Why shiite and sunni fight

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! Communities that happened to be Sunni or Shia formed self-defense militias, first to protect themselves, then to exact revenge killings. Sunni families and Shia families came to see one another as threats, and the militias committed massacres to drive out the other side.

In just two years, Baghdad's once-mixed neighborhoods were starkly divided by religion. The story of Baghdad is important not because it's necessary to blame America for everything but because this was in some ways the start of today's Sunni-Shia region-wide war, and it shows how that conflict is not really primarily about religion. Rather, it is a story of how insecurity and fear can lead a once-unified people to divide themselves along some tribal line, which then hardens into hatred and violence.

And it shows how people will split along whichever lines are most readily available, or whichever lines happen to line up with the politics of the moment. In that case, it was religion. But there's little to this story that is in itself religious, much less ancient. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.

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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The real roots of Sunni-Shia conflict: beyond the myth of "ancient religious hatreds". Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The real roots of Sunni-Shia conflict: beyond the myth of "ancient religious hatreds". Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Iraqi Sunni and Shia attend a Baghdad conference bringing together local political and religious leaders.

Al Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan put together a very nice video debunking the myth that Sunni-Shia sectarianism is all about ancient religious hatreds and explaining how modern-day power politics, beginning in , is actually driving much of the sectarianism we're seeing right now: RealityCheck : The myth of a Sunni-Shia war.

If the Sunni-Shia conflict isn't about religion, where did it come from? Iraqi army fighters, with US support, clear out territory held by Shia militias in Baghdad in My colleague Zack Beauchamp explains : After Iran's Islamic Revolution toppled the pro-Western shah, the new Islamic Republic established an aggressive foreign policy of exporting the Iranian revolution, attempting to foment Iran-style theocratic uprisings around the Middle East.

Next Up In World. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. The Latest. The big questions about Covid booster shots By German Lopez. Looking at the sectarianized conflicts of the Middle East through the lens of a 7th century conflict is therefore both simplistic and misleading.

Byman Saturday, June 7, This lazy narrative of a primordial and timeless conflict needs to be replaced by serious analysis. And that should be one that looks at what the Sunni-Shiite sectarian contest has become in the 21st century: a modern conflict in failed or failing states fueled by a political, nationalist and geostrategic rivalry.

These sectarian conflicts have become proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two nationalist actors pursuing their strategic rivalry in places where governance has collapsed. What is happening is not the supposed re-emergence of ancient hatreds, but the mobilization of a new animus.

The instrumentalization of religion and the sectarianization of a political conflict is a better way of approaching the problem, rather than projecting religion as the driver and root cause of the predicament. Sunnis and Shiites managed to coexist during most of their history when a modicum of political order provided security for both communities. It is constantly put to use by Saudi Arabia and Iran to mobilize their respective constituencies in the struggle for regional influence.

But these are tactics of war, not its causes. In a region and religion whose glorious days lie in the past, history becomes a potent tonic to mobilize the masses. Political leaders evoke distant quarrels to revive memories of more salubrious and magnificent days. Unable to appeal to higher values such as freedom and tolerance, they resort to narratives of ancient conflict to whip up fervor and loyalty.

There is an explanation for why fighting occurs more often among Sunnis than between Sunnis and Shiites. Shiites have long recognized that they will remain a minority in an overwhelmingly Sunni region. Sunnis of various persuasions vie for supremacy and control over their branch of Islam; there is little to gain in that tussle from fighting Shiites.

Wrongly defining the struggles gripping the Middle East encourages misguided remedies. It was a choice based on the mistaken conviction that ordinary Syrian Sunnis hoped the Islamist opposition would prevail over the Assad regime because of its atrocities. Western misreading also led to a failure to anticipate how Iran, the most powerful Shiite state, and Turkey, the most powerful Sunni one, would agree to not allow their very real differences to prevent understandings from being reached.

It led to misjudgment of the dynamics underpinning relations between Iranian and Iraqi Shiites, driven less by sectarian solidarity than by common anxiety over the role of the United States. Should American troops withdraw from Iraq, the differences between the two—between Iranian and Iraqi nationalism, and between the dominant Iranian and Iraqi variants of Shiism—will likely come to the fore. Today, the Sunni-Shiite prism prompts illusory pursuits.

Sunnis in the region still perceive Iran as a strategic threat. But the American belief that bellicose U. The neo-Ottoman dream is a competitor in a way that Iran is not.