Daily Times

Some Muslim countries, unfortunately, are still mired in a scramble for the supremacy of various sects, which reminds one of the religious wars amongst different Christian sects that blighted Europe for about five centuries. Over 52,000 Pakistanis, including about 5,000 from the security sectors, have been killed by terrorists, claiming to convert the country into a primitive medieval mode of culture and governance that conforms broadly to their brand of the Salafi sect. Their cognate cadres who have long ravaged Afghanistan and caused over 100,000 deaths, are also primarily propelled by their desire to establish the supremacy of the same sect. Their affiliates, sworn to swamp the Shia minority, have snuffed out over a thousand lives during the last two years. Similar militants fighting to create a Sunni state have scuttled the Arab Spring, a movement meant to achieve democratic dispensations by ousting authoritarian rulers. The Syrians are now stuck between the draconian dilemma of either enduring the Assad government or facing the ruthless Islamic State (IS) regime, which is detested by the majority of the people, including the Sunnis, Alawi Shias, Kurds, non-Muslims and those striving enthusiastically for their democratic dreams.

The IS insurgency has also plagued the peace and prospects of democracy in Iraq, where the war purported to dismantle weapons of mass destruction sank Saddam’s regime. According to some estimates, about 200,000 Iraqi and 4,500 American lives were lost, in addition to a whopping $ 6 trillion burden to the latter’s exchequer. Saddam’s regime embodied the rule of merely 24 percent of the Sunni minority over a three times larger Shia majority. IS is now out to re-impose the same dominance. The recent Saudi-led invasion to crush Yemen’s Houthi Shia rebels is yet another sectarian standoff to contain Iran’s support to Shia groups and organisations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, pro-Assad Syrian factions, anti- IS fighters in Iraq and the myriad marginalised Shia segments in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates. The sectarian schism and its intertwined proxy strings have similarly squelched Lebanon, almost ever since its independence in 1943. The Saudi thrust to thwart Iranian clout may be surmised by its $ 4.6 billion arms purchase last year and reports of a three-fold increase in ventures for off-the-shelf nuclear devices. Saudi Arabia and Iran, in a way, may be compared to the mammoth medieval rivals in the sectarian sprawl.

Many analysts would certainly scoff at any such straightforward parallel between this strife between the major Muslim sects and the medieval wars amongst various Christian denominations that prostrated Europe from 1524 to 1715. But most wars have several overlapping factors. The present cataclysm also has ethnic, regional and tribal roots, an ardour for expansion and the influence and strategy to stem the tide against absolute authoritarian systems. Others would perceive it as merely a reaction against the Western animus, interference, dominance and manipulation of Muslim resources. Yet the most potent and pronounced factor is a frenzied religious zeal to impose a certain faith, with the utter exclusion and denial of any dissent or deviation from it. The same motive undoubtedly stirred the European engagements.

The German Peasant Wars, which erupted in 1524 and swallowed more than a hundred thousand people within a year, for instance, were triggered by a declaration to establish an ideal Christian Commonwealth. The raid at Munster in Westphalia was an even more devout campaign to clamp a global Protestant theocracy. Its leader, John Leiden, became a King and a disciple reincarnate of David as the capital was rechristened as the New Jerusalem, meant to rule and reorient the entire world. An idealised system of common ownership and the sharing of assets, utilities and goods amongst the community of the followers was envisaged. Polygamy was prescribed in an overt bid to proliferate their progeny to promote wider conquests and the King himself acquired 16 wives. But this grandiose spectacle foundered in barely 16 months, after which the capital was captured and the King and his key commanders were consigned to torturous deaths. Almost equally staggering were the Schmalkaldic Wars, waged by the Netherland’s Lutheran princes against the Holy Roman Empire and the papal legions. The princes and priests there however, were consequently allowed to follow any denomination without forcing the Catholics to become Protestants. Still, the compact led to the Cologne Wars of 1582-1583, when prince Gerhard abandoned Catholicism and tried to foster “a freedom of faith” in his Duchy.

A far wider conflagration known as the Thirty Years’ Wars (1618-1648) enveloped the continent and spread to Sweden, Denmark, France, Hapsburg, Bohemia, Austria and the central, southern and western areas of modern Germany. These prolonged conflicts ruined trade, farming and other means of livelihood, spawning hunger, famine, disease and destitution. The Swedish onslaught alone swept some 2,000 German castles, 1,500 towns and 18,000 villages. About a third of the Germans and Czechs perished and in some other areas about two thirds of the population was decimated. The wars even spread across the English Channel, buffeting England, Ireland and Scotland (1639-1651). England, despite its diplomacy of creating its own state Church, suffered several catastrophic convulsions, including the Spanish Armada attack, the execution of King Charles and the Cromwell dictatorship. Mary Tudor, the avowedly Catholic Queen, burnt about 300 Protestant dissidents at the stake. The repression against the Irish Catholics split the country and the insurgency and tension still linger to some extent in Northern Ireland. The resistance against the Queen Reagent and the Bishop Wars similarly scathed Scotland.

Yet these wars ultimately forced a sobering realisation about the futility of the struggle, sacrifices and feuds to foist the supremacy of any particular faith, sect or denomination. Compacts like Westphalia and the understanding stemming from them gradually evolved to affirm the rights and freedoms of any prince, priest or commoner to pursue any faith or denomination. This realisation thus saved energies and resources from being squandered on straitjacketing a selected faith and siphoned them instead towards the spurt of innovation and development leading to the great and enviable Industrial Revolution. This regeneration and evolution in human thought pervaded and transformed Europe. The founding fathers of the United States, while drafting their Constitution, explicitly resolved to save their land from a religious bloodbath and the separation between church and state was irrevocably stipulated in the Constitution. This inevitable realisation about the horrors and futility of the faith wars has to be garnered in the Muslim leaders and potentates. The failure to fathom it would definitely entail decades of more wanton violence and destruction.

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist. He can be contacted at habibpbu@yahoo.com