Surah 30 · Verse 32

[30:32] The clerics who introduce this imam's sect or that imam's sect as God's system are convicted with this verse. History bears witness that professional religious leaders are the most ardent enemies of God and monotheism. Each messenger or prophet, found the greatest opposition to their message from the religious leaders of their time. See 23:53. Prophet Muhammed was neither Sunni nor Shiite. He was a monotheist, a muslim, a peacemaker, a peaceful submitter to God alone. All other prophets and messengers before him were also monotheists and muslims. All monotheists, starting from Adam until the end of the world, belong to one group. The Quran strictly condemns sectarian division and tells us that power struggle and idol-worship as the source of sectarian division (6:153-159; 98:4; 21:92; 23:52; 2:285). The sectarian division came after the departure of the prophet Muhammed. Mostly, out of tribal and political division. When there was a power struggle between Ali, Muhammed's son-in-law, and Uthman, Muhammed's father-in-law, people were divided. Uthman was a weak leader, and unfortunately history shows that he was favoring his tribe (Umayyad) and hiring them to key government positions. This corruption created resentment in other tribes and resurrected the tribal conflict that was almost eradicated by the light of the Quran. After Uthman, though Ali was elected as the fourth Caliph (president), soon he was assassinated. Ali ruled only for two years. The division among tribes turned to a bloody strife. There were basically two parties. The party who supported Ali and his two sons, Hassan and Hussain, and those who sided with the Umayyad dynasty. The former, started calling themselves Shiite of Ali (Ali's Party) and the later, which was joined by some former Ali supporters, called themselves Ahl-i Sunna (Followers of Tradition). The history of sectarian conflict is a horrible power struggle. The Ummayads turned the federally secular republican that was established by the prophet Muhammed in Yathrib (today's Medina) into a theocratic monarchy. The kingdom of Umayyad committed many atrocities. The most memorable one is their massacre in Karbala; they killed Muhammed's grandson Hussain with his 72 supporters in a dessert near Baghdad. The division between the Shiite and Ahl-i Sunna grew and transformed into religious and theological matters. Here I will focus on Shiite, since we have numerous times referred to Sunni sects and their distortions. The early Shiites were generally righteous people. They were against nepotism, tribalism and corruption. However, the following generation went to extreme and lost the original noble goal. They turned to a cult who identified themselves with Ali and his descendants and they started worshiping them by giving them authority in designing and defining God's religion. Their clergymen fabricated doctrines thereby sanctifying the descendants of the Prophet Muhammed; they claimed infallibility for the descendants of Muhammed through Ali and Fatima. Volumes of false stories were fabricated to promote this cult. God was no more the focus. Instead, the so-called imam-i masumin (innocent imams), became the focus. Shiite mosques display the names of those twelve idols and Muhammed besides God's name. Little bricks made of dirt from Karbala is used to put one's forehead on during sala prayers. Some pricks contain inscriptions with the names of their idols besides God: Allah, Muhammed, Ali, Fatima, Hassan and Hussein. Sunni mosques, on the other hand, display the names of five (four Caliphs and Muhammed) or seven (four Caliphs plus Hassan and Hussain plus Muhammed) idols besides God's name. The fight between the sects boils down over the non-common idols, as it is the case between Protestants and Catholics. Shiite clerics distorted the meaning of some verses, such as the meaning of 42:23 to establish authority besides God for the descendants of Prophet Muhammed. In Iran now there are thousands of mullahs with black turbans claiming and enjoying this privilege. After the disappearance (the death) of the 12th Imam in a lost battle with the Sunnite faction, Shiite scholars fabricated stories around his disappearance. He was not dead according to those stories, but he was alive somewhere in a cave. When the right time comes he would return to lead Shiites to an ultimate victory against Sunnis. This story which was initially fabricated to preserve the spirits of the Shiite party, turned into a mythology with the passing of time. Despite centuries, the members of the Shiite cult are still waiting for the return of their 12th imam, the imam who went into hiding in a cave after he lost the battle! Researchers can easily trace the source of this mythology to the teaching of St. Paul who made up a story about the return of Jesus Christ. Denying the death of leaders is a cult syndrome and is one of the signs of idol worshipers; they cannot survive without their idols. The followers of the Shiite sect developed tact of survival under the oppression of Sunni rulers. This tactic is known as "taqiyya" (hiding one's faith). Shiite clergymen distorted the meaning of 3:28 which permitted believers to hide their faith when they were weak and threatened by their enemy. They broadened this permission and turned it to a lifestyle. Furthermore, they turned this permission to an obligation. Throughout history, the followers of Shiite sect developed a hypocritical religious life even there was no compelling reason to do so. Waiting for the return of 12th imam coupled with this religious mask (taqiyya) turned the Shiite masses to obedient constituencies. They survived under Sunni and oppressive Sultans, Kings and Shahs with no claim for religious governance. However, Ayatullah Khomaini, a charismatic leader, modified this traditional belief. He claimed that even in the absence of the 12th Imam, his substitute could still act and fight against the enemy. With several other minor theological tinkering he released the long locked anger into demonstrations against Reza Shah's corrupt and oppressive regime. The taqiyya erupted like a volcano. Unfortunately, the revolution did not live up to its promises regarding freedom and justice; it devolved into another corrupt and oppressive system. The ousted Shah was replaced by an infallible mullah, the Velayet-i Faqih, with much greater authority: in the name of revolution, in the name of imams, in the name of the lost imam, and in the name of God. The monarchy turned into a mollarchy! As for the Sunnis, they also fabricated many hadiths to justify their history filled with corruption and injustice. They even justified the atrocities of Umayyad dynasty by choosing silence over the early conflicts between Ali and Uthman and later Muawiya. They fabricated religious amnesty and immunity for every corrupt and cruel sahaba (Muhammed's comrades) or tabeen (the comrades of those comrades). Even the drunken murderer of prophet's grandson, Yazid, the governor of Damascus, was given religious immunity against criticism. You can find many similarities and differences between Sunni and Shiite sects. In fact, there are more than a dozen Shiite sub-sects which they differ greatly in religious matters and there are dozens of Sunnite sub-sects which also differ significantly. Nevertheless, today only four Sunni sects and a few Shiite sects survive. Their common characteristic is that all hate to accept God's word alone as their religious guide and invoke the names of saints and intercessors in their prayers. They all follow conjecture and fabricated sectarian hadiths to justify their dogmas, complicated rituals and backward practices.