Sectarianism in Arab societies and the splitting of the state
It goes without saying that the plurality of sects, races and tribes is not a problem in Arab and Islamic societies, nor is it a structural defect. But the problem is when this plurality is rationalized, so sectarianism appears and spreads in society with an exclusionary ideology that eliminates the other. The sect is a positive factor, believing in difference, diversity and coexistence within the framework of total unity, unlike sectarianism, which is a closed identity, authoritarian ideology, and exclusionary tendency. Therefore, a sect can turn into a sectarian when it transforms from a religious or ethnic affiliation or a sectarian identity to a political ideology that is taken as a means of influence and the abolition of the other, in exchange for working to exclude everything that is common within the framework of national unity.
Sectarianism, then, is the black market, as Burhan Ghalioun calls it, or the parallel to politics that appears to the extent that it corrupts the market for natural politics. It is a twisted political exercise in the struggle for power [1] .
First: sectarianism and sedition
Sectarianism has a presence in Arab and Islamic history, whether in its religious, sectarian, ethnic or tribal dress. Ibn al-Atheer talks about the Hanbali strife in Baghdad and their struggle with the Shafi’is in the year 323 AH [2] . And from ethnic sectarianism what happened to the loyalists, who are Muslims who are not Arabs. Al-Hasan bin Ziyad heard Abu Hanifa, may God have mercy on him, say: The rulers of Banu Umayyah did not call upon the rulers from among the jurists to give fatwas [3] . The situation is the same in the tribal conflict. Khaldoun al-Naqeeb believes that the tribe has an influence on political life in Arab and Islamic history. The killing of the three caliphs after Abu Bakr is evidence of the emergence of tribal loyalties (asabiyya), and the victory of the Umayyads in reality is nothing but the victory of political tribalism over moral and ethical integration [4] .
This presence is still inherent in Arab societies to the present moment, as ideological sects live in the heart of the state and at its expense. But what distinguishes the sectarian conflict that is taking place at the present time from the previous sectarian conflicts, is that the previous conflict was taking place in the strong body of the nation. These conflicts may cause some side diseases, but they quickly fade and disappear, unlike the contemporary reality of the nation, which is a poor reality. The conflict is no longer a struggle between power and society, or a struggle within the political community, but has become a struggle within the entire national community: between parents and family. Its arena expanded to include neighborhoods, neighborhoods and souls. It is sedition, as Belkziz calls it. If the revolution is tearing up the state and the authority, then sedition is tearing the nation and the community apart. Because the revolution is a struggle between rulers and the ruled. As for the fitna, it is the struggle between the governed themselves, the struggle of the whole society [5] .
The problem of sectarianism in Arab societies extends into the depth of time and place, and the danger increases with the rapid developments that the region is going through, threatening its national unity through sects and groups lying in the arms of foreign countries.
The expansionist imperialist countries no longer need a military force to dominate the region. Rather, it is enough to plant ideological sects, which they take as a means to impose their control and expand their hegemony. The ideological sectarian minorities in the Arab world are the most dangerous destructive weapon that the forces of foreign aggression have seized and used in most Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Morocco, the Gulf, Egypt and others. In 2008, Abdelilah Belkeziz wrote that the war of sects and sects taking place in Iraq is not a final chapter of the Zionist colonial strategy of dismantling, but rather an introduction to it, and a test that will be generalized to most of the Arab world, as long as there are Sunnis and Shiites. It does not find the American policy and behind it the West is better than the sectarian division as a way to arrest the entity fate of the Arab societies [6] .
The ideological sects whose roots, seeds, and fruits would not have come to fruition in the rift of society and the splitting of the state, had it not been for regional and international interventions. It is an industry whose methods and mechanisms differ according to the manufacturer, the purpose, and the medium in which it will be cultivated.
Second: Sectarianism..a state within a state
Sectarian groups are closed prisons, fragmenting one homeland into multiple homelands, creating barriers between people, one of whom looks at the other as his other. General loyalty to the entity of the state is lost in exchange for loyalty to the sect, family, sect or religion. Citizenship and equality in rights and duties are absent, and artificial class distinctions and ranks appear.
