The House Divided

‘In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East’, the British author Barnaby Rogerson provides a grand, emotionally powerful, and historically detailed narrative of the split that has defined the Islamic world for more than fourteen centuries.

Spanning a range of space from the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) home to the contemporary crises in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya, Rogerson’s book is both a history of break and a summons to introspection.

The book begins not with politics or war, but with the domestic rhythms of the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) home life. We meet Muezza, the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) pet cat; Kuswa, the camel that picked out the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) sleeping spot in Medina; and Duldul, the off-white mule. They remind us that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lived simply, avoiding luxury and enunciating a paradigm of piety and humility that would be later challenged by Islamic empires and Muslim dynasties.

Rogerson charts the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) flight from Mecca to Medina in midsummer of 622 CE - Hijrah - designating June 16 as the day of flight. The Hijri calendar proper, we are reminded, was codified by Caliph Umar in 639 CE, seventeen years following the Hijrah. The Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) ancestry is looked into with sensitivity: born of the Bani Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, his maternal origins were in Medina through Amina (RA), and great-grandmother Salma bint Amr of the Beni Nazzar clan.

The initial battles - Badr (624), Uhud (625), and the Battle of the Trench (627) - are related along with the Truce of Hudaybiyyah (628), written by Ali ibn Talib (RA). The Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) re-entry into Mecca in 628 - accompanied by 10,000 Muslims - is not only presented as a military victory but as an exercise in moral power.

Rogerson gives much attention to the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) family. Between 595 and 619, he was wedded only to Khadija (RA), and subsequently to Aisha (RA), who memorised 2,210 hadiths and died in 678 CE. Hafsa (RA), Umar (RA)’s daughter, also became his wife. The Prophet’s (PBUH) strong love for his cousin Ali (RA) - who grew up in his home from the age of five - is drawn with affection. Ali (RA), the first man to embrace Islam, was raised surrounded by revelation, seeing the Qur’an grow from its initial verses to a full scripture.

The deaths of Abu Talib and Khadija (RA) in 619 were a year of grief. Ali (RA) went on to marry Fatima (RA), and Hassan (AS) and Hussain (AS), sons of Ali (RA), were born in 625 and 626, respectively. The death of the Prophet (PBUH) in May 632 precipitated the most significant succession crisis in Islamic history.

‘In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East’ (Hachette India) is not afraid to tackle the controversies. The selection of Abu Bakr (RA) as the first caliph, his sermon, and the subsequent caliphates of Umar (RA) (634–644), Uthman (RA) (644–656), and Ali (RA) (656–661) are examined with nuance.

Ali’s assassination in 661 and the rise of Muawiya (661–680) mark the formalisation of the Sunni-Shia divide. Imam Hassan (AS), the peacemaker and visionary, made Hajj 25 times and had a truce with Muawiya before he died in 670.

Karbala is the moment of breach, though. On October 9, 680, Imam Hussain (RA), the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) grandson, fought 4,000 soldiers with 72 companions. His martyrdom today in Iraq is not merely a piece of history, but a moral turning point around which so much of Shia identity.

The virtue of Rogerson’s book is its ability to link these early occurrences to Islam’s intellectual and political development. The author refers to the figure of Jafar al-Sadiq (702–765), the sixth Shia Imam and a great-grandson of Abu Bakr, as a sectarian unifier. Declining political office from the Abbasids, Jafar al-Sadiq opted for the life of scholarship, gaining respect beyond sectarian boundaries.

The Abbasid era (750–1500) is that of a golden age of scholarship. With 4,000 scholars working on Arabic grammar and the use of ink and paper to preserve knowledge, this era saw the rise of jurists like Imam Malik, Abu Hanifa, Al-Shafi’i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal - all contemporaries of Jafar al-Sadiq.

The Fatimids, Qaramatians, and Buyids - three Shia-led dynasties - are praised for their tolerance and cultural patronage. The Fatimids founded Al-Azhar University, a beacon of Islamic learning to this day.

The Seljuks, founded on Turkish origins, institutionalised Islamic scholarship via madrassas such as Al-Nizamiyah and Al-Mustansiriyah, the latter remaining at the heart of Baghdad’s scholarly life.

However, this intellectual growth was not invulnerable to disaster. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258, which Rumi (1207–1273) witnessed, represented a civilisational break. Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), who wrote in the aftermath of Mongol destruction, fashioned a theology influenced by siege and survival. He remained a bachelor and passed away in prison.

The Sunni-Shia divide, according to Rogerson, did not come to an end at Karbala. It went on through the Ottoman-Safavid competition, leading to the Battle of Chaldiran between Sultan Selim and Shah Ismail. Rogerson terms it one of the most momentous battles in world history.

The Ottomans, who won, drew rigid theological and political frontiers that remain in place today and characterise contemporary Turkey and Iran. Still, even within the Safavid dynasty, individuals such as Nadir Shah present themselves as a voice of unity, while Ibn Abdul Wahhab travelled to Basra during his reign, prefiguring the ferment of ideas that would come.

Rogerson’s story next follows the emergence of Wahhabi Arabia. Originating in 1744, with Riyadh founded in 1773, the Wahhabist movement questioned the authority of the Ottoman Caliphate. In 1802, the Wahhabis plundered the Kaaba and slew Muslims; by 1805, they had occupied Mecca and Medina. The Ottomans, through their Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali, recovered the holy cities in 1811.

The book’s fourth section, entitled “Colonial Night”, traces the coming of European imperialism. Rogerson enumerates the pillagers in turn: Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, and then the British and Russians. The disunity of the Islamic world, he contends, exposed it to colonial conquest.

The Zionist movement is also analysed in this context. Muslim disunity, according to Rogerson, allowed for the conquest of Palestine. The contemporary implications are grim: 58 per cent of the world’s refugees of today are from the Middle East, a land that contains only 5 per cent of humanity.

The book concludes by connecting the ancient division to contemporary convulsions - the Arab Spring, Yemen, Syrian, Iraqi, and Libyan civil wars - all aftershocks of a house continuing to be divided. The exclusion of Shias from Samarra and Sunnis from Basra are not singular events but resonances of a profound, still-unhealed fissure.

Tailpiece

‘The House Divided’ is a magisterial work - half history, half lament, half call to conscience. Rogerson is given to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) with reverence, to the oppressed with compassion, and to the forces - the internal and the external - shaping the Islamic world with clarity. For historians, theologians, and geopolitical analysts, this book is not only a recommendation but a necessity.

Daanish Bin Nabi is a New Delhi-based journalist with a Master’s degree in International Peace and Conflict Studies