When History Becomes Live Ammunition
The Arab and Islamic region awakens today to the reality of sharp sectarian divisions, wherein sectarian history has been transformed from an intellectual and academic debate into “explosive ammunition” that destroys the present and booby-traps the future. Amidst this chronic discord—fed by a culture of perpetual vengeance and the exploitation of negative stereotypes—abstract historical and epistemic perspective becomes the first victim. Contemporary sectarianism does not merely invoke past grievances; it invents and simplifies them, reducing history to a binary epic between two sects: one claiming self-centered truth, and the other accused of high treason and permanent alignment with foreign powers.
In this charged historical and political context comes the book The Impact of the Crusades on Sunni-Shia Relations by the Mauritanian thinker and academic Dr. Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti (published by the Arab Network for Research and Publishing). It represents a candle in the darkness of sectarian debate and a serious, rigorous attempt to “repair historical memory” and return it to the track of solid historical reality.
The book originated as a doctoral dissertation in the history of religions, defended at Texas Tech University in the United States in 2011 before an academically diverse committee. This committee included John Howe, professor of church history and the Crusades; Stefano D’Amico, professor of Italian European history; Saad Abi Hamad, professor of modern Middle Eastern history; and Khalid Blankinship, the well-known historian and translator into English. The dissertation received early attention; Turkish academic İdris Çakmak translated it into Turkish, and it was published in Istanbul in 2012, before the author himself translated it into Arabic—revising citation sources, preserving the text’s spirit, and adding updated sources and insights.
The work’s significance stems from its address of a pivotal moment in the history of the Islamic Ummah: the era of the Crusades, spanning two centuries (the 6th and 7th centuries AH / 12th and 13th centuries CE). During this epoch, the Eastern Islamic world faced a fierce external invasion at a time when its society suffered from deep internal, sectarian, and political fragmentation. However, El-Shinqiti does not merely recount the military events of the Crusades as hundreds of Arab and Western historians have done; rather, he pulls this period into the depth of the internal dynamics of Muslim society, investigating the impact of these regional and international encounters on the structure of Sunni-Shia relations with all their fluctuations and shades.
Repairing Memory: Reconstructing a Past to Overcome Destruction and Entrapment
In the foundational introduction, the author starts from a profound statement by American historian Gretchen Adams: “In order to construct a new future, we need to construct a new past.” This statement does not imply inventing a false history or projecting wishful thinking onto past events; rather, it specifically means dismantling the rancorous “parallel historical memory” held by both sides and bringing the collective contemporary Sunni and Shia consciousness closer to complex, documented historical truth—far from the simplifications and illusions of sectarian debate.
As El-Shinqiti establishes, the Islamic Ummah will not be able to exit the dark path that led it to current sectarian ignorance and political barbarism unless it realizes how it entered this path in the first place. Among the most prominent lessons the author extracts from historical facts is that religious and doctrinal disagreement does not inherently turn into political strife or crushing military conflict unless accompanied by injustice. While confronting injustice is a religious and political obligation and virtue, the legitimate and moral justification for fighting an oppressor or deterring an aggressor is their injustice and aggression, not their religion, doctrine, or sect.
From this standpoint, the book offers a radical critique of the logic of “responding to sectarianism with counter-sectarianism.” The culture of perpetual revenge and mutual incitement may assist a sect in temporary vengeance or altering the immediate balance of power, but it is entirely incapable of building societies of justice, freedom, and human dignity that accommodate all citizens regardless of their backgrounds and doctrines. Sectarianism is not defeated by the victory of one sect over another, but by dismantling sectarian logic from its foundations and by the triumph of the free, fully empowered, and dignified individual over the illusions of the closed group. The sole cure for the sectarian disease is establishing justice and freedom for all, without duality or double standards.
The Duality of Continuity and Rupture: An Inductive Reading of Islamic History
To free the study from contemporary sectarian hysteria, El-Shinqiti returns to an inductive analysis of Sunni-Shia relations across the entirety of Islamic history, reaching a pivotal conclusion: scholarly, social, and political communication between Sunnis and Shias (particularly Imami Shias) was the baseline and norm throughout most eras of Islamic history. The relationship was not one of continuous rupture, as extremists on both sides claim today.
