Internecine Conflict Quotes
Most of the massacres in Iraq were the other way around: Sunni perpetrators and Shiite Victims, but there was plenty of retaliation. The ‘crusaders’ are the derogatory term for Christians who invaded the Middle East the way they did 1000 years ago. ‘Rafidites’ is a slang, insulting and derogatory term for Shiite Muslims. The Sunnis have been hating and battling the Shiites as long as they have the Christians. In that sense, there is always an element of religious civil war in countries that have both Shiite and Sunni Muslim populations. This internecine conflict has a parallel to that of the Protestants and the Catholics during the Reformation.
While it may be true that some major powers do not presently want unity between Muslims, the Sunni-Shiite conflict has been ongoing for centuries—long before many “major powers” even existed. It is the oldest, continual civil war in history. It is certainly true that major Islamic powers like Saudi Arabia oppose unity was Saudi Arabia is a Sunni majority country and regard the Shiites as not only blasphemous and evil, but see them as dangerous.
The Kandahar region of Afghanistan was occupied by the Persians under Gurgin Khan. The Persians at the time were Shiite Muslims while the Afghans were Sunnis. Gurgin Khan forced all the Sunnis to convert to become Shia under threat of death. Mirwais Hotak led a force of freedom fighters, and defeated the Persians, killing Gurgin Khan in the process. There were some Afghan people who by collaborating with the Persians had done very well for themselves. They were anxious about their liberator and some were thinking about sneaking away and joining up with the Persians. He then made this speech, remarkable for any time, and especially so at the early 18th century. Notice, that unlike most other peoples of the Middle East, the Afghan’s placed a high value on freedom, and were willing to fight for it. In that sense, Afghanistan was culturally and politically different from the rest of the Islamic world.
This appeal was to the Sunni Muslims to join in the war against the Shiite Muslims and the Americans. While there have been very few rapes by American forces in the Iraq war there have been some of Sunnis against Shiite women and vice versa. Sexual defiling is such an emotive concept for Iraqi Muslims, that the few cases there have been were propaganda fodder. Note the use of the term “Crusader” to designate Christians. They are still living in world of a thousand years ago.
