Michael Dhanoya – PGR Researcher
Earlier this year around the 27-28 July crowds of Muslim men and women took to the streets worldwide. Clad in black, they flagellated their chests, faces and backs with their hands, whips and swords. For some, such scenes may conjure up notions of Islamic fanaticism. However, rather than demonstrations of Islamist extremism, such processions involved Shia Muslims observing Ashura, a significant day in the Islamic calendar. Yet, this day triggered a spike in anti-Muslim hate. While similar spikes have occurred since the 9/11 terror attacks more than two decades ago, this one was different. While the 9/11 attacks elicited expressions of Islamophobia (loosely defined as hate perpetrated by non-Muslims against Muslims), the abuse manifested amid the Ashura commemorations were expressions of Shiaphobia, namely, religiously-motivated hate perpetrated by Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims. Here I explain what it is, why you’re unlikely to have heard of it, and what needs to be done to tackle it.
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What is Ashura?
The significance of commemorating Ashura can be traced back to the Sunni-Shia schism that took place around the time of the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE. The rift emerged over who would succeed the Prophet as leader of the Muslim community and the area of the Arabian Peninsula under Muslim control at that time. The Muslims who accepted the leadership of Abu Bakr became the Sunni Muslims, while those who recognised Ali ibn Abi Talib became the Shia Muslims.
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After Ali was assassinated in 661 CE, his son Husayn was killed in a subsequent power struggle in 680 CE. Ashura serves as the annual commemoration of Husayn’s death. Before this incident, Sunni and Shia Muslims differed solely on the issue of political leadership. Husayn’s death stimulated the Shia to develop into an Islamic sect with a distinct theology and set of religious practices.
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A Shiaphobic Backlash
First-hand engagement with Britain’s Shia Muslims has uncovered the nature of the Shiaphobia perpetrated amid the Ashura commemorations. Online, visibly identifiable Shia Muslims were targeted on social media. Much of the hate focused on the widely held view within orthodox Sunni Islam of Shia Muslims being non-believers. Accordingly, victims were frequently denounced as ‘Rafidah’ (rejecters) in reference to the Shia rejection of Abu Bakr’s tenure as leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad’s passing. Whilst theologically and historically accurate, it is used pejoratively in the contemporary setting: a colloquialism for the view that Shia Muslims are disbelievers.
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Shiaphobic language disseminated online also referenced distinct Shia religious practices associated with commemorating Ashura. Notably, reference was made to the Shia practice of making pilgrimage to Husayn’s shrine in Iraq to pray to Allah in Husayn’s name. Many Sunni Muslims deem this an act of polytheism and a sin worthy of excommunication. This sentiment manifested in comments that saw Shia Muslims referred to as ‘Grave Worshippers/Grave Lickers’, ‘Mushrikun’ (polytheists) and engaging in ‘Shirk’ (polytheism). Relatedly, fundamentalist Sunni Muslims deem practices not performed by the Prophet Muhammad as sinful innovations. As Muhammad never commemorated Ashura, Shia Muslims were referred to as ‘Ahl al-Bida’ (people of innovation) throughout cyberspace.
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Racial and national differences also informed expressions of Shiaphobia. This was most evident when victims made explicit reference to Iran (where Shia Islam is the state religion), such as posting images of Shia pilgrimage sites located across the country on their social media pages. Doing so resulted in many being called ‘Majus’ and/or ‘Fire Worshippers’. Referring to Zoroastrians, since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, such terms have been used in increasingly insulting ways to refer to Iran’s pre-Islamic history and to implicitly question the sincerity of Iranian citizens in their adherence to Islam. The catalyst for this was Saddam Hussein who, as the then President of Iraq, used the term ‘Majus’ in an official capacity to denigrate Iranians. Today, ‘Majus’ is a racial insult akin to the ‘N’ or ‘P’ words in Western parlance. Shia Muslims were also demonised and dehumanised, often referred to as ‘Devils’, and ‘Pigs’.
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Offline, some victims reported being followed home from their local Shia mosque in the days preceding Ashura. Such incidents frequently resulted in victims suffering physical abuse in the form of being pushed, slapped, kicked, punched and spat on. Other victims stated that having been followed home, they had eggs thrown at the property and their windows smashed. Finally, the days preceding Ashura and the day itself also saw Shia mosques and community centres have their windows smashed.
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Responding to Shiaphobia
Such abuse gives rise to numerous concerns. The first relates to the invisibility of Shiaphobia in political and public discourse. This may be due to the vast majority of Britain’s Muslims adhering to Sunni Islam. Accordingly, Sunni Muslims are afforded hegemonic power over the Islamic space in Britain and can dictate the narrative presented to Britain’s non-Muslim population regarding who British Muslims are and what socio-political issues are important to them. Consequently, the issue of Shiaphobia can be framed by the public faces of British Islam (i.e. Sunni Muslims) as manifestations of sectarianism, which both Sunni and Shia Muslims engage in equally. Providing Shia Muslims with a platform via which they can represent themselves and highlight the issues pertinent to them may garner more attention on the perpetration of Shiaphobia in Britain.
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The second relates to the reporting and recording of hate crimes. The Crime Prosecution Service defines a religious hate crime as any ‘…incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s religion or perceived religion’. Moreover, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines a religious group as ‘…a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief’, with this definition covering adherence to a sect of a particular religion. Yet, such legislation does not prevent incidents of Shiaphobia reported to the police from being recorded as instances of Islamophobia, thereby rendering Islamic sectarianism invisible in official hate crime statistics. This begs the question as to whether the police recording system needs to evolve and differentiate between sectarian hate crime and generic religious hate crime.
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Finally, attention must be paid to the events that trigger Shiaphobia. This article highlights the fact that Ashura, a commemoration observed by Shia communities across the globe, triggered a spike in Shiaphobia against Britain’s Shia Muslims. Such findings are indicative of a global Shiaphobic nexus, which sees Islamic sectarian incidents of international significance trigger the perpetration of Shiaphobia at the national level. Only by identifying such trigger events will British political and public discourse both address the issue of Shiaphobia and work towards enacting feasible approaches to policing the phenomenon in the physical and virtual realms. Without taking such steps, Shiaphobia is likely to remain invisible.
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