The approach of communication is characterized by a deep sense of shared religion, history, identity, and a unified civilizational destiny. Conversely, the approach of rupture represents a denial of these shared bonds and the erection of high walls between members of the same Ummah, prioritizing suspicion, accusations of treason, and acceptance of negative stereotypes until the distant foreign invader is viewed as closer and more merciful than the neighboring fellow Muslim of a different doctrine.
According to the documented historical induction presented by the author, differentiation between the two groups during the Umayyad era was political—revolving around the Caliphate and legitimacy—rather than a comprehensive theological divergence. When the Abbasid state arose in its early phase, it constituted a unique blend of “political Shiism and theological Sunnism.” Throughout the first Abbasid era, the Sunni and Shia schools intersected intellectually and politically; several early Abbasid caliphs exhibited explicit Shia leanings, and numerous Shia figures served as state ministers and notables, without causing state collapse or triggering eradicationist civil wars.
A genuine rupture between Sunnis and Shias prevailed throughout medieval and modern Islamic history only within four specific historical and political contexts:
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The conflict between Malikis and Ismailis during Fatimid rule over Tunisia and North Africa, a period marked by severe doctrinal suppression and fierce popular and jurisprudential backlash.
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Hanbali-Shia skirmishes in Baghdad under Buwayhid rule (which lasted approximately 105 years), where regional conflict and military elite competition fueled doctrinal friction in the Abbasid capital’s neighborhoods.
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The geopolitical and military struggle for influence between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid State over Iraq, northern the Levant, and eastern Anatolia—a conflict coated in sharp sectarian rhetoric to legitimize territorial expansion and imperial rivalry.
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The active conflict across the Persian Gulf since the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, extending to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Arab Spring uprisings, and the subsequent regional sectarian realignments.
El-Shinqiti argues that an in-depth student of these four contexts clearly discovers that the true underlying causes behind instances of rupture and conflict were not inherently religious or theological; rather, they were mostly political, geopolitical, cultural, and ethnic. However, public mobilization for these battles was consistently framed in religious and sectarian language, as was typical of conflicts across ancient and modern empires.
The Earthquake of the Crusades and Doctrinal Engineering
When Pope Urban II delivered his famous sermon in Clermont, France, in 488 AH / 1095 CE calling for an “armed pilgrimage” and the invasion of the Holy Land in the East, the sectarian map of the Islamic East was characterized by an Ismaili Fatimid Empire ruling Egypt and parts of the Levant, alongside an Imami Shia majority distributed among the Muslims of the Levant.
However, when the Mamluks succeeded in expelling the last Frankish Crusader strongholds along the Levantine coast (the fall of Acre in 690 AH / 1291 CE) two centuries after Pope Urban’s call, the sectarian map of Islam had undergone a structural transformation. The Fatimid Empire had collapsed and vanished entirely since the era of Saladin, while the Shia population in the Levant had dramatically receded, shifting broadly back toward Sunnism.
El-Shinqiti poses a set of central questions forming the core of his work:
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Why did Sunnism expand while Shiism receded in Egypt and the Levant during the Crusades?
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Did the Crusades and the Islamic resistance movement that confronted them have a direct impact on this expansion and recession?
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How did Sunni-Shia relations evolve across those two centuries, and what was the difference between Sunni relations with Imami Shias versus Ismaili Shias (Fatimid and Nizari)?
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Finally, how does the representation of those historical events influence contemporary sectarian debate between the two sides today?
The study formulates its central hypothesis: the Crusades accelerated and intensified the recession of Shiism in Egypt and the Levant during the 6th and 7th centuries AH, creating the environment for a rising “Sunni Revival.” Furthermore, these wars later contributed to shifting the demographic and jurisprudential weight of Shiism from Arab lands to Persia.
On the level of inter-communal relations, the research reveals a historical paradox: while the Crusades initially divided Sunnis and Shias due to leadership instability and policy confusion, over the long term they brought Sunnis and Imami Shias together on a joint front against foreign invasion. In contrast, a structural distinction emerged in the conduct of Ismaili Shias (Fatimids and Nizaris/Assassins), who pursued complex and violent methods that marked their relationship with their Sunni surroundings with suspicion and confrontation throughout that era.
