Egypt: Attack On Shia Comes At Dangerous Time

Four Egyptian men were beaten to death by a howling mob near Cairo this week. Why? Because they were Shia Muslims.

Ultra-radical Sunni Muslim Salafist sheiks led the mob which fell upon houses owned by Egyptian Shias who were celebrating a religious festival in the village of Zawyat Abu Musalam. 

When some local men saw a Shia preacher arrive in the neighbourhood, they began chanting: "The Shia are here!"

Within half an hour up to 3,000 people had gathered, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Several hundred men broke into the houses, dragged out the occupants and beat them with sticks and rocks before stabbing some.

Black-robed women stood by chanting and urging them on.

Women and children inside the houses were injured as the mob threw rocks into the houses and then attempted to start a fire while chanting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") and calling the Shia "infidels".

At least one man's body was tied to a rope and dragged around the streets.

There was limited intervention by the police.

Most Egyptians were horrified at the attack and people in the village interviewed by reporters in the aftermath denounced the violence as un-Islamic.

However, even as President Mohamed Morsi condemned the attacks, many Salafist groups took to social media - not to hang their heads in shame, but to boast about the murders and vow to commit more.

So far, so Klu Klux Salafi, but this attack did not come out of nowhere.

It emerged from dog whistle politics, the fascistic bent of the extremist Sunni factions, and arguably, out of the Egyptian constitution.

There have been weeks of sectarian incitement by the Sunni clerical TV shock jocks who dominate many popular Egyptian talk shows.

The open rhetoric against the Shia has been magnified by the sectarian struggle in Syria, but has long been under the surface.

This month, in the region around the village, Friday sermons in some mosques denigrated the Shia, and pamphlets were distributed calling for their expulsion. There are about 40 Shia families in the district.

There are, at most, about three million Egyptian Shia, out of a population of 85 million people.

Apart from the 10 million or so Christians almost all the rest of the population is Sunni. The small Baha'i minority are not recognised as a religious group.

The current constitution, drafted by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, changed the law regarding religion.

Whereas previously it stated "Islam is the religion of the State" and ended there, now it says: "Islam is the religion of the state … and interpreting Sharia should be based on eminent sources of Ahl al Sunna wal Jamaa."

This means that the law should be interpreted by Sunni scholars and traditions. That effectively means the constitution says Egypt is a Sunni Muslim state.

The Salafists, and the Brotherhood, are sectarian. To them, not all people are equal.

Firstly men are superior to women in some aspects of law, and secondly they believe the Sunni version of Islam is superior to the Shia.

They view opponents as Shia, Christian, or even as unbelievers.

Political ideas, liberalism, even economics, are less important to them than if someone is of a particular religious bent.

The attack on the Shia, which follow the murders of almost 60 Christians over the past two years, comes at a particularly tense time and amid an ever worsening economic crisis.

This weekend marks the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Morsi.

His supporters and opponents will be out on the streets in huge numbers. Violence, which is the hallmark of the last two years, appears inevitable.

Related Stories: