Shia or sunni who is right

Despite Iranian appeals, most Iraqi Shiites remained loyal to Iraq, performing military service when required during the Iran-Iraq war. Both Sunni and Shiite Islam are organized in ways that reflect their beliefs. In view of the emphasis of mainstream Shiism on the role of the Imamate, it is not surprising that the Shiites have a more elaborate religious hierarchy than Sunni Muslims. With the exception of post-revolutionary Iran, the Shiite clergy has been more independent of the government than religious officials have been in Sunni Muslim countries.

Shiite religious officials have had less need to rely on secular governments for money to finance their activities, since they control substantial religious endowments. In the Shiite communities, the most important appointments to senior religious positions are made by Shiite religious officials, not by the state. In Sunni countries, in contrast, it is typical for governments to exercise control over the appointment of senior religious officials.

These governments have also assumed the right to allocate large religious endowments through government ministries created for that purpose. This makes high-ranking Sunni clergy more dependent on the government than their Shiite counterparts. Sunnis are also more open than Shiites to the idea that the leading of prayers and preaching can be done by lay persons without formal clerical training.

In view of the power of the Shiite clergy, it is not surprising that they play an important political role. Led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the clergy organized the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran in and turned the country into an Islamic Republic. Shiite clergy have also been prominent in opposition movements in Iraq and Lebanon.

Islamic Political Movements Both Shiite and Sunni Muslim political movements have as a primary objective the establishment of Islamic law as the sole basis of government. They reject secularism as an imported western idea, and are opposed to several kinds of social change that use the west as a model, such as changes in the status of women. Political movements with a religious message have a popular appeal in many Muslim countries. This is partly because of the religious outlook of the people.

But it is also because the leaders of these movements are addressing the political issues of the day. One of the reasons for the fall of the Shah of Iran was that his secularizing policies alienated the religious establishment. In contrast, the monarchs of oil-rich Sunni Muslim countries have made a greater effort to keep their policies in line with religious sensitivities.

Another very important reason for the fall of the Shah was the widespread discontent with his development policies favoring rich and westernized groups. The Shah spent a great deal of the country's oil wealth on military and civilian projects thought by many to be poorly conceived. Iran was a more populous country than other oil-rich Middle Eastern states, so its oil wealth spread less widely among the people. The effect of the Shah's westernizing development policies was to produce a new bourgeois class that was a target of hatred and resentment for poor people.

In addition, like nationalist and leftist Iranian parties, the clergy vehemently attacked the Shah's ties to the West. In spite of their religious orientation, many of the issues addressed by the Islamic movements are the same political or social issues that concern secular politicians. The movements attack government corruption and the gulf between rich and poor. In Iraq and Lebanon, where Shiite communities are poorer than the Sunni and Christian communities, resentment at perceived discrimination has also allowed Shiite movements to mobilize grassroots support.

Problems of corruption and poverty are also invoked by Sunni movements in countries such as Egypt and Algeria, though these movements have so far not been able to obtain support from high-level religious leaders of a stature comparable to the Ayatollah Khomeini before the Iranian revolution. The opposition to the West is derived from historic resentment in many parts of the Muslim world at western colonialism earlier this century. In addition to problems arising from that period, a number of more recent American and western policies are often cited by Muslim movements: western attempts to incorporate Muslim countries in alliances against the Soviet Union during the Cold War; political interventions such as the CIA-backed coup d'etat of that restored the Shah after a nationalist government led by Mohammed Mossadegh had taken power in Iran; western military and political support for Israel against the Arab world; and western military and political support for unrepresentative governments.

Some of the most dramatic anti-western acts have been carried out by Shiite political groups in Lebanon, where the central government collapsed following the outbreak of civil war in The fighting led to foreign intervention by Syrian, Israeli, and American forces.

Radical Shiite movements such as the Hizballah "Party of God" flourished in the period following the dramatic western military intervention in Lebanon in , when Israeli troops expelled the PLO from Beirut, and American peace-keeping forces were sent to Lebanon to be withdrawn in Militant Shiites taking advantage of the lack of a central authority in the country attacked western and Israeli targets, and took hostages, some of whom were killed.

Sunni opposition movements in Egypt and Algeria have also recently been increasingly violent in their anti-government, anti-western tactics. These tactics have caused a major debate in the Islamic world.

There is no justification in Islamic scriptures and jurisprudence for indiscriminate killings or assassinations of local or foreign citizens by either Sunni or Shiite Muslims. Many intellectuals, however, cite the shortcomings of governments as a reason for these acts. Violent anti-civilian acts are not Islamic in origin.

In fact, radical violence seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. Radical groups, whether religious or not, often flourish in non-democratic environments where injustice, repression, and inappropriate foreign influence are widely believed to be dominant characteristics of the existing order.

Notes 1. The majority of the Iraqi population consists of Arab Shiites, but Sunni Arabs form a large minority group in the country. According to the well-known jurist, Al-Shaf'i, Ijma is the third source of Islamic jurisprudence. References Bayat, M. Mysticism and Dissent. Donaldson, M. Ismaeel, S. Khateeb, M. Broad Aspects of Shi'ite Religion. Riyadh: National Offset Printing Press, Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhallah. Finally, in , the Islamic Revolution in Iran produced a radical brand of Shia Islam that would clash violently with Sunni conservatives in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the decades to follow.

Amid the increasing politicization of Islam and the rise of fundamentalists on both sides of the divide, sectarian tensions intensified in the early 21st century, especially amid the upheavals caused by two Persian Gulf Wars, the chaos that followed the U. Sunni-Shia divisions would fuel a long-running civil war in Syria , fighting in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, and terrorist violence on both sides. A common thread in most of these conflicts is the ongoing battle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran for influence in the oil-rich Middle East and surrounding regions.

Despite the long-running nature of the Sunni-Shia divide, the fact that the two sects coexisted in relative peace for many centuries suggests their struggles may have less to do with religion than with wealth and power. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. If there happens a fight between Sunni and Shina, it is usually because of some bad propaganda, bad teaching about the other side. He there announces that this Hajj he has just recently returned from was the last one he could ever attend. Who is right? After the resurrection, all humans will be questioned about their deeds and actions.

Sunni and Shia Muslims share the most fundamental Islamic beliefs and articles of faith and are the two main sub-groups in Islam. The Sunni bloc contains few Shia Muslims.

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