Sectarian groups represent a new schism from society and the state, and escape the controls and provisions of all-embracing national relations. As a result of the ideological loyalties imposed by the sectarian system, the state shifts from its comprehensive idea to a narrow one, until the state becomes a collection of farms for the sects and their leaders. The same applies to the distribution of jobs in terms of endowment for members of the sect, denomination, or region. Here, Salim al-Hoss, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, depicts the persistence of sectarianism in the life, political and social spheres. He says: “If you were the most important officer, you would not be the leader of the Lebanese army, and if you were the longest-standing judge, you would not be the chief of discrimination or the head of the State Shura Council, even if If you were the most knowledgeable and knowledgeable economist or financier, or the most experienced of them, you would not be the governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, and if you were the most capable and the most wicked of people, you would not be Director General of Public Security, yes, you would not be any of these if you were not of the sectarian affiliation that qualifies you for these positions.[7] .
Many of the Arab people still feel that their primary loyalty is to the family, to the tribe, to the sect or to the race, and not to the state. Some of these sects seem to be stronger than the state and more firmly established, and civil loyalty to them is stronger than loyalty to the state and the homeland. This is at least what we observe today in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and some societies in the Gulf and the countries of the Maghreb.
As a result, divisions arise within the national body, its unity is shattered, and a state of contradiction and conflict prevails among the people of the same nation. Narrow identities turn into deadly identities, as Amin Maalouf calls them [8] , which negatively affects the unity of the national rank and political, economic and social stability. Sectarianism is a split in identity and an internal emotional rupture among citizens. Sectarianism goes beyond citizenship in the state to loyalty to political entities and foreign states under the pretext of sectarian commonality. At that time, there is no meaning to political life, even if it takes place on an electoral and institutional imperative.
The fragmentation of the homeland by ideological sects is due in one of the most important reasons to the failure of the state itself to build a comprehensive identity that achieves the political, cultural and social integration of citizens, so it resorts to deriving its legitimacy from traditional sectarian structures, based on dominance and monopoly and the dominance of civil, religious, tribe or sectarian fanaticism over another . The loss of democracy and the spread of tyranny, as well as economic backwardness, deprive citizens of belonging to this state, which failed to create the minimum level of stability, and the result was to go to alternative affiliations, whether tribal, ethnic, or sectarian.
Third: the sectarianism of the state
The most dangerous in contemporary sectarianism is the sectarianism of states. The sectarianism of states is more dangerous than the sectarianism of groups. Because the sectarianism of countries creates multiple sectarianism and social fanaticism. In the modern era, Halim Barakat says, the Arab authorities were not satisfied with consolidating their authority and continuity by relying on modern armies, the National and Presidential Guard, loyal parties, foreign protection and regional alliances, but also used tribe, religion and sectarianism to strengthen their positions, and contained or eliminated internal opposition, comparing the fear of God. Fear of authority, and the temporal laws of the divine law [9] .
The state, which means that it is a representative figure for all the sons of the nation, is sovereign and separate from the contradictions of the social structure, but it is unfortunate that many Arab countries did not perform this task in preserving the unity of the entity of the nation and the national community, but rather worked continuously in secret sometimes, and sometimes in public Others, on reviving the various sectarian and clan loyalties in society, instead of working on their absence and rooting out the reasons for their existence. Hisham Djait denies the rationality of the Arab countries, because, he says, they are based on fanaticism and clan relations [10] .
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The sectarian behavior of the state is not justified by the claim to represent the sectarian majority, whether religious, sectarian or ethnic. Whatever the level of this representation, the presence of marginalized, excluded or excluded minorities makes the authority’s representation of social diversity questionable. From here, the state’s sectarianism emerges and appears, regardless of the proportion of the population similar to it, so that Iraq becomes a Shiite state that marginalizes the Kurds and Sunnis, and Saudi Arabia becomes a Sunni state that marginalizes the Shiites, and excludes the Sunnis who do not identify with the Wahhabi school, and Iran becomes a Shiite Persian state that excludes Sunnis and Arabs, then the state’s sectarianism will prevail. narrow and closed identity [11] .
