What is 'Hormuz' strait?#6

Let’s imagine. A Persian youth converted to Islam. He believed he had become a member of the Muslim community, but in reality, he still faced social barriers because he was not an Arab. Islam was a religion, but the empire at the time was operating around the identity of a specific group called Arab.

This dissatisfaction eventually led to the Abbasid Revolution in 750, and the new dynasty moved the capital to Baghdad. This event symbolically showed that the Islamic Empire was no longer an empire only for a specific lineage. Islam started through the Arab language, but as time went by, it spread as a universal religion transcending race and language.

Today, the absolute majority of Muslims worldwide live outside the Middle East. Asian countries like Indonesia and Pakistan account for a large portion. To use a metaphor, it was the Arabs who first opened this global franchise called Islam, but its value is now taking root in various cultural circles across the globe.

This time, I will tell you why the Persians went a completely different path from the Arabs while believing in Islam. The question might arise whether they could have just rejected the religion if their pride was so strong. However, the Persians sought to find their own unique path within the system of Islam.

In the early Islamic world, a conflict arose over the method of selecting a leader after the death of Prophet Muhammad. The mainstream believed that a leader, the Caliph, could be established through the consensus of the community, and this becomes the center of the Sunni branch. On the other hand, the flow that argued only Ali, the son-in-law, and his direct descendants could be the legitimate leaders leads to the Shia branch.

While Sunnis tend to emphasize rules and consensus, the Shia emphasize the spiritual legitimacy and lineage of the leader. There is an interesting interpretation here. It is also possible to interpret that for the Persians, who had been ruled by an absolute King or Shah for thousands of years, the Shia logic of sacred lineage succession might have felt like a more natural and noble order than a leader elected by vote.

This separation of identity solidified in the 16th century when the Safavid Dynasty established Shia as the state religion. Through this, Iran built its own unique wall differentiating itself from surrounding Sunni countries. The sign of religion was the same, but the sentiments and culture filling it were thoroughly Persianized. They essentially overcame their past defeat by constructing their own original order.