The Clash Within Civilisations: The Sunni-Shiite Divide

[kalu_miah]

The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split : NPR

The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split
by MIKE SHUSTER

The first report in a five-part series.

It's not known precisely how many of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are Shia. The Shia are a minority, comprising between 10 percent and 15 percent of the Muslim population — certainly fewer than 200 million, all told.

The Shia are concentrated in Iran, southern Iraq and southern Lebanon. But there are significant Shiite communities in Saudi Arabia and Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as well.

Although the origins of the Sunni-Shia split were violent, over the centuries Shia and Sunnis lived peacefully together for long periods of time.

But that appears to be giving way to a new period of spreading conflict in the Middle East between Shia and Sunni.

"There is definitely an emerging struggle between Sunni and Shia to define not only the pattern of local politics, but also the relationship between the Islamic world and the West," says Daniel Brumberg of Georgetown University, author of Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran.

That struggle is most violent and dangerous now in Iraq, but it is a struggle that could spread to many Arab nations in the Middle East and to Iran, which is Persian.

One other factor about the Shia bears mentioning. "Shiites constitute 80 percent of the native population of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region," notes Yitzhak Nakash, author of The Shi'is of Iraq.

Shia predominate where there is oil in Iran, in Iraq and in the oil-rich areas of eastern Saudi Arabia as well.

The Partisans of Ali

The original split between Sunnis and Shia occurred soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, in the year 632.

"There was a dispute in the community of Muslims in present-day Saudi Arabia over the question of succession," says Augustus Norton, author of Hezbollah: A Short History. "That is to say, who is the rightful successor to the Prophet?"

Most of the Prophet Muhammad's followers wanted the community of Muslims to determine who would succeed him. A smaller group thought that someone from his family should take up his mantle. They favored Ali, who was married to Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah.

"Shia believed that leadership should stay within the family of the Prophet," notes Gregory Gause, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Vermont. "And thus they were the partisans of Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. Sunnis believed that leadership should fall to the person who was deemed by the elite of the community to be best able to lead the community. And it was fundamentally that political division that began the Sunni-Shia split."

The Sunnis prevailed and chose a successor to be the first caliph.

Eventually, Ali was chosen as the fourth caliph, but not before violent conflict broke out. Two of the earliest caliphs were murdered. War erupted when Ali became caliph, and he too was killed in fighting in the year 661 near the town of Kufa, now in present-day Iraq.

The violence and war split the small community of Muslims into two branches that would never reunite.

The war continued with Ali's son, Hussein, leading the Shia. "Hussein rejected the rule of the caliph at the time," says Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival. "He stood up to the caliph's very large army on the battlefield. He and 72 members of his family and companions fought against a very large Arab army of the caliph. They were all massacred."

Hussein was decapitated and his head was carried in tribute to the Sunni caliph in Damascus. His body was left on the battlefield at Karbala. Later it was buried there.

It is the symbolism of Hussein's death that holds so much spiritual power for Shia.

"An innocent spiritual figure is in many ways martyred by a far more powerful, unjust force," Nasr says. "He becomes the crystallizing force around which a faith takes form and takes inspiration."

The Twelfth Imam

The Shia called their leaders imam, Ali being the first, Hussein the third. They commemorate Hussein's death every year in a public ritual of self-flagellation and mourning known as Ashura.

The significance of the imams is one of the fundamental differences that separate the two branches of Islam. The imams have taken on a spiritual significance that no clerics in Sunni Islam enjoy.

"Some of the Sunnis believe that some of the Shia are actually attributing almost divine qualities to the imams, and this is a great sin," Gause says, "because it is associating human beings with the divinity. And if there is one thing that's central to Islamic teaching, it is the oneness of God."

This difference is especially powerful when it comes to the story of the Twelfth Imam, known as the Hidden Imam.

"In the 10th century," says Vali Nasr, "the 12th Shiite Imam went into occultation. Shiites believe God took him into hiding, and he will come back at the end of time. He is known as the Mahdi or the messiah. So in many ways the Shiites, much like Jews or Christians, are looking for the coming of the Messiah."