The sectarianism of states generates a deep conflict between the internal sects in the same state, and wars that extend for many years. It also generates a conflict between different ideological states. The intensification of sectarian conflict and regional polarization (Sunni and Shiite) between its poles, Iran and Saudi Arabia, is in part an expression of the ongoing sectarian conflict in Iraq. Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
This conflict in the Arab region generates a conviction or establishes a rule that whenever there is a sectarian authority, we necessarily find a sectarian problem, then the politics or the state turns from a neutral party that represents all citizens and deals with them on an equal basis, to a sectarian party that represents a particular sect or sect unlike the rest of the sects . Consequently, the nation is divided and splintered, and the cycle of civil and sectarian war begins, and acts of killing over identity.
Fourth: a fire under the ashes
Despite the danger and brutality of the state’s sectarianism, it will not be able to sow the seeds of sectarianism until the day it finds sectarian soil that will receive those seeds. The revival of historical sectarian conflicts causes religious, sectarian and ethnic sects to seek historical events that occurred tens of centuries ago. These sects become trapped and dependent on history, thus affecting their social and political differences, as is the case today in many issues between Sunnis and Shiites.
This historical dependence generated false religiosity, which generated a culture of hatred for the violator, his oppression and exclusion from the reality of social and political life. Sectarian conflicts are based on cultural foundations, says Toby Mathison [12] .
Historic legacies are fire under the ashes, waiting for someone to ignite their fuse, so they explode in society, leaving destructive effects on society and the state together, as well as economic development, political stability and civilizational revival.
Fifth: The sect.. Cracks in the wall of citizenship
Citizenship came as a result of the accumulation of ideas and experiences throughout history in order to get out of social and political disasters, in a way that regulates the interrelationship between individuals among themselves on the one hand, and between them and the state on the other hand, towards the realization of the same individual and the state together, through equality of rights and duties. Citizenship is: equality in the political, cultural, social and economic rights of every citizen in the state, regardless of gender, religion or sect, by virtue of belonging and loyalty to the homeland.
Citizenship, then, is not just a set of rights and duties. It belongs to a land bordered by geographic borders. In other words, political loyalty has moved from the element of religion, sect, tribe and ethnicity to the element of the homeland, with what it represents in terms of rights, duties, and geographical and territorial boundaries.
And citizenship here, is not a substitute for a private identity, so that the approval of one means the negation of the other, and citizenship does not mean the conflict between identities, or the domination of one over the other, but it – that is, citizenship – represents a comprehensive identity for all the sons of the one nation.
Despite the black holes in the wall of Western citizenship, it cannot be denied what it has brought about in those societies and countries in terms of creating and embodying a new political culture, and indoctrinating their peoples with the concepts of democracy and human rights. On the other hand, the Arab countries hardly feel the movement of history around them, and the race of global civilizations, whether eastern or western, there is no visible work for most Arab authorities except issues of internal security, providing anti-riot forces with various weapons to suppress protest movements, and working to falsify and falsify the results of the ballot boxes. And then changing constitutions to stay in power, dismantling societies and sowing sectarian seeds, then competing to win the approval and blessing of successive political administrations in Europe and the United States of America, instead of directing the necessary reforms to deepen democracy and full citizenship.
The emergence of sectarianism means the decline of citizenship, and consequently inequality and the loss of the state. The sectarian system is based on discrimination between the members of sects. The distinctions and categorical classes appear according to the strength and weakness of the sect. Talking about citizenship is not consistent with the state based on tribal, sectarian or racial foundations.
Sectarian society is based on passive affiliation to the sect, and this affiliation contradicts the concept of citizenship based on national loyalty. Sectarian society is the opposite of civil society; Because it is simply a society of the subjects, not a society of citizens, a society in which loyalty to sect and doctrine prevails over loyalty to the homeland and the state, says Belkeziz [13] . Sectarianism represents an obstacle to equal citizenship when it is based on preference and inequality between the citizen and the son of the tribe or the son of sect and religion.
Sixth: From sectarianism to pluralism
In order to try to get out of the sectarian impasse that Arab societies suffer from, by moving to pluralism, peaceful coexistence and national unity, it is self-evident to stress that there is no single remedy that suits every country with multiple sects and identities; Because every country has its own historical, social and political development, sectarian balances of power, and a diverse regional environment with its internal extensions. Accordingly, each country has its own diagnosis, so what can be used in Iraq, for example, does not necessarily succeed in others. It is important that all options remain open to those concerned with addressing the problem of sectarianism in each country separately. However, an attempt can be made to lay out broad lines that contribute to the exit of these communities from the sectarian impasse, including the following:
1 – Unity within the framework of pluralism
It is very difficult to abolish, or even just think of working to abolish, religious, sectarian, regional or clan affiliations, as they accompany the Arab personality, and were not absent even in the city society, the first political society in Islam.
The tribe, for example, is a large component of the Arab cultural heritage. This Prophet (Al-Hashimi) is the best of prayers and peace be upon him, and that Tufail bin Amr (Al-Dawsi), Antara (Al-Absi), and Hatim (Al-Ta’i). And many others who represented the construction of this culture. The first Muslim state embraced the various races and considered them among its citizens. Salman (Persian), Suhaib (Rumi) and Bilal (Abyssinian) lived in love and harmony with the sons of Quraysh, Aws and Khazraj in the first Islamic community in Medina.
Hence, it is difficult to say that it is possible to establish a political, cultural or social consensus in which people give up their allegiances. Diversity of societies is a universal norm, and the plurality of intellectual dispositions is a natural product. Therefore, it is necessary to seek an alternative, or alternatives, to the idea of uniting the people or societies under one ideological roof.
The entrance to the search for an alternative or alternatives is based on the assumption that a political consensus can be reached rather than an intellectual, religious or cultural consensus. The consolidation of the rules of political consensus requires a strong will from all components of society, and this will does not mean transcending religions, sects, tribes, peoples, and races, but rather as far as it is recognized, political consensus requires transcending belonging to them into a comprehensive affiliation, in order for private identities to remain alive and vital. On this basis, difference and diversity become a factor of enrichment and diversity.
The first step in this way is to acknowledge the plurality and the difference, not to hide it. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid concealing the unity when the differences appear, and avoiding the concealment of the differences when the unity appears, says Edgar Moran [14] . Then this step is followed by what Ali Asaad Watfa referred to. At a time when society is diverse with ethnic, religious, political or social affiliations, groups and groups, politicians must work to integrate these affiliations in order to reach a common identity that represents the interests of the group with its various natural affiliations [ 15] .
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2 – The establishment of an ideological, political and social front that will follow up on the reduction of sectarian problems
Although the United Nations has taken upon itself the issue of reducing sectarian problems in Arab societies through a project to address sectarian and ethnic tensions in the Arab world, the reality is getting worse day by day. These projects alone are not sufficient if an internal front of intellectuals, culture, politics, parties, civil society organizations and all segments of society is not established. The importance of the existence of this entity or front depends on the extent of the powers and capabilities that it has, and in the real will available to it to activate tools and mechanisms that enable it to translate its ability to absorb sectarian acts and absorb the expected reactions, and then the cooperation of government agencies, political parties and civil society organizations with it.
This is a message to all those who are preoccupied with thought in order to work to establish the philosophy of tolerance and coexistence between different sects, whether religious, sectarian or ethnic… Tolerance is a fundamental pillar for building the fabric and entity of the nation.
3- Adoption of the principle of transitional justice
Attempting to move from sectarian conflict to a society of pluralism, coexistence and recognition of the other, is a difficult and difficult task, which may take a long time, but this transition, according to Belkeziz, is necessary and possible, and there is no doubt that spreading a culture of tolerance in society and consensus on the rules of transitional justice in it, which is what It allows the rehabilitation of society to achieve such a transition [16] .
Noting that any thesis aimed at addressing sectarianism must realize the extent of the saturation of the memory of individuals who suffered sectarian discrimination, as well as of societies that have endured the scourge of political marginalization and social exclusion. Otherwise, that memory will remain a tool that stimulates rebellion and revenge against opponents, and this does not mean reversing the equation and switching positions, so that the oppressed of yesterday becomes the oppressor of today, but rather means the rule of social justice and equality between citizens in rights and duties.
