Pan-Islamic Unity (Shia and Sunni discourse)

http://www.hudson.org/research/9859-the-dilemmas-of-pan-islamic-unity-
"The Brotherhood’s origins may in fact be traced back to a Shiite cleric. The Persian activist-intellectual Said Jamal Assadabadi, who is perhaps more widely known today as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, was a key architect of the first wave of religious revivalism that swept across the Sunni world during the latter part of the 19h Century."

"Indeed, the Islamic paradigm of pre-revolutionary Iran was profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as by kindred Sunni movements such as the Indo-Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami and its founder SayyedAbul Aala Maududi.² In this way, Sunni revivalist ideology helped pave the way for the 1979 Iranian revolution that culminated in Shiite Islamism’s greatest achievement: the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

"Shiite tradition recognizes these Imams as having had a special connection to God, and their knowledge of Islam is believed to be infallible. Indeed, to many Shiites, the hadith, or recorded sayings and traditions of these twelve Imams, carry the same legal and theological weight as the Prophet’s hadith. Some Shiite scholars even equate the Imams’ hadith to the Quran. This view, which is scandalous to many Sunnis, maintains that the early Imams had the authority to interpret the Quran and to reveal its hidden sense. This is the case even if, Shiites insist, an Imam’s interpretation appears to be in conflict with the generally accepted apparent meaning of the Quran."

"One of Shiite Islamism’s most important founding fathers was a young cleric named Sayyed Mujtaba Mir Lowhi, also known as Navab Safavi (1924-1955). Safavi established a group called Fadaian-e Islam, or the “Devotees of Islam,” which led a popular movement against the Shah’s regime, and against the perceived corruptions of Iranian society from 1945 and 1955 that included a string of political assassinations. Like the early Brotherhood, the Fadaian-e Islam believed in a pan-Islamic ideology of religious purification and political revival. They rejected nationalistic ideology as inherently un-Islamic, and held that revivalist Shiites and Sunnis should unify in the face of Islam’s enemies, and struggle to repel modernity and its ideas from Islamic lands."

"In his autobiography, Ali Khamenei says that he entered into the world of politics under the influence of Navvab Safavi. Today’s Supreme Leader himself became an early champion and translator of the works of the Brotherhood intellectual, Said Qutb."

"Had it not been for Fadaian-e Islam’s early sympathetic support of the Muslim Brotherhood, many of the philosophical writings of the Muslim Brotherhood might never have been as influential in Iran. But a massive process of translating Sunni revivalist authors from Arabic to Persian started less than a decade after Safavi’s execution. In addition to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s translations of Said Qutb, other Brotherhood revivalists—including Said’s brother, Mohammad Qutb—were also extensively translated into Persian. Besides the works of these Egyptian writers, the main writings of Abul Ala Mawdudi and other Pakistani and Indian Islamists were translated into Persian at around the same time. These books became the main source of nourishment for Iranian militant clerics’ sermons and writings during the pre-revolution era."

"Iran’s revolutionary generation discovered in the works of the Brotherhood a new conceptual apparatus that permitted them to both reject the sources of traditional Shiite authority and to elaborate a new Islamic ideology that aimed at being fully competitive with secular and modernist ideologies. Among other things, the Brotherhood’s writings provided enticing depictions of a militant Islam that sought political power, the implementation of the sharia, and resistance against the West and communism that helped shape the political rhetoric of Iran’s revolutionary era. But the Brotherhood thinkers also supplied theoretical nourishment for the development of a uniquely Shiite theory of the Islamic state. In fact, Ayatollah Khomeini’s own theory of Islamic government, or “the Guardianship of Jurist” (vilayat-e-faqih), was elaborated under the influence of Rashid Rida’s Al-Imamat al-Uzma va al-Khilafat al-kubra, in which Rida theorized about the construction of an Islamic government ruled by Muslim jurists."

"Gradually, however, under the influence of Rashid Rida (who was more influenced by Wahhabi ideology than was his teacher, Abduh) and Said Qutb, Arabian Sunni revivalism began to exhibit some anti-Shiite leanings."

Conclusion

"Despite their common sources in modern reformism and decades of efforts by both Sunni and Shiite clerics to peel away their traditional differences, problems inevitably arise when one of these branches of Islamism exercises power. These problems emerge, in part, from a basic ideological contradiction within some strands of Islamism between the ideals of pan-Islamic unity and the principle that Islamism’s primary goal is to implement the sharia. Since the latter goal requires seeking guidance and a model from the schools of traditional jurisprudence, efforts to implement the sharia inevitably reflect an exclusivist or religiously partisan character."