Those who believe in the Hidden Imam are known as Twelver Shia. They comprise the majority of Shia in the world today.

"Twelver Shiism is itself a kind of messianic faith," Brumberg says. It is based "on a creed that the full word and meaning of the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad's message will only be made manifest, or real and just, upon the return of the Twelfth Imam, this messianic figure."

Political Power Fuels Religious Split

Over the next centuries, Islam clashed with the European Crusaders, with the Mongol conquerors from Central Asia, and was spread further by the Ottoman Turks.

By the year 1500, Persia was a seat of Sunni Islamic learning, but all that was about to change with the arrival of Azeri conquerors. They established the Safavid dynasty in Persia — modern-day Iran — and made it Shiite.

"That dynasty actually came out of what's now eastern Turkey," says Gregory Gause. "They were a Turkic dynasty, one of the leftovers of the Mongol invasions that had disrupted the Middle East for a couple of centuries. The Safavid dynasty made it its political project to convert Iran into a Shia country."

Shiism gradually became the glue that held Persia together and distinguished it from the Ottoman Empire to its west, which was Sunni, and the Mughal Muslims to the east in India, also Sunni.

This was the geography of Shiite Islam, and it would prevail into the 20th century.

There were periods of conflict and periods of peace. But the split remained and would, in the second half of the 20th century, turn out to be one of the most important factors in the upheavals that have ravaged the Middle East.

"Why has there been such a long and protracted disagreement and tension between these two sects?" asks Ray Takeyh, author of Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic. "It has to do with political power."

In the 20th century, that meant a complex political dynamic involving Sunni and Shia, Arabs and Persians, colonizers and colonized, oil, and the involvement of the superpowers.

 

[kalu_miah]

Iran, the Safavids and Ottoman Expansion, to 1700

Iran, the Safavids and Ottoman Expansion

War between Shia and Sunni

The Ottoman Empire Expands to Egypt and in Europe
The Ottoman Empire Expands, 1516-71

The Safavids, Bloodletting and Shia Politics to 1629
The Safavids, Bloodletting and Shia Politics to 1629

Shah Abbas opens Iran to the West
Shah Abbas opens Iran to the West

The Ulama in Safavid Iran
The <i>Ulama</i> in Safavid Iran

Safavid Decline and Fall
Safavid Decline and Fall


War between Shia and Sunni

While under the rule of the Mongols, in the 1200s, the Persians had given up on politics and militarism and had submerged themselves in Islamic devotion, Sufism and religious eclecticism. During these times, Iran had Mongol and Turkish immigrants who adopted the Persian language and Persian customs. In the 1300s, a dynasty founded by a grandson of Genghis Khan, Hulagu, ruled in Iran. It wavered between Christianity and Islam and chose Islam. Meanwhile a militant Islamic order, the Safavids, appeared among Turkish speaking people, their home base at Ardebil, west of the Caspian Sea. And the Safavid order survived the coming of Timur (Tamerlane) in the 1300s.

By 1500 the Safavids had adopted the Shia branch of Islam. Safavid males wore red headgear for identification, and they were eager to advance Shi'ism by military means. They viewed their religious leader as a perfect guide as well as an able military chieftain, and they viewed their leader's position as rightly passed from father to son -- in the Shia tradition.

In the year 1500, the thirteen-year-old son of a recently deceased Safavid leader set out to conquer territory. In 1501 the Safavids seized Tabriz and made it their capital. And they conquered in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Khurasan. The Safavids became the strongest force in Iran, and their leader, Isma'il, now fifteen, was declared Shah (king).

The area of the world thought of as Iran was mountainous and it had a variety of nomadic tribes with egalitarian traditions not yet completely erased. In addition to Persians, Iran had Kurds, Arabs, Turkomans and Baluchis to name a few. At Isma'il's court a Turkish language was spoken, but having adopted much of Persian culture the Safavids were thought by outsiders to be Persian. To help organize the state the Safavids used Persian bureaucrats with a tradition in administration and tax collecting, and they tried to create religious unity. Isma'il described himself as a descendant, on his father's side, of the Prophet Muhammad. Shi'ism became the state religion, Isma'il denigrating the Sunni branch of Islam and trying to force people to become Shia -- a difficult task as his authority with a variety of tribes had been little accepted.