Hence, the importance of approving the principle of transitional justice, especially in countries that suffer civil, sectarian or sectarian wars. If justice is an absolute value, then transitional justice shares with traditional justice in realizing the right and returning it to its owners, in revealing the truth, reparation for harm and compensation for victims, especially with regard to public political and civil issues. Moreover, transitional justice differs from traditional justice in that it is concerned with transitional stages, such as the transition from a state of internal armed conflict or civil war to a state of peace and democratic transition, or the transition from an authoritarian dictatorship to a state of political détente and democratic transition. Arab countries are not absent from the application of the principles and rules of transitional justice. Abd al-Hussein Shaaban cites the Moroccan experience in transitional justice, which he sees as one of the most important Arab and international experiences in the possibility of a peaceful democratic transition from within power [17]..
4 – Equal citizenship instead of sectarian differentiation
Consolidating the rules of equal citizenship in the state and society is a prerequisite for ending the sectarian conflict in Arab and Islamic societies. Equality between citizens requires that sectarian concepts do not control the details of political, social and cultural life, a condition for the emergence of a new bond between members of a society made up of different, multiple and different sects, religions and beliefs.
The condition for achieving this national bond, Burhan Ghalioun says, is the formation of a citizenship that expresses the guarantee of one status for all individuals, and is itself linked to their recognition of each other the same rights, entailing the same responsibilities and equal duties as well. In this equality, the individual is reconstructed as a citizen, and his distinction is transcended at the level of civil society as a believer or holder of a different belief, and a member of a distinct civil group. Without building this unified bond through the concept of equality in rights and duties, it is not possible to get out of civil society’s conflicts, differences and differentiation, nor to build a state and citizenship. Ghalioun then asserts that the alternative to that will be – necessarily – chaos and permanent conflict between sects and tribes that have no connection between them [18] .
5 – A political majority instead of a sectarian majority (democratic governance)
The presence of sects, in their rigid and closed form, displaces democratic values from the reality of life, and then, instead of the democratic factor being the ladder to reach power, sectarian factors become the path to rule.
In a situation like this, there is no way to get out of it except by the ruling democratic rules. People in democratic societies transcend the boundaries of their affiliations and sects to build the state society to which they belong and raise their feelings of loyalty to it. Democracy is the basis for living and integrated civilized coexistence between the various social entities. And it – that is, democracy – is a necessity in light of pluralism, as it achieves existential cohesion between the various social formations. Then the individual identity becomes and becomes part of the common identity.
Democratic governance provides equal and fair opportunities for all, regardless of their affiliation, thus establishing a state of citizenship, rule of law and coexistence. Here, the state becomes the state of the community, not the state of the sect. To the extent that the state embodies the will of society and expresses its choices represented in the majority while preserving the rights of the minority, it considers itself as the state of society. As the society is, the state is in its image; Because the state: the state of society [19] .
6- Creating appropriate educational means to refine the individual and collective mind
Sectarian conflict and internal strife impede any attempt to advance political and economic stability. The state of caution and suspicion among the sects of society, and the mutual conflict this situation generates, necessitate serious thinking about awareness programs that work to restore confidence, refine souls and rationalize minds for permanent reconciliation, mutual cooperation and acceptance of the other.
The first step in this path is to pay attention to the citizen as the field of these awareness programs. Every means that contributes to the abolition of negative sectarianism in the individual necessarily means the abolition of negative sectarianism among sects, society, civil and governmental institutions, and before that in the family.
Then comes another step, which is represented in the need to transcend sectarian rhetoric that tends to abolish pluralism and the exclusion of others. Hence, the necessary need arises for a comprehensive national discourse, based on shared identity and political citizenship, a discourse that recognizes the other as an existence and an idea. A speech that seeks – according to Hassan al-Saffar – “to spread a culture of tolerance.” Certainly, we need an emergency situation at this level [20] . Another step is to instill national loyalty instead of sectarian loyalty, and to replace the rigid sectarian and clan organization by a mobile party organization [21] . This ensures coexistence between members of society and the peaceful transfer of power. Hence the importance of the role of educational curricula in schools and universities, and the formulation of media strategies in form and content, all of which contribute to raising awareness of the dangers of sectarianism at the level of the individual, society and the state.
