The Arab Shi'a: The Forgotten Muslims.

• Author: Mohamad, Husam
• Position: Review

Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke. The Arab Shi'a: The Forgotten Muslims. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. 290 pp. Hardcover $5.00.

Graham Fuller, a political analyst at RAND corporation and former vice chairman of national intelligence at the CIA, together with Rend Francke, an executive director of the Iraq Foundation, make clear that most Arab Shi'ite communities suffer from deeply rooted discriminatory policies applied against them by Arab regimes. With the exception of Lebanon and, to a much less degree, Kuwait, the Arab Shi'a have been steadily denied access to political power. In this timely text, the authors have successfully examined the Shi'ite plight in the Arab world and addressed many of the misunderstandings and stereotyping made against them by others. In the most general terms, the book identifies Shi'ism and Shi'ite movements in Islamic history, examines old and recent transformations affecting Shi'ite identities and situations, and addresses fluctuations in their domestic and foreign relations. Following Iran's revolution and subsequent regional and international reactions to it, most, if not all, Shi'ite movements in th e Arab world began to be increasingly perceived as having potential threatening effects on the political stability of the region.

Over the years, Sunni Arab regimes have managed to control Shi'ite communities within limits, and succeeded, to a large extent in associating most Shi'ite activists with radicals and dissidents in the Arab world. In the West, the Shi'a were largely connected with hostage taking, extremism and terrorism. These images have complicated Arab Shi'ite relations with others and undermined the extent of their misery in the Arab world. To say the least, today's 14 million Arab Shi'a have been subjected to a hostile environment that still treats them as a taboo. The ability of the Arab Shi'ite to integrate in their societies and the willingness of various Sunni regimes to accept them as equal partners have not yet been accomplished. As the book concludes, there are variations in the situations of the Arab Shi'ite communities, known as "twelvers," located in the countries of Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon. Iran's and Turkish Shi'a, the Zaydis of Yemen and the Alawis ruling elite in Syria are excluded fr om Fuller's and Francke's text. The study of Shi'ite communities mentioned in the above five countries are supported with extensive face-to-face interviews...