Shiism in Tunisia: Reading the reality of the doctrine between cultural practice and political affiliation
The issue of Shiism in Tunisia raises, in the minds of a number of researchers, many points related to sectarian pluralism in religion, and others related to the issue of employing religion in political work and investing its presence, and the impact of its adherents on the local environment, especially in light of the stages of emptiness and transformations that societies go through during Revolutions, which lead to the fragility of the institutional structures in the state.
To this end, the study of the phenomenon of Shiism in Tunisia, in general, and what happened after the year 2011, acquires remarkable importance, especially since the matter coincided with the transformation of the pattern of Shiism towards the Twelver sect, which raised a number of points that seek to resolve the conflict between The religious and political situation towards the Shiite situation in Tunisia, and the extent to which this is exploited politically, in addition to testing the positioning of this, as it is a limited elite cultural case, whose activity does not represent any links in the political matter.
A number of researchers say that on the internal level in Tunisia, the Shiites did not aspire to any political activity before the revolution, and they did not have apparent orientations towards the political and social conditions during the era of the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but after 2011 they were divided into (3) ) difference; The first saw the necessity of political involvement in the scene, and another saw that there was no need to go through the cycle of politics, and a third party insisted that the Tunisian Shiites are already active in a number of existing parties, such as: Ennahda Movement, Nidaa Tounes, the Popular Front, and others.
Bassam El-Gamal: Shiism in Tunisia passed through three stages. "Sentimental and Political Shiism," "Social Shiism," and "Twelver Shiism."
Opponents of political participation justified their position by the failure of the Tunisian revolution to achieve all its goals, even if it overthrew the ruling regime, and therefore it was not useful to engage in politics. Instead, this group preferred to focus on the cultural and doctrinal composition of the Tunisian Shiites. Through the establishment of a number of Shiite religious libraries and culturally active associations.
In addition to these non-partisan bodies and organizations, Shiite leaders interested in political participation began to move to establish parties, as two political parties emerged that took the Shiite authority as their basis. The first is the “Tunisian Hezbollah,” which was founded in October 2011 by Saif al-Din al-Ajili, but it did not obtain legal approval for its political practice. As for the second, it is the “Unity Party,” which was founded in late January 2013. It is a Shiite party, but it does not disclose that. The party calls for the need to establish freedom of belief and the practice of religious rites, and stresses the need for the official religious institution to adhere to neutrality between all Islamic sects and opinions, provided that this is clearly stated in the constitution. The Unity Party participated in the 2014 legislative elections, but it did not win any seats.
In this context, the Tunisian academic Salah al-Din al-Amiri recently published his book, which came under the title “Shi’ism in the Tunisian Country, A Study of Origins and Transformations.” The book was published by the publishing house of Believers Without Borders, and Dr. Bassam al-Jamal, Professor of Higher Education at the College of Arts and Sciences, presented it to him. humanity.
In his introduction, Al-Jamal went about saying that the author Salah Al-Din Al-Amiri established proof in his book that Shiism in Tunisia went through stages (3); They are: "Sentimental and Political Shi'ism" first, "Social Shi'ism" second, and "Twelver Shi'ism" third. The author was aware that the news of the Islamic heritage on the subject of Shiism produced a discourse that expressed religious truths among its producers, promoters and consumers. Hence, the researcher deals with historical representations in which several considerations overlapped in their formulation. Among them: the culture of the news producer and narrator, sectarian affiliation, the prevailing political and social conditions, the nature of knowledge in a specific cultural context, the expectations of the acceptors and their mental horizons. All of this justifies the author's use of phrases such as "conscious and unconscious representations" and "the manufacture of lost history."
Pure cultural activity
Bassam al-Jamal adds in another place during his presentation of the book by saying: Perhaps one of the most important chapters of the book is the one in which the author examines the situation of the Shiites in Tunisia after the “movement” or “revolution” of the seventeenth of December 2010, because the author relied on testimonies historical, and interviews he conducted himself with a number of contemporary Tunisian Shiites, regarding the difficulties and obstacles in this methodological choice, due to what surrounds the issue of Shiites .In Tunisia today, there is a great deal of secrecy, which was further strengthened by the article “Al-Taqiyyah” of the Twelver Imams. Thanks to these testimonies and interviews, it was possible to make comparisons between them, which helped the researcher draw a map of Shiism in Tunisia, in terms of the geographical distribution of the Shiites, their residence in a number of Tunisian cities on the one hand, and the number of Tunisian Shiites, albeit by way of approximation and weighting, on the other. Perhaps the reader will be surprised when the author of the book, Salah al-Din al-Amiri informs him that there are Husseiniyat in Tunisia today, in which Shiite celebrations are held. These hussainiyas saw the author of the book as an extension of the corner. It was confirmed to him that the activity of the Tunisian Shiites today is purely cultural, and is not linked to the political issue by any link.
