Shiism in North Africa
Shiism in North Africa
Iran's regional rise after the 1979 revolution was closely linked to Iran. Iran's presence everywhere was linked to a systematic work to spread Shi'ism, and because of the historical presence of Shiite communities in the Arabian Gulf, Lebanon, Turkey and other countries in Asia, I tried to simulate the Iranian revolutionary experience and to reproduce the model of the Islamic Republic in its home countries.
In the case of Africa, the political support of Iran in its Islamic countries was accompanied by a Shiite missionary activity that differed in terms of its approaches and mechanisms from one country to another. .
Many studies have examined the prevalence of Shiism in each country or in regions such as North Africa, West, East and South Africa. However, what is lacking in this aspect is the comparative studies between different societies. Despite the common denominators of the African continent, The most prominent of these are the Islamic conquests, the European colonial wave, and even similar societal characteristics. However, there are many differences between them, notably the difference between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, separated by the Sahara, Which constitute a human barrier between Arabs, Berbers and black African races in the south. The Great African Sahara stood as a natural obstacle to communication between North and South Africa, until Arab Muslims were able to identify crossings across the Sahara and build supply and rest stations along those roads. [1]
As for Shiism, this region has not experienced a Shiite missionary activity similar to that in the north or south. This exception is a starting point that reflects other differences in North Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa, where the desert belt separates the two regions , And at the same time reflects the characteristics of natural and social distinct and therefore political, and the special characteristics of these geographical areas, the study raises the following problem:
How did Shiism in some countries and regions rise to the level of phenomenon, and remained confined numerically and geographically in other regions?
We will try to answer this problem through the following elements:
First: the size of the spread
Before going into the points of intersection and differentiation of the phenomenon of Shiism between the two geographical areas of study must initially stand at the size of the spread in each range, and the indications that can be drawn from it. In this section, the figures are mixed with the complexities surrounding the phenomenon. Shiite sources are very large in size, their claims are not based on objective evidence, [2] and the most important academic effort was in the 2011 report by the World Federation of Muslim Scholars. The report concluded that African countries were classified into four sections: [3]
1 - States where Shiism reached the level of phenomenon, which is three countries; Nigeria where «Shiism is widespread and has an organized presence, the most African country in terms of the spread of Shiism and the tension between the Shiites and Sunnis». The other two countries are Ghana and Tunisia.
2 - States where the Shiite activity to the level of the phenomenon in terms of efforts and institutions of schools, mosques, Husayniyat and scholarships, with a limited shift to the Shiite doctrine. The countries are: Sierra Leone, Kenya, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tanzania, the Comoros, Morocco and Algeria.
3 - States where there is a tangible activity and increasing Shiites, but did not turn into a phenomenon, neither in institutions or in the embrace of the people of the country to the doctrine, and the country is: Niger, Benin, Mali, Cameroon, Congo, Sudan and Uganda.
4. Countries where the Shiite activity is not tangible or apparent and "not a phenomenon neither in its institutions nor in its supporters" are Togo, Liberia, Mauritania, Chad, Djibouti, Somalia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso.
There is a state that is silent about the assessment of Egypt, but from what we can say in the third group, it is reported that the Shiites have an educational, cultural and media activity in Egypt. However, the Shiite influence is still limited compared to the population and the volume of media and cultural activity in Egypt General [4].
Second: Institutionalization of Shiism
The conspirators seek to legitimize their existence and develop it by creating institutional structures that give them the legal form of activity, and also provide a space for communication between them, enabling them to cooperate and cooperate, while at the same time practicing advocacy activity. Hence, the institutional dimension is one of the indicators of the penetration of Shiism in African societies and the size of its spread and the social position of it, and their institutional presence varies from country to country and from region to region. According to the approved classification of the study, it is much more in the south compared to the North, . In some African countries, the number of Shia institutions does not exceed the same fingers as Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Chad, Gabon, Djibouti and Ethiopia.
In Nigeria there are 50 schools. In Ghana there are Ahl al-Bayt Foundation, Imam Hussein Foundation, Al-Rasul Al Akram Mosque, Ahl Al-Bayt Institute, Al-Imam Al-Sadiq School, Al-Hussein Mosque, Al-Imam Al-Mahdi School, Al Kawthar Foundation and two libraries. In Guinea, Conakry counted nine schools, four associations and a center in which the estate was located.
In Ivory Coast there are also 12 schools, 7 associations, 3 mosques, 3 Hussainiyat, 6 cultural centers and two clinics. In Senegal, there are also 4 centers, 5 mosques, 6 schools, a clinic, Al Hussain College, Iranian Cultural Center, the Noble Prophet's estate, Fatima Al-Zahraa College, Al-Buzhaher Foundation, Islamic Social Establishment, 3 associations and 10 centers. In Cameroon there is the Ahl al-Bayt Institute, a school and seven mosques. In the Congo, I counted 16 centers, 3 mosques, a university and service activities.
In Uganda there are 3 schools, the Imam al-Sadiq estate, the Ahl al-Bayt al-Islami center, the mosque, the Sadiq women's association, 3 institutions, the Ahl al-Bayt institute and the Imam al-Sadiq library. In Kenya, in addition to the Iranian Cultural Center, there are 5 mosques, 5 schools, Jaafari club, 3 centers, 3 associations, medical services and two clinics. In Tanzania: 3 centers, 6 schools, Waali Asr Academy, Institute, Teacher Training College, Hozat, 6 Mosques, Hussainiyat. In Mozambique: 4 schools, Hussainiyat. In the Comoros, the Center for Scientific Identification, Faculty of Law and Islamic Sciences, Medical Center of the Iranian Red Crescent, Khomeini Supply Committee, Al-Thaqlin Center, Imam Khomeini Cultural Center.
In the North African countries, the institutional dimension is very limited. In the Maghreb, there are only three associations in the Kingdom of Morocco that do not have a very large activity. They are absent in Algeria and some are rare. They work in indirect ways under titles that do not reflect their identity. Where there are four associations, a publishing house, and in Mauritania it is referred to the presence of Husayniyat in the capital, Nouakchott, which is run by Mauritanians and who practice their worship and whatever they want in their seasons. [5] In Tunisia, and in return to the field reports, the section devoted to the Tunisian situation does not provide any figures on the number of those who are suspected. It refers to only one association (the Ahl al-Bayt Cultural Association). Even Algeria and Morocco, which have been classified as countries where activities have reached the level of the phenomenon, have no institutional activity to support this hypothesis. The largest attendance was in Sudan, which counted 3 schools, the Imam Jafar al-Sadiq Institute, 6 libraries, 10 associations, the Iranian Cultural Center and 15 Husseiniya schools, but it was closed in 2016.
Third: The entrances of Shiism and proliferation mechanisms:
The entrances of Shiism vary between social, political and religious, the most important of which are:
The Iranian role:
As mentioned above in the introduction to the study, the Iranian role is pivotal in the process of spreading Shiism in the North and South of the continent, which mingles economic interests and spreading Shiism. Tehran often exploits its diplomatic relations with African countries and economic cooperation to support activities promoting Shiism. Political relations are also witnessing a large movement in Shiism. The more the authorities allow activity, the Iranian embassies do not hide their role in openly spreading Shiism. Economic and service assistance is often accompanied by attempts to spread Shiism.