The Rise of the Seljuks and the “Turkic Caravan”: The Rebirth of the Sunni Era
A few decades before the Crusades reached the shores of the Islamic East, the Islamic world was undergoing a geopolitical and doctrinal transformation manifested in the renewal of Sunnism—a revival led by the Oghuz Turkic Seljuks arriving from Central Asia, a phenomenon historians describe as the “Turkic Caravan.” Following roughly a century and a half of Shia influence over the Eastern and Western Islamic world—embodied by the Ismaili Fatimid State in Egypt and the Levant, the Buwayhid State in Iraq and Iran, and the Hamdanid state in northern Levant—the Seljuk entry into Baghdad in 447 AH / 1055 CE under Tughril Beg put an end to Buwayhid rule and restored Sunni Abbasid legitimacy.
This shift was not merely replacing one ruling family with another; it was a comprehensive project to re-engineer the public and institutional domain of the Islamic world. The Seljuk rise coincided with building a network of Nizamiyya madrasas established by the vizier Nizam al-Muluk, spreading across Nishapur, Baghdad, Damascus, and beyond. These educational institutions and their associated endowments were utilized to consolidate Ash’ari theology and Shafi’i and Hanafi jurisprudence, training a new generation of scholars, jurists, and judges capable of running state administration and providing religious legitimacy for the Seljuk Sultanate and Abbasid Caliphate. Thus, Sunnism shifted from a defensive scholarly movement into official state policy equipped with executive, educational, and promotional apparatuses.
However, this Sunni revival created doctrinal tension with the broader Shia populations in the Levant, Iraq, and Egypt. In Baghdad, redrawing the state’s Sunni identity renewed sectarian clashes in the neighborhoods of Karkh and Bab al-Basra. In the Levant, the entry of the Seljuks created friction with local Shia leaderships and principalities, leaving the social and doctrinal map on the eve of the Crusades in a state of fluidity and mutual apprehension between incoming Seljuk elites and established Shia communities.
The Sectarian Map of the Levant and Egypt on the Eve of Occupation
When Pope Urban II delivered his speech at Clermont, the demographic and doctrinal map of the Levant and Egypt was marked by a complex, intersecting composition that differed from rigid stereotypes of homogeneous societies. In Egypt, the Fatimid State had entered a phase of decline; military viziers dominated affairs, and Ismaili Shiism receded—having remained the doctrine of the ruling dynasty and administrative elite without becoming the majority belief of the Egyptian populace, who largely adhered to Sunni schools (Shafi’i and Maliki), alongside a Coptic Christian population.
In the Levant, the primary theater of the early Crusades, the doctrinal landscape was more intricate. The majority Muslim population in cities like Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli, Ma’arrat al-Numan, Jabal Amel, and Nablus was distributed between Sunnis and Imami Shias, with Ismaili, Alawite, and Druze communities in mountainous regions. Cities like Tripoli were under the rule of the Banu Ammar (Imami Shias known for scholarship and establishing the famous Dar al-Ilm library), Aleppo under the Banu Mirdas and later the Seljuks, while Jerusalem and parts of the southern Levant shifted between Abbasid-Seljuk and Fatimid-Ismaili control.
This diversity, combined with political fragmentation, fostered co-existence in daily life and trade, but also left the Levant geopolitically vulnerable to external attack. Lacking a central authority to unify military capabilities, the region was divided into small principalities and city-states whose rulers prioritized local survival and immediate political or doctrinal concerns.
Eastern Fragmentation and the Crusader Moment: Collapse of Defense Lines
The tragedy that enabled the success of the First Crusade (489–492 AH / 1096–1099 CE) lay in the intersection of doctrinal division and political fragmentation at a critical historical juncture. In the years immediately preceding the arrival of the Franks, the Islamic East witnessed the sudden deaths of key political figures: Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah, Vizier Nizam al-Muluk, Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadi, Fatimid Caliph Al-Mustansir, and Fatimid Vizier Badr al-Jamali. These simultaneous power vacuums led to internal succession struggles within both Seljuk and Fatimid domains.
In this environment, Islamic powers failed to grasp the scale of the threat from Western Europe. Seljuk rulers in the Levant and Iraq initially viewed the Crusaders as mercenaries or raiders who could be managed or deployed against local rivals. Meanwhile, Fatimid leadership in Cairo saw the Frankish advance as an opportunity to weaken the Seljuks in the northern Levant, attempting political negotiations and territorial partitioning with them due to a lack of a unified strategic perspective.
