THE INTRA ISLAM DIVIDE

Our patience came to an end when on the holy day of Ashura, Sunni guns butchered 59 Shiah men, women and children while they were praying in their masjid at Kabul. Incidentally, Ashura in the only day of Muharraam observed by Sunnis, being the day on which Prophet Muhammad fasted . It was the day on which Adam and Eve, heaven and hell, life and death were created by Allah.

Such barabarisim is neither the first nor the last episode of Shiah Sunni slaughter. The first was at Karbala, 50 miles from Baghadad. At a so called battle Al Hussein was killed by the soldiers of the pretender Khalifa Yazid who had usurped the throne upon the death of his father Muawayah. Al Hassan, the grandson of the Prophet was chosen the fifth Khalifa in 661 A.D. upon the murder of his father Hazrat Ali . His magnaniumety led him to step down in favour of the ageing Muawayah, with the understanding of reverting to the throne. But Yazid betrayed the arrangement and went on to destroy Al Hussein and his family in 680

Prime facie, it was stated that the Shiites believed that the Khalifa or the representative of the Prophet on earth should be from the blood line of Muhammad himself as were Hazrat Ali, Imams Hasan and Hussein. The others or the Sunnis felt that anyone who belonged to the Quraish tribe could be chosen the Khalifa.

The Khilafat ruled for nearly 1300 years but from different centres; Mecca 632 to 660, Damascus 660 to 750, Baghdad 750 to 1258, Egypt 1258 to 1517, Istanbul 1517 to 1924. Abdul Majid Efendi was the last Khalifa who was exiled to Paris by Ataturk Kemal Mustafa. Efendi handed over the throne to his grandson by daughter who is also the grandson of the last Nizam of Hyderabad. Although Khalifa Mukarram Jah lives somewhere in Turkey, the Khilafat is now the privilege of an Indian. If only Ghandhiji could be told he would be so delighted since he led the Khilafat movement in 1920.