Making use of enough money to ensure the flow of (advocacy) and investment together in a single sentence; especially in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and Ghana, the promising countries within the global investment spotlight that is also submerged in corruption. [6] The Iranian presence witnessed a major escalation in West Africa, especially during the first decade of the 21st century, through organizations and civil society, cultural centers, economic projects and diplomatic work, [7] benefiting from the fact that West Africa is the largest Muslim bloc in the continent Africa, and therefore the region is a fertile environment to receive the principles of the revolution that Iran is spreading throughout the world. [8]
This is not the case in North Africa, where Iran attaches great importance to the region, and has sought to strengthen its relations with the countries of the region, especially the Maghreb, after their relations with Egypt have deteriorated following the Iranian position in support of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. The assassination of President Mohamed Bou Diaf, and in the context of the regional axes, the relationship with Egypt remained troubled by the Egyptian-Saudi agreement. Therefore, the Algerian position found some sort of balance. The most important influence was in Sudan, where the Islamists reached power in revolutionary action, Which has sought to emulate the Iranian model at that stage. The celebration of Sudan led Iran to become a Shiite extension, which is the largest in the Sunni Arab countries. At all stages, Iran did not miss any opportunity to spread Shiism in order to invest its relations with these countries. , Is evident in all these countries, in addition to scholarships to study in their possession.
The role of migrants:
Shiite immigrants generally play an important role in spreading Shiism throughout Africa, but it is more visible and sustainable in its south than in the North, especially the Lebanese community, which plays a major role in the Shiite reporting process in the African countries. [9] Some statistics indicate that at least 350,000 Lebanese are scattered across the continent. Ivory Coast, Senegal and Nigeria are the most important centers of Lebanese communities living in Africa, with thousands of other Lebanese residing in almost all African countries. [10]
Despite their presence on the continent for a long time, since the beginning of the last century, but their interest in advocacy activities confined to the community itself to maintain its identity, to witness a shift after the visit by Musa al-Sadr in 1964 to a number of African countries, carrying the project of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council Lebanon, [11] and a subsequent jump with the victory of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
The Lebanese communities are living a prosperous life there, which is essential and competitive for many other communities. The value of Lebanese investments in Africa is about 45 billion dollars, followed by China with 75 billion US dollars. [12]
The largest community of 60,000 to 120,000 people has settled in Ivory Coast since the late 1980s. Another 40,000-strong community lives in Senegal, many of whom are in retail stores, while others work in the diamond trade [13]. They control about 60% of the vital economic sectors. They own four thousand enterprises, of which 1500 are industrial enterprises with some 150,000 citizens. They control 70% of the wholesale trade, 50% of the installment trade, 80% of the coffee and cocoa collection and export companies, and 17% of the taxis, which the successive leaders of the country were keen to commend and commend. [14]
In Kenya, a large Muslim community of about half a million Shiites is an important and important place to spread Shiite Islam in its radical Iranian form. In East Africa, the origins of the Shiites belong to the Gulf region and India. The successive migrations of previous centuries have played a role in the spread of Shi'ism in this region, as in Zanzibar and Shirazin in Tanzania.
In North Africa, their role was limited to their few numbers, which numbered only a few hundred and tens in these countries, and their presence was new, as it was after independence, especially in Algeria, which brought them in the sixties and seventies of the last century to teach in its schools and secondary schools and universities. Then expanded with the Iranian revolution but remained limited. In recent decades there have been attempts to engage in activity, known as the case of businessman Salah Izz al-Din, who had business activities and sought to establish a private school.
In Morocco, there were similar activities, such as the Iraqi school, which was shut down on charges of spreading Shiism. In Mauritania, Lebanese Shiite merchants from Senegal opened restaurants in the center of the capital near the City Center rally. They were accused of trying to infiltrate society. Mauritanians and Iranians. [15]
The exception was in Egypt, where Shi'a immigrants were the mainstay of Shi'ism, with many Shiite Arab elements in it, who played an active role in supporting the Shiite call. Egypt was crowded with Iraqi Shiites fleeing Saddam's face, who had resided in Egypt for the purpose of study, Of the Bahrain and Saudi Shiites who resided for the same purpose. These elements contributed to an effective defensive role against the media attacks against Shiites in that period. [16] And witnessed a significant increase in Egypt after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, and the danger of their association with areas similar to the city of 6 October.