This widespread fragmentation led to the fall of key cities: Edessa and Antioch were captured, culminating in the fall of Jerusalem in 492 AH / 1099 CE and atrocities committed against its Muslim inhabitants regardless of their sect. That moment demonstrated that internal political division and leadership opportunism during external threats lead to severe civilizational setbacks. This historical shock gradually spurred the formation of the resistance and Jihad movement that eventually reshaped the region’s political and doctrinal landscape.
Breaking the Wall of Rupture: The Shared Levantine Experience
As Crusader states established themselves in Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli, and expanded inland, Levantine Muslim communities faced an existential threat that targeted their shared identity. This danger created awareness among the populace and leadership, demonstrating the inadequacy of sectarian barriers during existential crises. In this context, patterns of communication and co-existence resurfaced, overcoming previous political and doctrinal estrangement.
Imami Shia communities in the Levant—particularly in Aleppo, Tripoli, Jabal Amel, and Jerusalem—were an integral part of the region’s urban and economic fabric. Facing the Frankish threat, Imami Shias did not seek separate alliances with the invaders; instead, they participated in self-defense and popular resistance alongside their Sunni counterparts. Imami Shias acted from a jurisprudential framework that prohibited aiding external aggressors against Muslims and emphasized defending Muslim territory regardless of the ruler’s doctrine.
This period witnessed alignment between scholars and figures from both groups. Despite established jurisprudential and theological differences between Sunni schools (Shafi’i and Hanafi) and the Imami Ja’fari school, defense necessities required social coordination. In besieged cities, populations shared the burdens of blockades, dug trenches, repaired walls, and offered mutual support between Sunni and Shia quarters, laying the groundwork for broader collective awareness.
The Resistance of Tripoli and the Epic of Aleppo: Models of Military and Political Solidarity
Examples of this defensive solidarity were evident during the prolonged siege of coastal Tripoli under the Banu Ammar (Imami Shias). Tripoli endured a multi-year blockade imposed by the Crusader fortress of Saint-Gilles. Throughout this ordeal, the Banu Ammar relied not only on their own resources but received support from Sunni residents in the city and surrounding villages, who fought under unified command. When the Qadi of Tripoli, Ibn Ammar, appealed to the Abbasid Caliphate, Seljuk sultans, and the Fatimids, the response—though complicated by political calculations—reflected a general realization that the fall of Tripoli represented a loss for the region as a whole.
The primary example of Sunni-Imami collaboration in the Levant occurred in Aleppo, the northern line of defense against the Crusader Principality of Antioch. Aleppo contained an influential Imami Shia population represented by the Banu Zuhra family, alongside a cohesive Sunni population. When the Crusader threat intensified and local Seljuk rulers failed to provide adequate protection, Sharif Abu Ibrahim ibn Zuhra (Shia) coordinated with Qadi Abu al-Fadl ibn al-Khashshab (the Sunni Chief Qadi of Aleppo) to form a unified local front.
Ibn al-Khashshab and Ibn Zuhra organized popular resistance and traveled together in joint delegations to Baghdad to urge the Seljuk Sultan and Abbasid Caliph to send reinforcements to the Levant. In the Battle of Sarmada (Field of Blood) in 513 AH / 1119 CE, where the army of the Principality of Antioch was defeated and its ruler Roger killed, Qadi Ibn al-Khashshab rallied fighters on the field, supported by both Sunni and Shia participants in a key military engagement that temporarily checked the Crusader threat against Aleppo.
Formulation of Defensive Jurisprudence and Shared Consciousness
Practical resistance deepened shared civilizational and jurisprudential awareness among Sunni and Imami Shia scholars during the Crusades. This was reflected in the writings and rulings of both traditions: Sunni scholars like Qadi Ibn al-Khashshab and Sheikh Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (author of Kitab al-Jihad, among the earliest to warn of the Crusader threat and call for unity) authored works on Jihad, while Imami Shia jurists in Iraq and the Levant issued rulings emphasizing the obligation to resist the Franks and prohibiting trade or land sales to the invaders.
