Global Issues: Identity Politics and Cultural Conflict - The Great Divide within Islam

“Don’t know your Sunnis from your Shias? You are not alone, but their conflict will shape the future of the world” writes Mehdi Hasan in an article entitled ‘The Great Divide’ in the New Statesman. For those studying Global Issues it should make fascinating reading given the rise of identity politics and also given Huntingdon’s ‘clash of civilizations’ debate which has been severely critiqued for assuming Islam to be a monolithic bloc.

Hasan writes:

“Vali Nasr, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School, argues that wars within Islam between Sunnis and Shias “will shape the future” of the Muslim world and, in particular, the Middle East. “Ultimately,” he predicts, “the character of the region will be decided in the crucible of Shia revival and the Sunni response to it.” Perhaps he overstates the point. But anyone who claims to care about the future of the Muslim world needs to understand this 1,400-year-old split at the heart of Islam.”

Here is the full article.

In fact the leader of this weeks New Statesman is ‘Everything you know about Islam is wrong’ and there are a number of articles pursuing this theme. But don’t spend too long reading the New Statesman at one time for as some say you will end up with the social graces of a salamander and start wearing baggy overcoats and walk around looking at your shoes.

One interesting article, ‘Radical departure’ is by Ed Husain, author of the “The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I left”. and is co-director of the Quilliam Foundation.

Ed Husain is a former Hizb ut-Tahrir member who has campaigned against the ideology of Islamism. But here, for the first time, he makes the case for a different kind of political Islam, one that is plural, secular and democratic. As an ‘extension activity’ ‘The Islamist’ is worth doing a book review on.