The Ottoman sultan, Bayezid II (ruled 1481-1512), a Sunni Muslim, congratulated Isma'il on his military victories and suggested that he and his Shia followers stop destroying the graves and mosques of Sunni Muslims. Convinced of the righteousness of their cause and the evil of the Sunni branch of Islam, the Safavids ignored Bayezid.

In 1512 the aged Bayezid was ill. His three sons fought each other for his throne at the Ottoman capital, Constantinople. Those special warriors, the Janissaries, were a power behind the throne and chose as the new sultan the son that was most warlike: Selim. Bayezid was dethroned, and Selim secured his rule by having his two brothers and their sons executed by strangulation.

Selim embarked on a war against what he saw as the heresy of Shi'ism. He is reported to have exterminated thousands of Shia Muslims in Asia Minor. Then he launched a war against the Shia king of Persia: Isma'il. Selim's armies advanced through northern Mesopotamia, and in August 1514, just west of Tabriz, Selim's army defeated the Safavid army, which had cavalry with only spears, bows and swords against Ottoman artillery and muskets.

Isma'il had been accustomed to victory, and he and his Safavid followers had believed that Allah was on their side. They were bewildered by their defeat. Isma'il found relief from psychological depression in wine.

Isma'il died ten years later at the age of thirty-seven. His dynasty lived on, Isma'il succeed by a son aged ten. The family dynasty lasted for two centuries and was to leave a legacy in Iran of Shia Islam as the official state religion, into the 21st century.

 

[indian_jigar]

Wow shias have Hindu support, u think they will want to loose just out of self disgust then.

Aww bro, don't be so sad. I will give you Sunnis some support so you guys dont feel too alienated


On topic(in India): Shias are pretty prosperous in India, especially the Gujrati Shia businessmen who are ridiculously rich. Howveer, this middle Eastern rivalry is spreading to India and affecting our social fabric negatively. For example, in Kashmir, there has been some Shia-Sunni clashes in recent years (and the trend seems to be going upwards)...

 

[kalu_miah]

Turkey: Erdogan's New "Ottoman Region" :: Gatestone Institute

This one is a Islamophobic hate propaganda site, probably run by someone with Zionist connection, it has many interesting hate articles, the following is a relevant one for this thread:

Turkey: Erdogan's New "Ottoman Region"
by Harold Rhode
July 13, 2011 at 5:00 am

Erdogan's recent electoral victory speech puts his true intentions regarding Turkey's foreign policy goals in perspective. He said that this victory is as important in Ankara as it is in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, under Ottoman times, an important Ottoman city; that his party's victory was as important in a large Turkish city, Izmir, on the Western Anatolian coast, as it is in Damascus, and as important in Istanbul as it is in Jerusalem.

What does all this mean? At the very least, this victory speech signals a wish for Ottoman cultural colonialism and imperialism. The places Erdogan names were all part of by the Ottoman Empire; the territory of the modern Turkish Republic is what remained after World War I and Turkey's War of Independence from the occupying Allied forces. Turkey forms only the central part, and relatively small fraction, of what had been the Ottoman Empire, which at its height extended deep into southern Europe, and included most of today's Arab world and even beyond.

In saying that this victory is as important in all of these former Ottoman cities, Erdogan apparently sees himself as trying to reclaim Turkey's full Ottoman past. In religious terms, the entire reason for being of the Ottoman Empire was to spread the Sunni form of Islam prevalent there. Sunnis, who make up about 85% of the Muslim world, believe that when Mohammed died, the leadership of Islam was passed down through what amounted to the Meccan artistocracy, and not through Mohammed's family -- which is what the Shi'ites believe. The cities Erdogan mentioned are almost all Sunni, with a few non-Sunni ones thrown in.

