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ISLAMIC ECUMENISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL STUDIES OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA (S.E.P.S.M.E.A.) (Founding editor: C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze) Editor REINHARD SCHULZE Advisory Board Dale Eickelman (Dartmouth College) Roger Owen (Harvard University) Judith Tucker (Georgetown University) Yann Richard (Sorbonne Nouvelle) VOLUME 91 ISLAMIC ECUMENISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY The Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint BY RAINER BRUNNER TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JOSEPH GREENMAN REVISED AND UPDATED BY THE AUTHOR BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2004 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 1385-3376 ISBN 90 04 12548 5 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands The past is never dead. It’s not even past. William Faulkner: Requiem for a Nun Once under such a bush he saw the war of the ants. He instantly knew the cause of the war and the nature of the parties. The red ants, whose bite (he had been told) was slightly poisonous, were Sunnis, the party among Muslims that rejected the claim of the descendants of Ali, and they were attacking the black ants, who were obviously Shiah, since black as well as green was a color worn by people like Ali Hashemi’s father who claimed descent from Ali. He remembers admiring the black ants for the justness of their cause and their individual heroism; but as the battle continued, he began to admire the orderliness and steadiness of the slower-moving red ants. As far as he could tell, neither side won. Roy Mottahedeh: The Mantle of the Prophet CONTENTS Translator’s Note ........................................................................ Acknowledgements ...................................................................... ix xi Introduction: The Dispute About the “Correct” History ...... 1 I. First Attempts at Resolving the Conflict ...................... 25 II. The Azhar Reform and Shiism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century .................................................... 45 III. A Controversial Correspondence (1911/36) .................. 51 IV. Caliphate and Ecumene (1924–1939) ............................ 82 The abolition of the caliphate (82)—Jerusalem 1931 and its aftermath (88)—The involvement of the Azhar (103) V. The Institutionalisation of Ecumenical Thinking .......... 121 Precursors (121)—Foundation and structure of the Jamà'at altaqrìb (129)—Publishing and editorial activity (143) VI. The Scholarly Network of the Taqrìb Movement (1947–1960) ...................................................................... 153 Sunnis (155)—Shiites (187) VII. Scope and Limits of the Ecumenical Debate ................ 208 On the uses and disadvantages of history for ecumenical thinking (208)—bi-llatì hiya a˙san? Standardized arguments and stereotypes (228) VIII. Polemics, Rapprochement and Revolutionary Politics (1952–1957) .....................