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Hizballah Inspires Some Sunnis to Become Shiites

[Washington Post] Ellen Knickmeyer - Last Sunday, Munir al-Sayed, a Sunni Arab from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on a business trip to Damascus, slipped into a Shiite shrine, removed his shoes, and bowed his head in prayer - not as a Sunni, but as a Shiite. Surrounded by Shiites, the 42-year-old Sunni lawyer prayed with hands pressed to his sides as Shiites do, rather than with hands crossed in front of him, as Sayed's family and other Sunnis have done for generations. He said he was seized with a heartfelt desire to pay homage to Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah, whose Shiite militia has been seen by many Muslims as having humiliated both the Israeli military and its U.S. ally in Lebanon this summer. A secular analyst close to many officials in Syria's authoritarian government noted that during this summer's war, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood vied with statements of support for Hizballah, whose Shiite faith normally would make it a target, not an ally, of Sunni groups. The Syrian government - a patron of Hizballah - has since this summer promoted the cult of Nasrallah as a way of boosting Assad's popularity. Posters and billboards have sprung up around Damascus showing the younger Assad in photo montages alongside the smiling, bearded Hizballah leader. Iranian President Ahmadinejad also appears in some of the composites.
2006-10-06 01:00:00
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