The Ottomans had two major rivals: the non-Muslim Europeans to the northwest, and the Shi'ite Persian Empire to the east. Although the Ottomans saw each enemy as presenting a different set of problems, they saw their own role in traditional Sunni Muslim terms: Continuing the Jihad, namely the conquest of the non-Muslim world. This requires expanding Sunni rule wherever possible; it also requires forcing non-Muslims to surrender to Sunni Islamic rule. In adopting this policy, the Ottomans were merely following the instructions of virtually every classical Muslim jurist: unending political and military conflict until the entire world submits to Islamic rule.

Shi'ites, as opposed to non-Muslims, have always been seen by Sunnis as an existential threat to Sunnism. Shi'ites, who make up about 12-15% of the Muslim world, believe that the only true rulers of Islam are Mohammed's direct descendants, not merely local "aristocracy," as the Sunnis believe; these rulers they call Imams. For Sunnis, "Imam" is often used just to mean "a preacher at a mosque."

Most Shiites believe that the definitive ruler of Islam was a direct descendant of Mohammed; is known as "The Twelfth Imam," or "The Mahdi" who disappeared in 873 A.D. -- a Messianic figure, whom they believe will return one day to rule the Muslims, just as many Christians believe in the Second Coming of Jesus.

When the Ayatollah Khomeini began ruling Iran in 1979, many Iranians began calling him "Imam' – denoting both "Ruler of the Muslims," and also that they thought he was possibly "The Twelfth Imam," re-emerged, for whom they had been waiting. Khomeini never really addressed this issue, seemingly purposefully leaving unclear his status as the reincarnation of theTwelfth Imam.

Shi'ites are engaged in an unending battle -- very often violent -- to convert others to the "true form of Islam" – theirs. The rulers of the Persian Empire in the 1500s consequently converted to Shi'ism, becoming the mortal Islamic enemy of the Sunni Ottomans; their basic reason for existing was to convert others to the "true form of Islam" – theirs.

While choosing to become Shiites, the rulers of the Persian Empire knew that they had a natural ally within the Ottoman Empire: a group called Alevis, who then lived in Eastern Anatolia in what is now Turkey . The Alevi religion consists of a mixture of Central Asian and Turkish pre-Islamic customs; but most importantly to revere the First Imam of the Shiites, Ali, a central figure in Shiite Islam. The Alevis in Eastern Anatolia therefore came to be seen as a natural ally of the mortal enemies of the Ottomans, the Shiites; and as a "fifth column" in the Sunni Ottoman Empire. From that time on, until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Ottomans had to worry about the security of their eastern border area.

When the Persians converted to Shi'ism, the Ottomans evidently felt they had no alternative other than to send their military out to the east to fight them and address what they saw as a mortal threat to the existence of the Ottoman Empire, which was Sunni to its core.

The scars of this early 1500s battle between the Sunni Ottomans and the Persian Shiites has influenced the Turkish Sunni psyche so deeply that today's Turkish Sunnis -- and most importantly among them, Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan -- still recite age-old pejorative Turkish proverbs about both the Shiites and the Alevis. These proverbs include references to the Alevis and Shiites as untrustworthy brigands who also engage in indecent acts.

In spite of the historical animosity between Turkish Sunnis and the non-Sunni rulers of the neighboring countries –- such as the Shiites in Iran and Iraq, and the Alawis ruling Syria -- Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria tried to forge a loose political and economic alliance, which lasted until the beginning of what the Arabs called the "Arab Facebook Revolution," and which we in the West call "The Arab Spring." But Erdogan's Sunni inclinations seem to have overcome his political ambitions with his neighbors as the Sunni-non-Sunni basic differences re-emerged, as well as for political and economic reasons.

At the moment Erdogan is threatened by other problems that Iran is bringing to his doorstep. These include Iran's attempt to make itself the major energy transport country in the area, bypassing Turkey. Turkey's major geographic significance now is that it is a transporter of energy, bringing gas and oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and oil from northern Iraq to the world market. If Iran takes Turkey's place in the energy market, especially in transporting energy to India, China, and the region, Turkey will suffer an immense economic and strategic loss.

