Ramadan TV Series Stokes Tensions Between Sunni and Shiite Muslims

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/world/middleeast/ramadan-muawiya-series.html ^

[Cronos]

...The series, “Muawiya,” tells the story of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a major figure in early Islam. He was one of Islam’s early rulers and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty — the first hereditary rulers in Islam where power passed down within the same clan. He was also a reputed companion of the Prophet Muhammad.

this chronicles events in seventh century that led to Islam’s first civil war between Sunnis&Shiites.

The show was produced by a media conglomerate in Saudi Arabia, which, like most other Middle Eastern countries, is dominated by Sunnis. Some in Shiite Iran and Iraq, one of the only Arab countries with a Shiite majority, are balking.

...Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan is viewed as a key opponent of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph and a central figure in Shiite Islam.

The Sunni-Shiite divide can be traced back to the year 632 after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The central dispute was over who should lead the Muslim world.

Sunnis wanted leadership to be decided by consensus, leading to the appointment of Abu Bakr as Islam’s first ruler or caliph. Shiites, however, believed that leadership should stay within the prophet’s family, favoring Ali — the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law — as his rightful successor.

Muawiya would play a central role in the first civil war in Islam following the assassination of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan.

After Ali was killed in 661, Muawiya challenged Ali’s son, Hasan, for control of the caliphate. Hasan would later give up his claim to avoid further bloodshed.

The power struggle was central to the Sunni-Shiite split, shaping tensions that still ripple through the Middle East today. The show’s efforts to highlight Muawiya’s legacy have been interpreted by some as a statement in favor of Sunni dominance.

[Cronos]

Mu'awiya and his father Abu Sufyan had opposed Muhammad, their distant Qurayshite kinsman and later Mu'awiya's brother-in-law, until Muhammad captured Mecca in 630. Afterward, Mu'awiya became one of Muhammad's scribes. He was appointed by Caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as a deputy commander in the conquest of Syria. He moved up the ranks through Umar's caliphate (r. 634–644) until becoming governor of Syria during the reign of his Umayyad kinsman, Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656). He allied with the province's powerful Banu Kalb tribe, developed the defenses of its coastal cities, and directed the war effort against the Byzantine Empire, including the first Muslim naval campaigns. In response to Uthman's assassination in 656, Mu'awiya took up the cause of avenging the murdered caliph and opposed the election of Ali. During the First Muslim Civil War, the two led their armies to a stalemate at the Battle of Siffin in 657, prompting an abortive series of arbitration talks to settle the dispute. Afterward, Mu'awiya gained recognition as caliph by his Syrian supporters and his ally Amr ibn al-As, who conquered Egypt from Ali's governor in 658. Following the assassination of Ali in 661, Mu'awiya compelled Ali's son and successor Hasan to abdicate and Mu'awiya's suzerainty was acknowledged throughout the Caliphate.

Domestically, Mu'awiya relied on loyalist Syrian Arab tribes and Syria's Christian-dominated bureaucracy. He is credited with establishing government departments responsible for the postal route, correspondence, and chancellery. He was the first caliph whose name appeared on coins, inscriptions, or documents of the nascent Islamic empire. Externally, he engaged his troops in almost yearly land and sea raids against the Byzantines, including a failed siege of Constantinople. In Iraq and the eastern provinces, he delegated authority to the powerful governors al-Mughira and Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan, the latter of whom he controversially adopted as his brother. Under Mu'awiya's direction, the Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (central North Africa) was launched by the commander Uqba ibn Nafi in 670, while the conquests in Khurasan and Sijistan on the eastern frontier were resumed.

Although Mu'awiya confined the influence of his Umayyad clan to the governorship of Medina, he nominated his own son, Yazid I, as his successor. It was an unprecedented move in Islamic politics and opposition to it by prominent Muslim leaders, including Ali's son Husayn, and Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, persisted after Mu'awiya's death, culminating with the outbreak of the Second Muslim Civil War.

