The Baha'i Studies Listserv On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Matt Haase <[email protected]> wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > > I think Sunni and Shi'a narratives both have merit, but fall short in > totality.
Are you making some distinction between the Shia view and the Bahai view? 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. I hope you realize that for Sunnis, Muawiyya and Yazid were wrong?! > 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. What you are saying doesn't ring true at all with me. If you are talking about the original events, Ali vs. Muawyyia, Yazid vs. Hussain, then Sunnis and Shias actually AGREE about who was right and who was wrong. It's not as if ANYBODY is saying killing Hussein was some wonderful thing. That's just crazy. And "forgive and forget" seems totally out of place. Of course, remember history. Don't forget. Nobody is saying otherwise. But the people who did the deeds and the people who suffered from them aren't around anymore so forgiveness is moot. Of course, that's all seperate from modern social conflicts between Sunnis and Shias but that's not really a theological problem. The theological differences are just a "convenient" marker of social difference like the fighting between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. 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!" Yeah, that analogy also seems totally inappropriate. Sunnis and Shias BOTH love Ahl al-Bayt .And there are many descendants of the Prophet (saaws) among the Sunnis (not just the Shias.) Famous saints like Abdul Qadir al-Jilani , the royal family of Jordan, modern Sufis like Maulana Sheikh Nazim of the Nashbandis and others. So it's like you are trying make an analogy to slavery when there are "black people" on both sides. > > __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-534883-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@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]