Further, Erdogan must be terrified of what he sees happening in Syria. Assad and his ruling clique are not Sunnis. They are Alawis -- not exactly the same as Turkey's Alevis, but similar in that they also revere Ali. But unlike the Shiites, the Alawis view Ali as a deity, much as the Christians revere Jesus. As a result of the continuing upheaval in Syria, the ruling party of Turkey might see itself as surrounded by various active religious threats from the east and from Syria, along Turkey's southern border.

Syria's tyrant, Bashar Assad, and his late father, Hafiz Assad, both Alawis, had come to an understanding with Syria's Sunni business elite, enabling these entrepreneurs to make money in exchange for acquiescing to Assad's Alawi rule. As long as these tacit agreements were in place, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan could feel comfortable dealing with Assad. Erdogan's and Assad's families even vacationed together, and Erdogan publicly called Assad his close friend -- an alliance all the more curious as the Syrian Sunnis view the Alawis with utter disdain, stemming from the Alawi worship of Ali as a deity, rather than as just the Twelfth Imam.

When the Syrian Sunnis started abandoning their ruler, Bashar Assad a few weeks ago, Erdogan took his cue from them and allowed Syrian Sunnis to host several Syrian opposition conferences in Turkey -- including one conference paid for by a wealthy Syrian Sunni businessman who until recently had been a supporter of Assad; and another conference, in Istanbul, of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Although both conferences had slightly different approaches to solving Syria's political problems, what united them was that at both, Syria's Sunnis -- Erdogan's natural allies -- were the dominant actors.

Erdogan may well now feel himself under threat from both Syria and Iran, until recently two of his allies. The policy of of "Zero problems with all neighbors" of Erdogan's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has proven to be an abject failure.

Despite Erdogan's attempts to paper over some of his differences with the other countries in his region, Erdogan -- a devote Sunni Muslim –- could not make more than a temporary alliance with the Iranian Shiites, the Sunnis' tradition enemy. To be sure, he could have entered into a temporary alliance with them, as he could with Israel or the United States, but only in order to accomplish other, temporary, expedient goals.

Erdogan undoubtedly sees that he now has an opportunity to advance his Ottoman-centric Sunni policy in Syria and beyond. If Assad's Alawi regime falls, and is replaced by a Sunni-dominated one, Syria -- approximately 70% Sunni -- would be a natural ally for Turkey. Syria's Sunni business- and upper classes have had centuries-old connections with their counterparts in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey. Many marriages have taken place between upper class Syrian Sunnis and Turkish Sunnis. Moreover, Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, close to the Turkish border, has had a strong Ottoman character, and could again become the major trading city it was until the Turkish-Syrian border was drawn after World War I.

In all, Erdogan's bottom line appears to be advancing a reconstitution of the Ottoman Empire, which he and his fellow Turkish Sunni fundamentalists now call " The Ottoman Region." In the long run, all non-Sunnis -- such as Iran, Israel, Syria (if it remains under Alawi rule after things eventually quiet down in Syria), and a Shiite-ruled Iraq -- remain outsiders. Erdogan might make temporary alliances with any of them, but, psychologically, that will be all he is prepared to do.

Turkey's attempted apparent rapprochement with Israel -- at least for the time being -- reflects his tactical thinking: Turkey does not want more trouble in its area right now. Erdogan is likely alarmed by the consequences of what might happen in Syria if Assad continues killing Syrians: those being killed are largely Sunni. Turkey's alliances with Iran, Iraq and Syria have all failed. It is hard to imagine why Turkey thought such alliances could succeed, based as they were on too many tenuous connections -- a Shi'ite Iran, an Alawi-ruled Syria and a Shiite-dominated Iraq. Not one of these is a natural ally for the Sunni Turks.

As for Erdogan and Davutoglu, in the depths of their souls, they are fundamentalist Sunni Muslims and see themselves as such. The Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian alliance, which Erdogan worked so hard to build, has failed. Erdogan's and Davutoglu's long-term, Sunni goals, and those of the non-Sunnis in the area, have been, and will always be, vastly different. Turkey might conclude temporary alliances with non-Sunnis as needed, to address immediate concerns, but we cannot expect much more than this. Given Iran's regional bid to replace Turkey as "energy-central," and the apparent attempt of the Shi'ite Iranian-Syrian-Alawi alliance to try to put down the Sunni-dominated Syrian insurrection, Turkey needs to make sure it does not have additional problems.