3- Role of the Islamic Movement:
The Islamic movements in the two regions facilitated the process of Shiism by promoting the Iranian Revolution and its celebration of Khomeini and Hassan Nasrallah, and defending Iran's policies in the region. This was an incubator environment for political Shiism, which later developed into a common denominator. The Shiite faith in the north included members of the third or fourth class and even sympathizers, but in the south it included prominent leaders, especially in Nigeria, where the Islamic movement was influenced by the Iranian revolution and celebrated, some of which became popular. [17] Because of the role played by Ibrahim Zaqzaki, who was a prominent leader in it.
4. Extreme religious groups:
Iran has also invested in extremist groups that have developed in the region to market Shiism. This happened early in the 1990s in Algeria and Egypt, and has increased in recent years, especially after the events of September 11, 2001 and the occupation of Iraq until 2011 with the emergence of the Islamic State Organization in Iraq Syria, and did not miss the opportunity of the rise of extremist organizations in the South similar to the organization of Boko Haram; Tehran has benefited from the practices and behaviors of militant groups in Mali, Nigeria and popularly refused to market the Shiite ideology. [18]
Fifth: the social and political repercussions of the participants:
The phenomenon of Shiism is multifaceted both in its social and political context, and most of them warn of the disintegration of these societies and the instability of countries as a result of the cracks that these people experience in their societies over the medium or long term. The most important manifestations of Shiite penetration lie in the degree of conflict and clash, whether horizontal (societal - societal) or vertical (community - political power) in the first case is more present in sub - Saharan Africa, and in North Africa is still tight and controlled, and incidents in this framework And the most famous of what happened in Egypt to the public Hassan Shehata, who traveled in 2013, and in the south of the Sahara has developed into a conflict with political power, and the most important cases occurred in Nigeria in 2015 between the Islamic movement led by Ibrahim al-Zaqzki and the Nigerian army, The Zaqzaki group is a political bloc Is based on Hezbollah's policy of recruiting its members, and aims to create local pro-Iranian bases as the only reference, and claims to confront Western interests in Africa and to confront Western imperialism and arrogance. [21]
It is also the social implications of the quest to produce local Shiite references. The Shiite seminaries have become a kiss for many African students who are sent there by official Iranian grants to study there. This phenomenon encompasses the whole continent. In the north and south, these played a pivotal role in spreading Shiism. To establish local Shiite authorities, and to achieve a number of results, most notably the case of Ibrahim al-Zaqzaki in Nigeria, in Togo Abd al-Mumin of the Xantu tribe, Muhammad Dar al-Hikma in Guinea, Mahmoud Abdullah Ibrahim in the Comoros and Abdul Rahman Aden in Djibouti. In the North African countries there are Mohamed Tijani in Tunisia, Algeria in Algeria, Fadil al-Jazairi, in Morocco Idriss Hani and Moutassim Sayed Ahmed of Sudan. The activity of Shiite preachers in Lebanon, Iran and others is strong and declared in many African countries, while almost none in North African countries.
Conclusion:
The study concluded the following results:
Numerically, there are no accurate statistics of the Shi'a, but in general, their numbers in sub-Saharan Africa seem to be much higher than their northern ones, without necessarily ignoring population differences.
2. The degree of institutionalization reinforces the above result. Most North African countries do not have recognized Shiite institutions, while others, in their rare form, operate in a secret manner under different titles that do not reflect their identity. They are limited to associations. Even Husseiniat are only apartments Are hired for this purpose and change in every Shiite occasion, while in the South countries, the institutions are dozens in many countries and the least of them are more than the countries of the North, and vary from associations and schools to institutes and universities, mosques and seminaries, as well as service institutions.
3. The official positions of Shiism are very volatile and are dependent on political changes, ranging from recognition and welcome or implicit silence, implicit rejection or explicit rejection, and the countries of the North, whether silent or implicitly implicit and sometimes explicitly, while many countries in the South recognize and welcome this activity , As evidenced by the institutions that are active in the field of Shiism officially and publicly. And rare are the countries that have rapidly shifted in their relations and rejected Shiism as a distance in the relationship with Iran.