7 – Neutrality of the state
The concept of state neutrality means, in its simplest sense, separating sectarian concepts from the authority of governance. Thus, the abolition of the sectarian system, and this does not mean the abolition or restriction of the freedom of sects, but rather raising the status of the state above the status of sects, so that this state becomes a protector of the members of the sects legally and socially [22] . A citizen’s affiliation with a particular sect is not a reason for discrimination against him or her. In this sense, the beliefs, doctrines, and ideas espoused by one party or another in society represent a sphere of private life. The concept of state neutrality requires that a clear distinction be made between what is within the field of one and equal political rights, which in the modern state represents the public and common domain, and what is within the field of diverse and multiple common individual and collective rights.
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The neutrality of the civil state does not mean that the state fights religious and non-religious sects, as happened with communist regimes, nor does it mean that it is neutral regarding the intellectual and cultural heritage of its societies. All of this does not detract from (the state is not sectarian) if it is the fruit of the vote of the political majority in it, and in terms of it is a political majority. Thus, if the political majority votes to choose a specific school of law for the legislative authority in order to preserve national unity, this does not affect the principle of state neutrality, provided that the rights of minorities are not confiscated, and this is what Hassan al-Turabi calls compatibility, integration and balance between freedom and unity [23] . Accordingly, religion or sect can be the basis of legislation and a constitutional text in proportion to a country, which is the case in some European countries such as Norway, whose constitution states that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the official church of the state, but other religions have the right to practice their rituals freely complete [24].
Accordingly, democratic governance in the modern state is the decision-maker. Ghannouchi says: If we need to enact a law in light of this plurality, we need a mechanism, and perhaps the best mechanism that humans have reached today is the democratic mechanism and the electoral mechanism [25] .
The fixed reference is the reference to the homeland, not the reference to the tribe, the family, or the sect. In other words, the idea of homelands and citizens is a civil idea that aims to transcend tribal, sectarian and sectarian relations, which experiences have proven their failure to achieve interests, and to overcome the intensity of disagreement, whether at the tribal level or at the sectarian and sectarian levels.
Finally, in the face of divisive encroachment and internal strife in the Arab and Islamic region in the name of sectarianism or nationalism, men of thought, culture, parties, civil society organizations and all segments of society must work to confront this sectarian division, and preserve national unity with more cohesion and harmony. The embodiment of the civil state in real life is the only guarantor for preserving the unity of the nation and society.
In this context, and to get out of this sectarian catastrophe, two parallel paths can be taken: the first is gradual, and the other is radical. The phased approach represents the emergence of a social scientific movement, which aims to bring sects and nationalities closer, bridge the gap, and establish common denominators to embody the language of general peaceful coexistence. The other (radical) approach is carried out by the national state, through, first , the recognition of sectarian and national pluralism within society as a realistic case; Second : It undertakes the process of separating the sect from the political system, since the political system represents all the people, with all its sects, sects and nationalities, in order to overcome any political, economic, social and criminal differences that may affect the public sphere of the homeland, its unity and stability.
The continued bleeding of Arab and Islamic blood due to sectarian warfare in more than one place makes it imperative for all political and intellectual currents, civil society organizations and clerics to be aware of their historical role to carry out their duty to work to besiege sectarianism, tyranny and dictatorship and prepare the situation and general culture for a civil democratic experiment that begins in a gradual manner that considers kindness And the peaceful approach to changing the reality of oppression and tyranny.
Sources:
[1] Burhan Ghalioun, The Sectarian Issue and the Problem of Minorities , 3rd Edition (Doha: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2012), p. 13.
[2] Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abi al-Karam ibn al-Atheer al-Jazari, al- Kamil fi al-Tarikh, investigated by Abu al-Fida Abdullah al-Qadi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1987), volume 7, pp. 113-114.
[3] Al-Muwaffaq bin Ahmad Al-Makki, The Virtue of Imam Abu Hanifa (Hyderabad, India: Majlis Al-Maarif Al-Nizamiyah, 1321 AH/1904AD), vol. 1, p. 170.
[4] Khaldoun Al-Naqeeb, The Tribe Struggle and Democracy: The Case of Kuwait (Beirut: Dar Al-Saqi, 1996), p. 19.