It is in this context that we should understand Turkey's renewed interest in the U.S. and Israel. As such, both the U.S. and Israel should be extremely wary of Erdogan and his associates. Erdogan's Turkey does not see long-term interests with either. Given economic developments in Iran, Alawite oppression in Syria, and Shiite-dominance in Iraq, Erdogan understands that he must take a temporary hiatus from his goal of reasserting what appears to be his real goal -- the Turkish Sunni domination of the entire Middle East.

 

[kalu_miah]

I have many questions, for Iranians in particular, who are leading the Shia Muslims of the world and Shia Muslims in general:

1. Shia's are 10-15% of the Muslim world, less than 200 million out of 1.6 billion. Do they expect to become leaders of all Muslims, just because they own oil fields and live close to oil fields?

2. What do they want from Sunni Muslims, we should all convert to Shia Islam? Then all will be fine? Obviously this is not possible, but I am just curious about what is the core Shia game plan.

3. I hear all the time that this Shia-Sunni conflict is an Arab thing, but not any more, its spreading in other parts of the world, because whatever Shia Imam's say in Qom, Shia Muslims or at least Twelvers follow them by heart, regardless of where they are in the globe, globalization of religion as they say

4. Sunni extremist intolerance and hatred for Shia is the other side of the coin that is feeding on "shia-supremacy", in fact both ideas are feeding on each other. Is it possible to bring both of these ideas under control and how?

5. If Shia are part of the greater Muslim world, should they also not care about the interest of the greater Muslim world, in some cases sacrificing the interest of their own sect?

6. If the interest of greater Muslim world is hurt due to Shia-Sunni conflict, is that somehow going to be beneficial for less than 200 million shia Muslims? Do Shia Muslims believe they can do well on their own, or do they believe that the Sunni Muslim well being is also important for their group interest?

I know religious discussion is forbidden, but this is not about religion, it is about geopolitics and the future of the Muslim world and interplay of group identity. So I hope the mods will not shut down this frank discussion to find out what are the core ideas that are driving this conflict.

 

[Oublious]

We wil break shia imperialisme in the middle east. Russia and china cant help you and this time america wont help tooo....

its a matter of time and littie iran syria wil fall down, irak is the next step. Nuri el maliki a syrian shia terrorist is the next.....

 

[Serpentine]

We wil break shia imperialisme in the middle east. Russia and china cant help you and this time america wont help tooo....

its a matter of time and littie iran syria wil fall down, irak is the next step. Nuri el maliki a syrian shia terrorist is the next.....

Of course,you and your friends can blow up yourselves and kill some Shias for your regular daily religious duty.
Your friends are doing it in Iraq and Syria everyday.
For each Shia you kill,you get one step closer to paradise and 72 virgins.

 

[KingMamba]

The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split : NPR

The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split
by MIKE SHUSTER

The first report in a five-part series.

It's not known precisely how many of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are Shia. The Shia are a minority, comprising between 10 percent and 15 percent of the Muslim population &#8212; certainly fewer than 200 million, all told.

The Shia are concentrated in Iran, southern Iraq and southern Lebanon. But there are significant Shiite communities in Saudi Arabia and Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as well.

Although the origins of the Sunni-Shia split were violent, over the centuries Shia and Sunnis lived peacefully together for long periods of time.

But that appears to be giving way to a new period of spreading conflict in the Middle East between Shia and Sunni.

"There is definitely an emerging struggle between Sunni and Shia to define not only the pattern of local politics, but also the relationship between the Islamic world and the West," says Daniel Brumberg of Georgetown University, author of Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran.

That struggle is most violent and dangerous now in Iraq, but it is a struggle that could spread to many Arab nations in the Middle East and to Iran, which is Persian.