4. The Iranian role is consistent in the spread of Shiism in the two regions, the protector of Shiites and the Shiites there, and often issued Iranian statements condemning any narrowing them as well as the missionary activity carried out by the cultural centers of their embassies.
5. The Lebanese Shiite community has played a very important role in spreading Shiism in sub-Saharan Africa, in contrast to its north. This is because of three basic considerations. First, it exists in large numbers, sometimes exceeding tens of thousands. Second, its existence is old and not new. An important entrance that provides the necessary money for her advocacy work.
6. The Islamic movements contributed to the promotion of Shi'ism through the marketing of the Iranian thesis and the transfer of some of its leaders to the Shiites gave additional impetus to it.
7. Iran took advantage of the rise of extremist groups in the Sunni field to distort the beliefs of the Sunnis and put Shiism as an alternative.
8. Coordination of efforts to spread Shiism regionally and even within the institutional framework in sub-Saharan Africa more than the north.
9. Iran has been able to employ the Sufi methods in spreading Shiism in the northern and southern regions through the entrance of Al-Bayt and their love, on the one hand, and in the context of competition and the Sufi conflict on the other.
10. There is a constant effort to produce local references in all of Africa, and this role is assigned to the Shiite seminaries in Qom and others, which is concerned with the formation of African students in their schools, and has been able to achieve some breakthroughs in many countries despite the absence of references to the degree of "great ayatollahs" In the medium term at least, so as to ensure direct control over them as mere agents of references located in Qom or Najaf.
11. In sub-Saharan Africa, where Shiism has risen to the level of the phenomenon, the conflict has transcended the social sphere to the political sphere, as in Nigeria with the Zaqzaki group, while in the north it is still limited in its societal context to its limitations, but it is an indicator of the extent to which it can reach To the Shiite movements whenever it possessed more numerical power.
12. The weakness of the prevalence of Shiism in North Africa can be attributed to the language factor (being an Arab region) if much of the effort in the face of Shi'ism in Arabic comes from the Mashreq, which is directly involved in this conflict. Has been very resonant in North Africa, especially in the Islamic Maghreb, where the specialized media in the fight against Shiites and Shiism in various forms continue to interact with them directly, unlike the sub-Saharan peoples of the language, so more attention should be paid to African advocates and the formation of specialists in this section, Media In local African languages.
13. In the linguistic context always, the North African countries belong to the Arab circle making them more interested in the issues raised in this geographical space, so the popular uprisings that have erupted in the region since 2011, especially the Syrian crisis and the subsequent sectarian conflict revealed a different image of Iran and Hezbollah And Shiites in general, which contributed to the decline of the Shiite movement compared to the path it was in the past, and despite the interest of African Muslims to Arab issues as part of the Islamic nation, but the linguistic factor remains a barrier to the strong impact that can be triggered by events in this form.
14. The Shiite missionary activity is integrated with each other and does not suffer from internal conflicts, either as states or reference points, unlike Sunni proselytizing, which is still subject to national views. There is no coordination of efforts and sometimes conflicting between states or groups.
13. In the linguistic context always, the North African countries belong to the Arab circle making them more interested in the issues raised in this geographical space, so the popular uprisings that have erupted in the region since 2011, especially the Syrian crisis and the subsequent sectarian conflict revealed a different image of Iran and Hezbollah And Shiites in general, which contributed to the decline of the Shiite movement compared to the path it was in the past, and despite the interest of African Muslims to Arab issues as part of the Islamic nation, but the linguistic factor remains a barrier to the strong impact that can be triggered by events in this form.
14. The Shiite missionary activity is integrated with each other and does not suffer from internal conflicts, either as states or reference points, unlike Sunni proselytizing, which is still subject to national views. There is no coordination of efforts and sometimes conflicting between states or groups.
Shiism in North Africa
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janvier 11, 2019
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Reviewed by منوعات
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janvier 11, 2019
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