SECTARIAN WAR OF WORDS
Inflamed by the Iraq war, the rise of Iran, and a tense stand-off in Lebanon, sectarian divisions in the Middle East are approaching levels not seen since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The situation was recently exacerbated when perhaps the most influential and popular figure in the Sunni Muslim world made some unusually inflammatory remarks about the Shi’ite sect. “Shi’ites are Muslims but they are heretics and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni Islam society... They are able to do that because their millions of dollars trained cadres proselytizing in Sunni countries... We should protect Sunni society from the Shi’ite invasion,” warned Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the international Union of Muslim Scholars, in a published statement in September.
Qaradawi’s statements sparked outrage in Shi’ite Iran, where the semi-official Mehr news agency offered the most pointed criticism of the Sunni leader to date. Mehr labeled the cleric a spokesman of the Freemasons and Jewish Rabbis – an incendiary claim against arguably the most powerful figure in the Muslim world today. Meeting to discuss the issue, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which is headed by Qaradawi and includes both Sunnis and Shi’ites, called for restraint but ultimately backed Qaradawi's stance: “His statements came from his legitimate responsibility to warn the Islamic nation about the efforts to revive sectarian conflict.” Meanwhile, Qaradawi’s deputy at the organization, a Shi’ite ayatollah, refused to attend the meeting, calling his boss’s statements “dangerous.” (Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2008; London al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 20, 2008)
TAJIKISTAN FED UP WITH SALAFIS
As Salafis ratchet up tensions against Shi’ites in the Middle East, they are under mounting pressure in Central Asia, where their expanding following has Tajik officials calling for an outright ban on the fundamentalist movement. Though Tajik leaders officially claim there are only several hundred Salafis in their country, Salafist leaders have been boasting of a following of some 20,000. This has led the Khalton Province prosecutor’s office to call for an official and outright ban on the movement, while Tajikistan’s Religious Council is asking Salafis in the country to “abandon their beliefs or to stay away from mosques.” (Radio Free Europe, October 17, 2008)
RARE CRICITISM FOR CLERICS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi Arabia has long battled accusations that the fundamentalist Wahhabi version of Islam preached at its mosques fuels radicalism. But now, in a rare admission, the Kingdom’s Interior Ministry has acknowledged that Saudi “imams have failed miserably in discharging their duties” in the fight against extremism. As he lampooned his country’s “more than 15,000 mosques,” Interior Minister Prince Naif urged Saudi Arabia’s universities to take on greater responsibility for educating Saudi youth and “study[ing] ways to root out ideas that distort religion and defame the nation.” (Riyadh Arab News, October 17, 2008)
[Editor’s note: Conventional wisdom about Saudi Arabia portrays a kingdom that is ruled by a wealthy, modernizing, western-looking royal family beholden to radical Wahhabi clerics to maintain their legitimacy in a deeply conservative country. Ruling family attacks on the religious establishment – even indirect ones – have thus been rare occurrences. King Abdullah, a relative modernizer by Saudi standards, has taken cautious and at times uneven steps to rein in the religious police and expand civil liberties, so the significance of the Interior Minister’s statement lies in whether or not his admission will signal a more aggressive campaign against the country's Wahhabi establishment.]
A GAME-CHANGING GAS FIND IN TURKMENISTAN
For years the West has been told that Turkmenistan was a goldmine of energy reserves; that its natural gas fields were some of the largest in the world and would provide viable alternatives to the Russian monopoly in Eurasia. It appears the Ashgabat wasn’t bluffing: the first survey ever allowed by a Western energy firm – Britain’s Gaffney, Cline, and Associates (GCA) – has uncovered in Turkmenistan what the firm estimates as “the fourth- or fifth-largest gas field in the world." The South Yolotan-Osman field, at anywhere between 4 and 14 trillion cubic meters, is five times larger than Turkmenistan’s former largest gas field. By comparison, Russia and Iran, the two largest producers of natural gas, hold reserves of 48 and 26 trillion cubic meters.
Perhaps greater than the impact on the energy markets is the geopolitical significance of Turkmenistan’s find. The Western-backed Nabucco and White Stream Caspian natural gas pipeline projects, whose viability had come under question of late, now look as if they can find more than adequate supply from Turkmenistan. The two pipelines have been touted in Brussels and Washington as alternatives to Russia’s gas monopoly, but substantial challenges – both political and technical – had delayed any concrete commitments. Those pressures appear to have been alleviated by GCA’s finding. Giorgi Vashakmadze, White Stream’s corporate development chief, sees in the new field a “dramatic reduction of perceived transportation risks, so important for governments in [the Caspian region] and potential upstream investors.” (Radio Free Europe, October 14 and 15, 2008)
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