One other factor about the Shia bears mentioning. "Shiites constitute 80 percent of the native population of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region," notes Yitzhak Nakash, author of The Shi'is of Iraq.

Shia predominate where there is oil in Iran, in Iraq and in the oil-rich areas of eastern Saudi Arabia as well.

The Partisans of Ali

The original split between Sunnis and Shia occurred soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, in the year 632.

"There was a dispute in the community of Muslims in present-day Saudi Arabia over the question of succession," says Augustus Norton, author of Hezbollah: A Short History. "That is to say, who is the rightful successor to the Prophet?"

Most of the Prophet Muhammad's followers wanted the community of Muslims to determine who would succeed him. A smaller group thought that someone from his family should take up his mantle. They favored Ali, who was married to Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah.

"Shia believed that leadership should stay within the family of the Prophet," notes Gregory Gause, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Vermont. "And thus they were the partisans of Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. Sunnis believed that leadership should fall to the person who was deemed by the elite of the community to be best able to lead the community. And it was fundamentally that political division that began the Sunni-Shia split."

The Sunnis prevailed and chose a successor to be the first caliph.

Eventually, Ali was chosen as the fourth caliph, but not before violent conflict broke out. Two of the earliest caliphs were murdered. War erupted when Ali became caliph, and he too was killed in fighting in the year 661 near the town of Kufa, now in present-day Iraq.

The violence and war split the small community of Muslims into two branches that would never reunite.

The war continued with Ali's son, Hussein, leading the Shia. "Hussein rejected the rule of the caliph at the time," says Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival. "He stood up to the caliph's very large army on the battlefield. He and 72 members of his family and companions fought against a very large Arab army of the caliph. They were all massacred."

Hussein was decapitated and his head was carried in tribute to the Sunni caliph in Damascus. His body was left on the battlefield at Karbala. Later it was buried there.

It is the symbolism of Hussein's death that holds so much spiritual power for Shia.

"An innocent spiritual figure is in many ways martyred by a far more powerful, unjust force," Nasr says. "He becomes the crystallizing force around which a faith takes form and takes inspiration."

The Twelfth Imam

The Shia called their leaders imam, Ali being the first, Hussein the third. They commemorate Hussein's death every year in a public ritual of self-flagellation and mourning known as Ashura.

The significance of the imams is one of the fundamental differences that separate the two branches of Islam. The imams have taken on a spiritual significance that no clerics in Sunni Islam enjoy.

"Some of the Sunnis believe that some of the Shia are actually attributing almost divine qualities to the imams, and this is a great sin," Gause says, "because it is associating human beings with the divinity. And if there is one thing that's central to Islamic teaching, it is the oneness of God."

This difference is especially powerful when it comes to the story of the Twelfth Imam, known as the Hidden Imam.

"In the 10th century," says Vali Nasr, "the 12th Shiite Imam went into occultation. Shiites believe God took him into hiding, and he will come back at the end of time. He is known as the Mahdi or the messiah. So in many ways the Shiites, much like Jews or Christians, are looking for the coming of the Messiah."

Those who believe in the Hidden Imam are known as Twelver Shia. They comprise the majority of Shia in the world today.

"Twelver Shiism is itself a kind of messianic faith," Brumberg says. It is based "on a creed that the full word and meaning of the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad's message will only be made manifest, or real and just, upon the return of the Twelfth Imam, this messianic figure."

Political Power Fuels Religious Split

Over the next centuries, Islam clashed with the European Crusaders, with the Mongol conquerors from Central Asia, and was spread further by the Ottoman Turks.

By the year 1500, Persia was a seat of Sunni Islamic learning, but all that was about to change with the arrival of Azeri conquerors. They established the Safavid dynasty in Persia &#8212; modern-day Iran &#8212; and made it Shiite.

"That dynasty actually came out of what's now eastern Turkey," says Gregory Gause. "They were a Turkic dynasty, one of the leftovers of the Mongol invasions that had disrupted the Middle East for a couple of centuries. The Safavid dynasty made it its political project to convert Iran into a Shia country."

Shiism gradually became the glue that held Persia together and distinguished it from the Ottoman Empire to its west, which was Sunni, and the Mughal Muslims to the east in India, also Sunni.