This alignment demonstrates that theological and historical differences between Sunnis and Imami Shias did not turn into existential hostility during major external crises, remaining governed by broader communal interests. Both sides recognized that the invasion targeted the region as a whole, requiring joint resistance to protect land, lives, and holy sites.
Thus, the Levantine experience showed that Imami Shias participated in the resistance against the Crusader presence alongside their Sunni counterparts. However, this period of solidarity occurred alongside a complex and violent conflict involving another Shia faction: the Nizari Ismailis, which forms the focus of the following section.
The Ismaili Schism and the Collapse of the Fatimid Project
While the Levant experienced defensive alignment between Sunnis and Imami Shias against Crusader expansion, the Ismaili branch of Shiism underwent internal division that significantly affected its role in the conflict. Following the death of Fatimid Caliph Al-Mustansir in 487 AH / 1094 CE, the Ismailis split into two competing factions: the Musta’li Ismailis, who remained in Egypt and maintained control over the declining Fatimid Caliphate, and the Nizari Ismailis, who established strongholds in the mountains of Iran and the Levant under Hassan-i Sabbah, founding the state centered at Alamut Castle (historically referred to as the “Assassins”).
This schism weakened the Fatimid center in Cairo. The Fatimid court became an arena for rivalries among military viziers and princes, distracting the state from defending Levantine frontiers. Consequently, the initial Fatimid response to the Crusades was marked by hesitation and miscalculation; some Fatimid viziers attempted diplomatic contacts with Crusader leaders to divide spheres of influence in the Levant at the expense of the Sunni Seljuks, under the assumption that the Crusader advance was a temporary movement that could be managed through financial and territorial agreements.
This strategy failed when Crusader forces broke agreements, captured Jerusalem, Ascalon, and Jaffa, and carried out widespread massacres. By the time Fatimid leadership recognized the situation, delayed military expeditions dispatched to the southern Levant suffered from tactical weaknesses against Crusader forces, leading to defeats that accelerated the decline of Fatimid authority in the Levant.
Nizarism and Political Assassination: Internal Disruption of the Resistance
On the other side of the Ismaili spectrum, the Nizaris in the Levant adopted a distinct military and political strategy based on controlling mountain fortresses (such as Masyaf, Al-Qadmus, and Al-Kahf) and utilizing targeted political assassinations against rivals. Lacking the numbers for direct open-field warfare against large armies, the Nizaris relied on targeted eliminations to project influence and intimidate leaders, scholars, and commanders who posed a threat to their presence or territorial ambitions.
The Nizari assassination campaign targeted prominent figures involved in the Islamic resistance and the “Sunni Revival.” Notable victims included Vizier Nizam al-Muluk, Mawdud ibn Altuntash (Governor of Mosul), Qadi Ibn al-Khashshab (leader of the Aleppo resistance), and Prince Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi, along with multiple attempts on the life of Saladin during his siege of Aleppo and elsewhere. This series of assassinations created mistrust and disruption among ruling and military elites, repeatedly hindering efforts to unify forces against the Frankish presence.
At certain junctures, Nizari leadership formed tactical arrangements with neighboring Crusader principalities against Zengid and Ayyubid rulers. Shared interests in preventing a strong, unified Islamic state in the Levant led to intelligence sharing and limited agreements, causing Nizarism to be viewed in Sunni historical memory as an internal security threat alongside external aggression.
Zengid and Ayyubid Strategies and Regional Balances
Faced with this dual Ismaili challenge (Fatimid weakness in the south and Nizari activity in the north), leaders of the resistance movement—from Imad al-Din Zengi and Nur al-Din Mahmud to Saladin—pursued policies aimed at addressing internal vulnerabilities and unifying Egypt and the Levant under a single command. The key step occurred in 567 AH / 1171 CE when Nur al-Din’s commander, Asad al-Din Shirkuh, and his nephew Saladin ended the Fatimid Caliphate, bringing Egypt and the Levant under unified Sunni administration.
Regarding the Nizaris and their mountain fortresses, Saladin’s policy alternated between military campaigns and deterrent diplomacy. Following assassination attempts by Nizari operatives, Saladin launched a military campaign against Nizari strongholds in the Levantine mountains, besieging their primary fortress at Masyaf. The campaign did not end in total eradication, but resulted in a political agreement negotiated with Rashid ad-Din Sinan (“The Old Man of the Mountain”), requiring the Nizaris to cease targeting Ayyubid leadership and abstain from collaborating with Crusader forces.
