Part 1: The Shi'ite-Sunni divide

The Shi'ite-Sunni divide
Part 1: How real and how deep?
By Sultan Shahin

NEW DELHI -The majority Shi'ite backlash against the traditional dominance of the Sunni minority in Iraq that the United States hoped would bail it out of the Iraqi quagmire has not materialized. Instead, two of the main Shi'ite and Sunni leaders, known to have mass support in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr and Ahmed Kubeisi respectively, have come together to oppose the US occupation.

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With the US, or at lest a section of its administration, seriously considering the creation of separate Shi'ite states around southern Saudi Arabian and Iraqi oil fields - that would be small enough to be run as protectorates - the Islamic world would face a major challenge in reconciling Shi'ite-Sunni ideological differences in a hurry.

And even if such a hare-brained idea was not implemented, the very real possibility of a Shi'ite fundamentalist regime a la Iran eventually rising in Iraq on the ashes of the secular Sunni-led administration of Saddam has the potential to overturn the delicate sectarian balance of power in the Arab, if not the Muslim world. Which raises the question, will the world Muslim ummah (community) be able to rise to the challenge?

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The Shi'ite-Sunni split occurred in the decades immediately following the death of the Prophet and has deepened since. Sunnis regard Hazrat Ali, a son-in-law of the Prophet, as the fourth and last of the Khulafa-e-Rashedeen (rightly-guided caliphs) - successors to Hazrat Mohammed as leader of the Muslims). He followed the first caliph Hazrat Abu Bakr (632-634), the second Hazrat Umar (634-644) and the third Hazrat Usman (644-656). Shi'ites feel that Ali should have been the first caliph and that the caliphate should pass down only to direct descendants of Mohammed via Ali and Fatima. They often refer to themselves as ahl al bayt or "people of the house" (of the Prophet).

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EH23Df05.html

this is an extremely important article..I look forward to part 2..