IT would be no exaggeration to say that the Muslim heartland is aflame and that in large measure the turmoil is attributable to not just a struggle against authoritarian rulers but also to a sectarian divide that seems to be growing.

The blast near an imambargah in Quetta that killed 30 people was only the latest incident of sectarian violence that has almost become the norm in Pakistan since the Iran-Iraq war of 1979-87.

The Iran-Iraq war was deliberately made out to be a religious war when in fact it was essentially an effort on Saddam Hussain’s part to regain, during a period of near chaos in Iran, the control of the Shatt-al Arab that it had lost to Iran in 1975. Certainly, the Iraqi Shia had no hesitation in fighting his Iranian co-religionists and accepting that this was a battle between the Arab and the Ajam.

In other parts of the Muslim world, and particularly in Pakistan however, vast sums of money were poured into the coffers of willing Sunni and Shia religious figures, by Saudi Arabia and Iraq on the one hand and Iran on the other, to portray this as a Sunni-Shia conflict. As much as Gen Zia’s Islamisation, this conflict created the Sipah-i-Sahaba and the Tehreek-i-Nafaz-i-Fiqah-i-Jafaria.

Now in Syria what started out as a struggle against an authoritarian regime has become a Shia-Sunni conflict in which more than 100,000 people have been killed and more than two million have become refugees.

The regime’s forces have been reinforced by the Shia Hezbollah from Lebanon, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards from Iran and Shia volunteers from Iraq. Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has turned a deaf ear to US pleas that Iranian planes carrying arms to the Assad regime should not be allowed to cross Iraqi air space. For him and his Shia supporters, assistance to the Syrian regime is essential to maintain Shia domination in Iraq and to limit Al Qaeda’s activities there.

On the other hand, in a development reminiscent of the jihadi struggle against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan, Sunni fighters from all over the Muslim world — Saudis, Iraqis, Lebanese and even Chechens — have joined the insurgent ranks in Syria.

These men, allied with Syrians of extreme views, have become the most effective fighters against the regime primarily because it is to these extremist groups like the Jabhat al-Nusra, that much of the assistance from Sunni Arab countries and individual donors from these countries has been given. Qatar’s role in directing assistance to these groups has been particularly worrisome for the other ‘Friends of Syria’ who fear that the triumph of such groups will give a new fillip to anti-Western Islamic extremism.

While the US continues to push for an international ‘Geneva II’ conference to bring together representatives of the Assad regime and the insurgents and to work out a peaceful solution, the prospects of such a meeting taking place are dim.

Even if the meeting does take place it is unlikely to yield results. This is because in deference to the insurgents’ views, the Americans continue to maintain (evident from the latest State Department comment on Syria) that “a transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent; since the opposition will never agree to Assad staying, he can have no role in the transition.” To expect that Bashar al-Assad will attend a conference just to agree to his own ouster is clearly unrealistic.

There is no end in sight for the conflict. So one can expect that the divisions and hatreds created by almost two years of conflict will only be further exacerbated as the conflict drags on.

The effect on Syria’s neighbours particularly Iraq and Lebanon will be serious. Iraq is now experiencing as much if not more sectarian violence than at the height of the American war in Iraq. Lebanon where there had always been a fragile balance between the Maronite Christians, the Sunnis and the Shias is now perilously close to a civil war.

In Egypt, attention is focused on the large-scale demonstrations against the Morsi government and the calls made during these demonstrations for Morsi’s resignation and for fresh elections.

This of course is the principal cause of concern for those who want to see stability in Egypt but in terms of the sectarian strife that is tearing the Muslim world apart one must note that even in Egypt the Shias, who form a miniscule part of the population, have come under attack. This flows at least in part from the Syrian situation.

If this can happen in Egypt will other countries remain unaffected? In Turkey demonstrations against Tayyip Erdogan’s allegedly authoritarian rule have gained momentum but have not acquired a sectarian colour. But is it possible that if there is more turbulence the Turkish Alawis — who are distinct from the Alawites in Syria but also viewed by the Sunni Turks as an offshoot of the Shia sect — will become a target?

Will the Shias who comprise 15pc of the population in Saudi Arabia find themselves under even greater pressure from a regime that in October 2011, after Shia demonstrations, promised to crush any further unrest “with an iron fist”?

There was a time when Pakistan was the voice of moderation in Islamic councils and had the power to influence developments in the Arab world. Today, however the situation is very different.

Religious and other leaders in Pakistan, as our new government knows only too well, are heavily influenced by developments in the Arab world. The sectarian divide in the Arab heartland will surely translate into more extremist activity in Pakistan, funded as in the past by governments and individuals in the Gulf countries.

At this time, high priority must, therefore, be attached to curbing such organisations as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and to direct, blunt talks with our friends in the Gulf to stem the flow of funds to such organisations.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.