[5] Abdelilah Belkeziz, State and Society: Dialectics of Unification and Division in Contemporary Arab Sociology (Beirut: The Arab Network for Research and Publishing, 2008), pp. 131-135.
[6] Ibid., pp. 155-156.
[7] Salim al-Hoss, We and Taifiyyah (Beirut: Publications Company for Distribution and Publishing, 2003), p. 15.
[8] Amin Maalouf, Killer Identities , translated by Nahla Beydoun, 3rd Edition (Beirut: Dar Al-Farabi, 2015), p. 43.
[9] Halim Barakat, Arab Society in the Twentieth Century: Research on Changing Conditions and Relations (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2000), p. 488.
[10] Quoted from: Abdullah Laroui, The Concept of the State , 9th Edition (Casablanca: Arab Cultural Center, 2011), p. 196.
[11] Kazem Shabib, The Sectarian Issue: Multiple Identities in the One State (Beirut: Dar Al-Tanweer for Printing, Publishing and Distribution, 2011), p. 154.
[12] Toby Mathiesen, The Sectarian Gulf and the Arab Spring that Never Happened , translated by Amin Al-Ayoubi (Beirut: The Arab Network for Research and Publishing, 2014), p. 21.
[13] Abdelilah Belkeziz, “Introduction”, in: Abdel-Hussein Shaaban [and others], Sectarianism, Tolerance and Transitional Justice: From Sedition to the State of Law , edited and presented by Abdelilah Belkeziz, The Arab Future Book Series; 66 (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2013), p. 11.
[14] Edgar Moran, The Approach: The Humanity of Humanity – Human Identity , translated by Hana Sobhi (Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, 2009), p. 82.
[15] Ali Asaad Watfa, “The Problem of Identity and Belonging in Contemporary Arab Societies,” in: Ali Asaad Watfa [and others], Identity and its issues in contemporary Arab consciousness , edited and presented by Riyad Zaki Qassem, Arab Future Books series; 68 (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2013), p. 159.
[16] Abdelilah Belkeziz, “Introduction,” in: Shaaban [and others], Sectarianism, Tolerance and Transitional Justice: From Sedition to the State of Law , p. 17.
[17] Abdul-Hussein Shaaban, “Transitional Justice: Arab Approaches to the International Experience,” in: Shaaban [and others], Sectarianism, Tolerance and Transitional Justice: From Sedition to the State of Law , pp. 164-165.
[18] Burhan Ghalioun, “The Struggle for the State,” in: Burhan Ghalioun [and others], The State’s Predicament between Islamists and Liberals , edited by Moataz Al-Khatib (Cairo: Madbouly Library, 2010), pp. 49-50.
[19] Ibid., pp. 33 and 36.
[20] Hassan bin Musa Al-Saffar, The Sectarian Problem and National Responsibility , 2nd Edition (Beirut: The Arab Spread Foundation; Qatif: Atyaf Publishing and Distribution, 2009), p. 35.
[21] Muhammad Abed Al-Jabri, Democracy and Human Rights, National Culture Series; 26. Issues of Arab Thought; 2 (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1994), p. 59.
[22] Khalil Arzouni, The Abolition of Sectarianism in Lebanon and the Separation of Sects from the State: A Study in Social History (Beirut: [Dr. N.], 1997), p. 172.
[23] Hassan al-Turabi, On Political Jurisprudence: Approaches to Rooting Islamic Political Thought (Beirut: Arab House of Science – Publishers, 2010), p. 94.
[24] Shabib, The Sectarian Issue: Multiple Identities in One State , p. 386.
[25] Rashid Ghannouchi, “Religion and the State in Islamic Fundamentals and Contemporary Ijtihad,” a paper submitted to: Religion and State in the Arab World: Research and Discussions of the Intellectual Symposium organized by the Center for Arab Unity Studies in cooperation with the Swedish Institute in Alexandria (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2013) ), p. 106.
(*) This study was published in the Arab Future magazine, issue 519, in May 2022.
(**) Abdul Qawi Hassan: Ph.D. in Islamic Political Thought.
Email: a_hassanyemen@yahoo.com