The impact of the Iranian revolution
The author devotes the third chapter of the book to Shiism in the Twelver doctrinal intellectual sense. His beginnings were in the sixties, with Al-Tijani Al-Samawi, individually, but he believed that the actual beginning was with the success of the Iranian revolution in 1979 AD. The revolution and its leader were tempted by a side of the Islamists in Tunisia, and they rushed after it in two forms: the first form with praise and praise to the extent of allegiance by some symbols of Sunni thought. The second form took place with the declaration of breaking away from the Sunni sect and embracing the Shiite sect, by a number of members of the Islamic trend, such as: Embark Baadash, Muhammad al-Rusafi al-Miqdad, Imad al-Din al-Hamrouni and others.
The author of the book: There are hussainiyyas in Tunisia today in which Shiite celebrations are held, and they are an extension of the zawiya.
Al-Amiri continues by noting that Twelver Shiism in Tunisia has witnessed a rapid decline, despite the efforts of the "Muslims Walking in the Imam's Line" group, due to the lack of social response and the strict political restrictions imposed by the authority on all Islamic currents, in the eighties of the last century. However, it reappeared after the military achievements of the Lebanese Hezbollah in the year 2000 AD, and with a direct influence from the personality of its Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah.
Sympathy or Sympathy?
Despite the adoption of the contemporary Shiite ideology by the Tunisian Twelvers, they do not show total discipline to its principles, and they remain drawn to the Tunisian religious mentality at the level of practice, given that the majority of them do not adhere to issues characteristic of the Shiite Muslim, such as: imitating the religious authority in theoretical and practical issues regarding fasting and breaking the fast, and paying the fifth. , and how to revive Shiite events and other missing details.
These data make it easier for the researcher to classify Tunisian Shiites among those sympathetic to the Shiite sect, rather than being ideological Shiites, even if some of them were keen to show their doctrinal Shiites. It is known that the contemporary Twelver Shiism is dominated by a political character , but the Tunisian Shiites engage in it as a cultural trend that has a fundamentally jurisprudential nature. It seemed to the researcher, through his interviews with them, that a number of them are drawn to reading ancient Islamic history, in a form and contents that differ from what they initially accepted from Sunni sources. One of the reasons for the lack of harmony between the Shiite Tunisians and the Twelver system is that Shiism remains individual cases isolated from each other, for social and security reasons. This situation means that it is difficult to talk about a Shiite group in Tunisia in the sociological sense, or about a sect in the religious and sectarian sense.
The author of the book draws towards a methodological note, which he considered worthy of mention, when he said: “What we have expended in digging into the contemporary Shiite situation in Tunisia, we do not consider it to be final results, but rather we consider it an important building block in this context that accepts modification and revision with every incident.” Or a discovery”, and this is natural because of the secrecy that accompanied the emergence, emergence and communication of this experience.
Between political Shiism and sectarian Shiism
On the other hand, the Tunisian academic Abdullah Janouf goes on to say: There is a distinction in Tunisia between “political Shiism” and sectarian Shiism, as the first arose in two contexts: the Iranian revolution, and the activity of the Islamic trend in the university.
As for the Iranian revolution, the Islamic movement in Tunisia supported and defended it, and considered it an Islamic revolution, and was influenced by the ideological side of it, in the case that it interpreted Islam in a political way, and used it in confronting political opponents. This appears in the goals of the revolution, as summarized by the leader of the Ennahda Movement, Rashid Ghannouchi at the time, namely, "fighting tyranny," fighting class differences," "fighting political dependence on global imperialism," and "liberating Iranian society from the fluid colonial culture." Only one goal pertains to Iranian society, and it was associated with the "fluid colonial culture", which the Islamists believe has invaded their country and that they are tasked with confronting it.
As for the other goals; It can be applied in all Islamic societies. This means that the Iranian revolution was an example for the Islamists that could be measured against, and that it alerted them to the ability of Islam to lead revolutions to overthrow tyranny, and gave them strong hope that the “Islamic Awakening” would succeed in leading the “civilizational project” that they were talking about, and generated admiration in them. With religious leadership and popular patience.
As for the activity of the Islamic trend in the university, what is meant is what happened in the late seventies and early eighties, and the Tunisian university at that time was an arena for an ideological struggle between leftists, nationalists, and Islamists. Leftist students were benefiting from Arab and Western philosophical studies, in their arguments with the Islamists, whose books of the Brotherhood and "Sunni" religious books in general were the source of their culture. There was no answer to every question. The answer was found in the books of Shiite authors. The most famous of them: Ali Shariati, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and Jalal al-Din al-Farsi. Then the students and students circulated the books of Morteza Motahhari, Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Hadi Al-Modaresi, Muhammad Taqi Al-Modaresi, and Muhammad Hussein Al-Tabatabaei. Within the framework of the work of the Islamic trend, a Shi'ite Islamic movement called "Students of the Imam's Line" arose.In Iran in November 1979. In these two contexts, what is known in Tunisia as political Shiism was formed, which is a pro-Iranian political stance that is not based on a Shiite religious belief.
Source : websites