Sunni-Shiite scholars gather in Rome to fight extremism in Iraq
The deep-seated and increasing sectarian division in Iraq has placed Iraqi sects in separate confessional and national cantons, depriving them of their long-standing historical ties. This has had deep repercussions on clerics who represent the identity of their sects.
This division has widened the rift between Sunnis and Shiites and led to a lack of trust. When clerics stop communicating, they often become tools to spread division and hatred instead of investing their influential spiritual energy to strengthen bonds between people of one country who have different religious affiliations.
Efforts have been deployed in this context in the past. There have been attempts to hold an open meeting between prominent Shiite and Sunni clerics to create ongoing and effective communication between them. The Iraqi government held interreligious dialogue conferences in the past. One of these conferences was held on Feb. 1, 2015 in Baghdad.
However, none resulted in major accomplishments. As soon as the conference would end, each party would return to its former stances. The reason is that the conferences were formal and did not go deeper than media propaganda.
Therefore, Al-Khoei Institute cooperated with Iraqi Scholars Association to hold an open meeting between highly-esteemed Shiite and Sunni leaders in Iraq.
I attended the meeting that was held in Rome from March 20 to March 22. Sheikh Abdul Razzaq al-Saidi, Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Hamim, Sheikh Khaled al-Mulla, among others, represented Iraq’s Sunnis from various regions such as Anbar, Mosul, Samarra and others. Several prominent professors from Hawzat al-Najaf al-Ashraf represented Shiites and included Ahmed al-Husseini al-Ashkouri, Sayed Mohammad Ali Bahr al-Ulum, Sayed Mohammad Ali Helou, Sayed Jaafar al-Hakim and Sheikh Walid Farajallah.
The meeting aimed at the “promotion of common grounds and identity revival” in order to agree on certain points to face the challenges threatening Shiites and Sunnis alike. Religious extremism that has been spreading in Iraq and the region since years has widened the circle of violence to include all Sunnis and Shiites, in addition to religious minorities that are facing complete annihilation in the country.
Political division and deterioration of the security situation have prevented scholars from both sects from seeing eye to eye and cooperating to deter religious extremism. Moreover, relations between Sunnis and Shiites are quite tense, and clerics face strong opposition when they hold open and unreserved meetings with their counterparts. Under such circumstances, a conservative Shiite cleric accuses another Shiite cleric holding meetings with Sunni clerics of becoming a Sunni, and the opposite is true.
Due to such tensions and reservations, the inter-religious meeting could not be held in any Muslim or Arab country as neither of the parties agreed on one country to meet in.
In light of this, we can understand how important the Rome meeting is for the situation of the religious leaders of both parties who discussed their disagreements [during the meeting]. The meeting was marked by transparency and direct dialogue regarding the points of disagreement. Shiites tackled Sunni silence to the Islamic State (IS) crimes, while Sunnis discussed the violations committed by Shiite militias in their war on IS. The latest recommendations of Ali al-Sistani in Feb. 12 this year for the Iraqi popular mobilization forces had a significant huge impact on all parties, thus showing the importance of such humane and fair stances in bringing opinions closer.
I attended the meetings and helped draw points of view closer to reach common humanitarian grounds for communication between the country’s different religious entities. The attendees underlined the need to make citizenship the common identity of all Iraqis based on justice and equality in rights and duties. Everybody agreed that the real conflict in Iraq is not sectarian, but political. Religion and confession might be exploited by some manipulators to provoke the feelings of people and flare up tensions in the streets for political, partisan and personal ends.
Politicizing religion is the worst occurrence that has affected society, and it must be countered and completely rejected by clerics. Secretary General of Al-Khoei Institute in Iraq Jawad al-Khoei said in his opening speech during the meeting, “The religious leaders of the diverse Iraqi sects have wide political and spiritual influence on their followers. They can use this influence to solve conflicts and restore human and religious ties among the people of one country instead of letting extremists exploit religion for their destructive agendas.”
A closing statement was issued, reiterating the importance of supporting the civil state project and the democratic path in Iraq. The government’s sole handling of power was reasserted and the need for all parties to respect Iraqi sovereignty was restated.
The present scholars called on Iraqi people to unite and cooperate to face the division, sectarianism and extremism threats. They asked people to reject all sorts of religious exploitation invested in serving extremist agendas and projects. They reiterated their respect for Iraqi people’s blood and condemned the extremists’ abuse of humanity, which is itself sacred in all religions.
The attendees agreed on the importance to continue the meetings and intensify efforts to face the ongoing crises and challenges, and widen the scope of joint collective work in order to prevent exploitation of religious rhetoric to widen the rift amid circumstances threatening Sunnis and Shiites alike.
Despite the importance of these meetings in bringing points of view closer and removing distrust, they cannot be effective in the absence of an institutional framework that guarantees their continuity and influence in the streets. The Sunni street is particularly at risk, given the division in leadership between the political, religious, tribal and jihadi movement leaders.
