About a week ago I got hyperpedantic over at Aziz’s blog about the term “Shia.” I have far less interest in foreign affairs that most people, and likely the the average GNXP reader, but, I do get concerned with the mental algebra that people use in making predictions and models based on their understanding of terms. What I mean is that “Shiism” is a token that gets slotted into the analogy Iraq + Shiism ~ Iran + Shiism. My objection seems rather pedantic and overly particular, but these terms matter because poor mental algebra and analogy has world changing consequences. I have disputed the validity of the Shia-Sunni Catholic-Protestant analogy before, but I will assert something which I have come to believe after reading Mullahs on the Mainframe (an ethnography of Aziz’s Daudi Bohra Islami Shia sect), to the first aproximation “Shia” should actually not be considered anything more than Muslims who do not fall under the term Sunni. The implication is that Shiism has little coherent centrality aside from an emphasis on Ali.
