Brotherhood,
a certain form of distrust and a hardened speech is apparently on the rise, especially
regarding a perceived infiltration of Shiite Islam in what they call ‘Sunni’
countries. The same fear has recently been instrumentalized by Sunni regimes of
Egypt and Morocco, who undertook drastic measures to counter Iranian intrusion
in their national sphere. The motives behind this are mainly a matter of
regime survival and safeguarding their strategic position in the region. An
important element in this controversy is the tashayyu` and Shiite proselytism, an
instrument used in the Iranian search for hegemony.

To conclude the second part, we took a look at the European theatre, where we
can see a largely similar development as witnessed in the Middle East, with Iran
trying to gain influence amongst local Shiites. For the case of Belgium, the controversy
hanging over the Moroccan community is of specific interest, given the
concerns raised by Rabat on mass conversions towards Shiism taking place, thus
threatening to destabilize the Moroccan State.

Overall, the power balance Sunnism and Shiism is not so much a problem than
it is an expression of the existential fear of Sunni regimes. The red line within
this paper is thus the political use of Islamic confessional identities (Sunni and
Shi`a), in the framework of a regional political agenda. This will be, more than
a structural opposition between Sunnism and Shiism, a threat to confessional
coexistence, and can be a future cause for intra-Islamic strife.

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