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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: Muslim Sect Sees Struggle Through Christian Lens NAJRAN, Saudi Arabia — Among the ruins on the edge of this ancient oasis city are deep trenches littered with bones. That, local people say, is all that remains of one of the great atrocities of antiquity, when thousands of Christians were herded into pits here and burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. Related Residents of Najran say that the ruins on the edge of their city include deep trenches littered with the bones of thousands of Christians who were burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. It is impossible to know whether the periphery bone fragments are related to the massacre or not. The massacre, which took place in about A.D. 523, is partly shadowed by myth and largely unknown to the outside world. But it has become central to the identity of the people now living here, who mostly belong to the minority Ismaili sect of Islam. The Ismailis, widely reviled as heretics by Sunni Muslims both here and abroad, see the oppressed Christians of ancient Najran as their literal and figurative ancestors in a continuing struggle for recognition by the Saudi state. “This story means so much to us,” said Ali al-Hattab, a 31-year-old hospital worker and graduate student. “Our life and our struggle today comes from those martyrs who gave their lives for their beliefs.” The Saudi government does not take kindly to this analogy. Part of the site where the Christians are said to have been killed — including charred remnants from the fires — was buried and paved over years ago. In a small museum next to the ruins that is dedicated to the city’s ancient history, there is only one brief reference to the massacre. In part, this is a reflection of the deep hostility among Saudi conservatives toward any artifacts that predate the birth of Islam in the seventh century. Najran, a fertile valley on Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen, was the last territory to be conquered by King Abdulaziz al-Saud, the country’s founder. He promised to respect the faith and customs of Najran — which had been an independent sheikdom — after bringing it into the kingdom in 1933. But Ismailis say his successors failed to follow through, denying them government jobs and pressuring them to convert to Wahhabism, the hard-line school of Sunni Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. A drive down Najran’s main street conveys some of this: it is lined with government-built Sunni mosques, even though Ismailis are the majority of the town’s 500,000 people (the Saudi census does not include sects, so it is impossible to know the true proportions). The government has naturalized Sunnis from Yemen in an effort to alter the sectarian balance, Mr. Hattab and many other Ismailis say. Saudi officials have often publicly maligned Ismailis as infidels. The Shiites of eastern Saudi Arabia have long faced similar discrimination, but because they are more numerous, their situation is better known. Ten years ago, these tensions erupted into violence. A demonstration outside the governor’s residence in April 2000 led to a gun battle in which two Ismaili men were killed and, according to some government accounts, one police officer. Hundreds of Ismaili men were arrested over the following weeks, and more than 90 were tried in secret; some say they were tortured, according to a 2008 report by Human Rights Watch. Many Ismailis say the situation has improved since last year, when King Abdullah appointed his son Mishal bin-Abdullah governor of the province. Public attacks on the Ismaili faith have ceased, and the state has made significant investments in the city, building a large new university, renovating the airport and improving the roads. But most Ismailis seem anxious about their status and unsure if King Abdullah, who is 86 years old, can continue to protect them from discrimination by the hard-liners who wield a powerful influence in the Saudi government and clerical establishment. Few Ismailis are willing to talk openly about the issue. Those who do so have sometimes been punished. In 2006, at one of the “National Dialogue” sessions convened by King Abdullah to encourage debate and tolerance, a Najrani woman named Fatima al-Tisan bravely spoke up about the way Ismailis feel disenfranchised. Soon afterward, she was fired from her government job at the Education Ministry in Najran. The story of the Christians’ massacre — known here as “al ukhdood,” or the trenches — remains a powerful metaphor for most Ismailis, and it comes up constantly in conversation here. When asked what it meant to him, one prominent tribal sheik held up his finger and said sternly, “I am an Ismaili, and if the government said, ‘We will cut you into pieces if you don’t become a Sunni,’ I would refuse.” He asked not to be named, saying he wanted to maintain good relations with the government. Part of the massacre’s significance comes from a passage in the Koran that is said to refer to it: “Slain were the men of the pit, the fire fed with fuel, when they were seated by it, and were witnesses of what they did with the believers! They took revenge on them because they believed in God the almighty.” Historians offer a somewhat different account of what happened here, though the facts remain sketchy. A Jewish king named Dhu Nuwas did kill a large number of Christians in Najran in 523, a century before the birth of Islam. But the notion that they died because they refused to renounce Christianity appears to be mythical, said Christian Robin, a French archaeologist. And the claim that they were burned to death en masse — with its eerie Holocaust overtones — also appears to be untrue, Mr. Robin added; most were killed by sword. Nor is it clear that the Koranic passage refers to what happened here. At the scene, on the edge of modern-day Najran, the old citadel’s stone foundations lie open to the sun and rain. Some have curious symbols and letters carved into them: a pair of entwined snakes, camels, a horse. It is impossible to know whether the papery bone fragments embedded in layers of stone and soil are related to the massacre, as local people say, or not. But Najranis will brook no doubt about the story. They say it has been handed on from father to son ever since it happened. “These were among the first people to die for their beliefs,” said Salem al-Yami, a retired military officer here. “We believe that makes Najran a sacred city.”
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