Sunni-Shiite Divide

Christians have their Protestants and Catholics, Jews their Orthodox and Reform. Muslims are split, too, into Sunnis and Shiites. What began as a dispute over who was entitled to lead Islam following the death of the Prophet Mohammad in A.D. 632 led to differing theologies and worldviews for Sunnis and Shiites. The schism has pitted empires, nations and neighbors against each other intermittently for 14 centuries. In the many civil wars in the Mideast today, it is sometimes a driving force and sometimes an aggravating factor. Local struggles are aggravated by the competition between Sunni and Shiite powers Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Tensions between the regional rivals have escalated since Iran negotiated an international agreement on its nuclear program that released the country from crippling economic sanctions. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened to take the fight “inside Iran,” and leaders in Iran blame the Saudis for helping to foment anti-government protests there that began in late December. Yemen’s civil war has been intensified by the two powers backing opposing sides along Sunni-Shiite lines. Syria’s civil war, sparked by a popular revolt against dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2011, quickly devolved into a sectarian conflagration. Syria’s conflict, in turn, re-ignited the Sunni-Shiite fighting in Iraq that bled that country in the mid-2000s. Since the 2003 ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, when power shifted from minority Sunnis to majority Shiites in a country traditionally seen as a potent force in the Arab world, Sunnis in the Mideast have expressed anxiety about rising Shiite influence. Many Sunnis fear that Iran is trying to establish what Jordan’s King Abdullah called a Shiite crescent, encompassing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Unease over Shiite power has been exploited by extremist groups, notably the jihadist Islamic State, whose ideology is rooted in Saudi Arabia’s 200-year-old puritanical Wahhabi movement. Wahhabis regard themselves as Sunnis, though many Sunnis consider them outside the fold. The Sunni-Shiite schism also provokes violence between Muslims in such places as Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia. About 85 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis. Shiites form a majority only in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain, which is ruled by Sunni royals. Where Sunnis are a majority or dominate government, Shiites frequently complain of discrimination, and vice versa. According to a 2012 poll, roughly 24 percent of non-Shiites around the world reject Shiites as fellow Muslims; the figure is 7 percent for Sunnis.