This period showed that interactions with the Ismaili branch were driven primarily by geopolitical considerations, state security, and the requirements of the broader military campaign. This experience left lasting impressions in historical and jurisprudential literature, influencing later historical memory and doctrinal discussions regarding the Ismaili role during this era.
Saladin in Historical Perspective: Between Sunni Narratives and Shia Critiques
Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) remains a central and debated figure in Islamic historical memory. In mainstream Sunni historical narrative, Saladin is remembered as a heroic figure who liberated Jerusalem, unified Egypt and the Levant, and defended the region against Western Crusader armies. Conversely, aspects of contemporary Shia historical commentary view his legacy with skepticism, focusing on the end of the Fatimid Caliphate and the subsequent decline of Shia institutions in Egypt and the Levant.
This divergence in evaluating Saladin reflects the influence of modern sectarian debates projecting contemporary concerns onto past events. This highlights the value of the historical analysis presented by Dr. El-Shinqiti, which seeks to evaluate Saladin’s record outside of both idealization and polemical criticism, placing his decisions within the complex geopolitical and military context of the period.
Saladin acted primarily as a military commander and ruler within the context of medieval statecraft, where consolidating authority was viewed as necessary to maintain a unified front against Crusader forces. His political actions were not driven purely by doctrinal hostility, but by a broader strategy to eliminate political fragmentation, address military weaknesses, and establish a unified administration extending from the Nile to the Euphrates.
The End of the Fatimid Caliphate: Strategic Necessity or Doctrinal Shift?
The end of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt in 567 AH / 1171 CE represents a major focal point in historical discussions surrounding Saladin. Documented historical context indicates that the Fatimid State had experienced severe internal decline in its final decades, with political authority concentrated among military viziers while Egypt faced direct military threats from Crusader forces reaching Bilbeis and Cairo. The threat was significant enough that Crusader King Amalric I exerted influence over the Egyptian court, making the vulnerability of Egypt a strategic concern for the wider region.
Within this geopolitical context, the intervention of Asad al-Din Shirkuh and Saladin in Egypt occurred following requests for assistance from factions within the Fatimid court itself (including Vizier Shawar and later Caliph Al-Adid) to counter Crusader advances. When Saladin assumed the vizierate under Caliph Al-Adid, he proceeded cautiously over several years. The formal transfer of Friday prayers from the Fatimid Caliph to the Abbasid Caliph occurred only after Fatimid authority had become largely nominal, and after local political and security conditions were stabilized to defend Egypt against external invasion.
Subsequent institutional and educational policies implemented under Ayyubid rule—such as transitioning Al-Azhar to Sunni jurisprudence, establishing Shafi’i and Maliki madrasas, and supporting Sunni scholars—were part of a reorganization of public institutions in a society where the general populace predominantly inclined toward Sunnism. Saladin’s approach toward the remaining Fatimid family and Shia figures focused on political and security management to prevent internal revolts or alliances with Frankish forces, rather than systematic population transfers or mass violence as depicted in some modern sectarian accounts.
Reclaiming Historical Memory and Building the Future: Lessons and Prospects
Dr. El-Shinqiti concludes his study by emphasizing that the experience of the Crusades and the dynamics of Sunni-Shia relations during that era offer relevant insights for the contemporary Islamic world. Historical facts demonstrate that the recession of Shiism and the expansion of Sunnism in the Levant and Egypt during the 6th and 7th centuries AH were not the result of forced conversion or eradicationist sectarian wars between Muslims. Rather, they resulted from complex social, political, and military developments in which the resistance movement against foreign invasion created an environment that consolidated the “Sunni Revival” and unified the region’s socio-cultural framework.
Constructive historical awareness requires refraining from projecting modern sectarian conflicts onto past events and ending the use of history as a tool for mutual recrimination. Societies that remain absorbed in past grievances and rigid sectarian divisions risk continued vulnerability and stagnation. Safeguarding society and its resources today—as during the era of the Crusades—is not achieved through exclusionary sectarian discourse, but through establishing justice, the rule of law, inclusive citizenship, and focusing on future development.