This was the geography of Shiite Islam, and it would prevail into the 20th century.

There were periods of conflict and periods of peace. But the split remained and would, in the second half of the 20th century, turn out to be one of the most important factors in the upheavals that have ravaged the Middle East.

"Why has there been such a long and protracted disagreement and tension between these two sects?" asks Ray Takeyh, author of Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic. "It has to do with political power."

In the 20th century, that meant a complex political dynamic involving Sunni and Shia, Arabs and Persians, colonizers and colonized, oil, and the involvement of the superpowers.

Inaccuracies in the description of the conflict.

 

[kalu_miah]

Of course,you and your friends can blow up yourselves and kill some Shias for your regular daily religious duty.
Your friends are doing it in Iraq and Syria everyday.
For each Shia you kill,you get one step closer to paradise and 72 virgins.

There are extremists among Sunni Muslims, but consider the total number, around 1.4 billion, what percentage are extremists? Those who are not extremists, which is the vast majority, I believe still consider Shia as their own Muslim brother, myself included. But looking at the world today, specially from the actions of Iranian regime and their dependent entities in the Arab world, many questions are being raised. I think the questions in my previous post deserve some answers.

 

[Don Jaguar]

Lets see how the so called followers of the Prophet(PBUH) actually live up to that claim.

Who are the so called followers?

 

[Don Jaguar]

We wil break shia imperialisme in the middle east. Russia and china cant help you and this time america wont help tooo....

its a matter of time and littie iran syria wil fall down, irak is the next step. Nuri el maliki a syrian shia terrorist is the next.....

Do you have any idea of external support for iran?

 

[Serpentine]

There are extremists among Sunni Muslims, but consider the total number, around 1.4 billion, what percentage are extremists? Those who are not extremists, which is the vast majority, I believe still consider Shia as their own Muslim brother, myself included. But looking at the world today, specially from the actions of Iranian regime and their dependent entities in the Arab world, many questions are being raised. I think the questions in my previous post deserve some answers.

I wasn't talking about Sunni Muslims.They totally have my respect.my problem is with guys like the one I answered to in my previous post.

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

God give oil to Saudis and Iran and both used it to create their followers (religious group) and west used it to find friends to invade their country

If sunni are in power they used Shia (Iraq , Afghanistan) to find people to welcome them , now in a Shia control Syria they found sunnis.

divide and rule.

 

[Kazhugu]

On topic(in India): Shias are pretty prosperous in India, especially the Gujrati Shia businessmen who are ridiculously rich. Howveer, this middle Eastern rivalry is spreading to India and affecting our social fabric negatively. For example, in Kashmir, there has been some Shia-Sunni clashes in recent years (and the trend seems to be going upwards)...

i'll tell you what is keeping the shias and sunnis in india from going at each other;s throats...the need to stand united in face of the hindus...thats it...else you would be seeing the same thing you are seeing in other countries....even in this scenario...in places like up the shia and the sunni dont freely co-exist with each other...the gullies are different, the neighbourhoods are different and the tension is always there in the air....

 

[DroneAcharya]

i'll tell you what is keeping the shias and sunnis in india from going at each other;s throats...the need to stand united in face of the hindus...thats it...else you would be seeing the same thing you are seeing in other countries....even in this scenario...in places like up the shia and the sunni dont freely co-exist with each other...the gullies are different, the neighbourhoods are different and the tension is always there in the air....

True that ; I still remember an incident in Delhi which made me acquainted with their rivalry. And add in the caste warfare (oh yes, there are upper caste and lower caste Muslims too) and its a deadly cocktail. One of our drivers, this guy who is a Sunni, accuses his neighborly Shia of feeding them food off plates that have been polished with their spit, that's how bad they despised each other. Now i wouldn't have given it ear if it was just neighbors dissing each other off, but he said that it was a general behavior among the Shias towards Sunnis. Curiously, i asked him how would they treat a Christian or a Hindu. He says they are treated on a different pedestal, as there would be kept different kitchenware for them.