[Ken H]

Wasn’t there a FReeper named Muawiya in the distant past?

[HYPOCRACY]

Nothing that a good old war can’t settle. Have at it boys.

[Uncle Miltie]

Skull crackers gotta crack skulls.

So pre-civilizational.

[BBQToadRibs2]

My fondest wish, is Islam being self terminating.

[Leaning Right]

The worse killers are religious-inspired killers. They cannot be reasoned with. Only brute force matters.

Some of that religious killing occurred in Christianity’s past. Those days are very long gone.

It also occurred in Islam’s past. And it’s occurring in the present. And it will continue into the future. Yet the world chooses not to take notice.

[Cronos]

Sebeos, an Armenian bishop from around 660s to 670s AD records that Muawiya, the governor of Syria and later caliph, sent a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constans II calling on him to renounce Christianity - in favor not of Islam but of a much vaguer Abrahamic monotheism

If you wish to live in peace.. renounce your vain religion, in which you have been brought up since infancy. Renounce this Jesus and convert o the great God whom I serve, the God of our father Abraham.. If not, how will this Jesus whom you call Christ, who was not even able to save himself from teh Jews, be able to save you form my hands?

https://archive.org/details/SebeosHistoryOfArmenia

NOTE: no Muhammad, no Qur'an, no mention of Islam.

Muawiya's call to Constans to convert to the religion of "the God of our father Abraham"

Here is a coin minted by Muawiya - and NOTE: it has a cross on it

There is also an inscription on a bathhouse in Gadara in north-western Jordan, just across the river - this identifies Muawiya as "the servant of God, the leader of the protectors," and dates the dedication of the bathhouse to "the year 42 following the Arabs",

At the beginning of the inscription is a cross.

NOte that Muawiya also visited this - and to accept this is clear indication that at least in 662 AD there was no Quran, and no Islam at least in the form in which we know it today.

[Cronos]

yup. The long-lost ghost of Muawiya I

[MacNaughton]

Skull crackers gotta crack skulls. So pre-civilizational.

2025 (February 28 to March 29)

[TangoLimaSierra]

Pretty sure the Sunni and Shiites already had a ton of tension between them.

[Taxman]

World’s longest running Hatfield/McCoy family feud!

Mohammed died in 632 AD, and the Shia/Sunni war has been on-going ever since then!

They are still at war trying to determine who is the “legitimate” successor to Mohammed!

Along the way, in excess of 250,000,000 people have been killed — NOT COLLATERAL DAMAGE; INTENTIONAL!

ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION!

ISLAM IS AN EVIL DEATH CULT INTENT ON ENSLAVING THE WORLD UNDER SHARIA LAW!

THERE IS NO RHYME NOR REASON THAT A SEVENTH CENTURY CULT SHOULD BE PROSPERING IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY!

Sir Winston Churchill: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.” Winston Churchill, The River War, First published January 1, 1899.

[Taxman]

How true!

It was called the Reformation!

Post Reformation, Western Civilization flourished!

Islam seeks to return the world to the Seventh Century!

WAKE UP WORLD!

[Taxman]

“Shortly after Muhammad’s death, the Quran was compiled on the order of the first caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) by the companions, who had written down or memorized parts of it. Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) established a standard version, now known as the Uthmanic codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran

[Pearls Before Swine]

Good.

And, thanks for the history lesson.

[Cronos]

The Quran wasn’t written down until the 750s

[Taxman]

So, the piece I quoted was in error?

Your souce, por favor.

[Taxman]

“Around 650 CE - The Quran was canonized in an official, unified text during the caliphate of Rashidun Uthman, around 650 CE1. It was believed to have been revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad from 620 CE to 632 CE1. The first canonization occurred between the era of Uthman and the late 3rd/9th century3. The second canonization was led by Ibn Mujahid, who selected Seven Eponymous Readings amidst many circulating readings, laying the foundation for the Seven Canonical Readings3.”

[Taxman]

It is a moot point, really.

The Koran is not fit for human consumption!