The Baha'i Studies Listserv I think Sunni and Shi'a narratives both have merit, but fall short in totality. For example, Shi'as are great at keeping a memory alive and of inspiring people with sacred history. But from a historical perspective, the world just doesn't work in "good guys/bad guys" with clearly defined lines of good and evil. The world is more complicated than that. I side with 'Ali, Hasan and Husayn over Mu'awiyya and Yazid any day. But it has been over a thousand years, and this ancient conflict is still producing more conflict. There has to come a time where people need to just let go and embrace the present, and work toward the future. I mean, what is it going to look like 4,000 years from now and seeing people still getting mad at people who died 5,000 years ago? No one born within 900 years of that time period, were involved in that conflict, so why keep stoking the fire? That's my criticism of the overly hyper Shi'a narrative.
My criticism of the Sunni narrative is that does seem to whitewash the evil that men did, and to simply ask those who were brutally damaged to just "forgive and forget." It's easy to say that when one is on top, which Sunnis have historically been. It reminds me of some White people who don't understand why some minorities want to strongly identify with their heritage. "I'm white, but you don't see me walking around with a Norwegian flag on my t-shirt, and celebrating Norwegian festivals in America. This is America, what is wrong with identifying with that?" When one is in the majority, there is really no need to call for "solidarity" or "preservation." Seeing as the Sunnis have been the majority of Muslims throughout history, it is understandable that they would prefer to "move forward" and "let the past stay in the past"....because it's their ancestors who did the real bad things. The same situation occurs in America over slavery. "Why do black people keep insisting on reliving slavery. It's over! Move on!" On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Susan Maneck <[email protected]> wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > I see I made a number of mistakes here: > > > Yes, I would agree with that. I had in mind specifically the movement > > coming from Ibn Abdu'l-Wahhab. which has its genesis in Egypt > > Obviously Ibn Abdu'l-Wahhab is from Arabia not Egypt. I was thinking > ahead to the Salafi movement. > > If John Esposito's analysis is correct all these movements > > share a common genesis. > > It was John Voll, not John Esposito who did the isnad study linking > all these revivalist movements together. Included among these > revivalists would be Shaykh Ahmad Sirinidi and the Naqshabandi Sufis. > > __________________________________________________ > You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] > Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto: > leave-534742-953325.e9a9b042dd227e4657deb0ff0d384...@list.jccc.edu > Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to > [email protected] > Or subscribe: > http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st > Baha'i Studies is available through the following: > Mail - mailto:[email protected] > Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st > News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st > Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-534811-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
