A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

36 A history of Inner Asia
Ayatullah Khomeini – but it never really succeeded in Inner Asia.The
two denominations were almost identical in those matters that concerned
the temporal and ritualistic aspect of Islam.Even the crucial
matter of legitimacy of rule caused less conflict than the Shii claim
might have seemed likely to engender: for life under Sunni rulers, considered
usurpers by the Shiites, was made possible by the role of the
hidden imam who lives concealed among the faithful but will appear as
the messianic mahdi or qaim only at the time of his choice to lead
mankind to ultimate salvation.This hidden mahdi is the twelfth of the
imams from Ali to Muhammad – not the Prophet but his descendant –
in the “Ithna-Ashariya” or “Twelver” Shia, the largest of the three principal
denominations of Shii Islam, since the sixteenth century dominant
mainly in Iran.This doctrine freed the faithful from the duty of armed
struggle against Sunni usurpation, and the Sunni rulers from the burden
of suspecting or suppressing unceasing uprisings; by the same token,
sovereigns of the Shii persuasion could rule without being accused of
themselves usurping the reign from the rightful imam, because it is he
who has not yet chosen to make his appearance.To be sure, bitter
conflicts and bloody wars between Sunnites and Shiites did at times
ravage parts of the Dar al-Islam, that is, the lands under Islamic rule.
Moreover, another kind of cleavage between Sunni and Shii Islam could
hardly be overemphasized: that of religious focus.Whereas the Sunnites
expected immediate benefits and ultimate salvation from performing the
basic duties prescribed by the Koran and the sharia (Islamic law), the
Shiites, although as a rule not negating their importance, relied more on
intercession by the imams, one or more members of the Ahl al-Bayt, the
Prophet’s family.This reliance could reach a degree at which the intercessors
assumed a considerable portion of divinity: in other words, the
imams, especially Ali and even more his grandson Husayn, rather than
the majestic but distant God, became the main objects of worship and
expectations.Even these towering figures with dynastic credentials gradually
had to cede some of their status to other descendants of the
Prophet, who were proliferating all over the Islamic world, with their
tombs as so many places of worship and pilgrimage bringing comfort to
the crowds of the humble believers in the intimate and immediate way
that an abstract God or a universal imam could not.These descendants
of the Prophet were usually known by the epithet of sayyid (literally,
“chief ”), a title that has remained a mark of distinction to this day.
Nevertheless, even the Sunni Muslims eventually began to feel the
need of bridging the chasm separating them from the austere God of the