Faking faith to fool death squads

[wellst0nev0ter]

EVERY night when he comes home from work, Assem al-Hassani sits down and studies. His wife Sausan teaches him the names of the 12 Shia imams, where they prayed and where they are buried. But this is no religious madrassa — Assem is a Sunni, learning from his Shia wife how to pretend to be a Shia to avoid the sectarian death squads stalking Baghdad.

Across the city nervous Sunnis are learning to dissemble to avoid the killers, who are often dressed in police uniforms and set up checkpoints to examine people’s identity cards for obviously Sunni names. Many Sunnis have invested in forged ID cards. There is a website dedicated to teaching them how to fake it.

“At first we were joking about it but when our lives started to be threatened, the joke was over,” Assem, a 43-year-old shopkeeper, said. “It became a serious issue.”

<snip>

Assem has taken down the pictures of himself in his pilot’s uniforms and put up tapestry hangings of imams Ali and Hussein in his living room. In general, Sunnis frown at the display of human images as idolatry, but Assem, a middle-class Iraqi, has no strong feelings on the issue. “I feel very grateful to my wife and am lucky to have her,” Assem said. “I have lots of Sunni friends trying to do the same thing but they need someone they can really trust to teach them these things.”

A Sunni website has been set up to guide members of the once-dominant minority. It offers advice such as carrying a turba, a round prayer tablet made from clay gathered in the holy cities, or having Shia religious songs as ring tones.

The site also reassures devout Sunnis that it is not blasphemous to pretend to be a Shia. “According to the clerics, both Sunni and Shia, a Muslim can lie or even say words of sin if he is threatened to be killed.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2312996,00.html

[Lasher]

1. Bringing democracy to the middle east

Is this the part where Iraqis start enjoying their freedom that Junior personally blessed them with?

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

2. That's sad to hear this

but during war time you have got to do anything to survive.

[Ian David]

3. Jews have been doing things like this for centuries

It was perfected to a fine art during The Spanish Inquisition.

[Igel]

6. Christians did this kind of thing for years, too.

Got them in trouble: You say you're Muslim, and defect, you're in trouble if the old owners of the town retake it. You continue to be Muslim, and the new owner will object.

Many Jews went underground, both under Islam and under Christianity.

It was so common, this faking of religion, that the Spanish Inquisition was all the more virulent. So many Xians had faked being Muslim that the assumption was Muslims were faking being Xian.

But that can't be mentioned. It would suggest that the root cause isn't quite so ... delectable.

[OneBlueSky]

4. whenever I read something like this, all I can think is . . .

what a completely fucked up world we live in . . .

it's 2006, and people STILL haven't figured out how to live together in peace . . .

more importantly, we haven't figured out that our very survival as a species mandates that we do precisely that -- get along . . . and help each other, support each other, and care for each other . . .

caaring for our fellow humans . . . our brothers and sisters in the only race that matters -- the human race . . . what a novel concept . . .

anything less is a death sentence for the species . . . (and no doubt many others as well) . . .

[soothsayer]

5. Hey, I learned how to say that Muslim prayer years ago just in

case I was ever caught in a desert (advice of my Latin teacher wayyyy back in 1979----thanks Mr. Bell!). Can only say it phonetically--- La il ahha il Allah, Mohammadan ra su la la la' There is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet

[Igel]

7. Best *not* to say it.

Avoid it unless you mean it.

Reneging among fanatics with guns could get you in a bit of trouble.

[sui generis]

8. isn't religion great?

First the pagans did it to anyone who failed to sacrifice a critter, then the jews did it to the pagans, and the pagans did it to the jews and the newly minted christians, and then the christians did it to the pagans and the jews and the heathens, and then it got all complicated with catholics doing it to protestants and protestants doing it back to catholics and jews doing it to muslims and shia to the sunnis and wahabis to the watusis and and and

the only thing they ALL agree on is that the atheists are next.

[woodsprite]

9. May come a time when we have to pretend to be Repub to

stay alive, fly, etc. I don't think it as likely to be a Christian vs. Non-christian thing here as it is to be political. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. But if * stays in power, it may well happen where we will get ousted to Guantanamo if we don't swear a loyalty oath to the chimp. (sorry, was just doing genealogy research and saw where they printed the names of people in the local paper who swore loyalty oathes).