Islam: Shiites and Sunnis…What’s the Difference?

For the past several years of the Iraq war, daily references to inter-faith hostilities between the two main factions of Islam probably confounded most in the West. Having been a teacher of world religions, I found it necessary to understand the difference between the Shia Muslim and the Sunni Muslim.

In Iraq, for example, three distinct political factions emerged after coalition forces invaded Iraq. To the north were the Kurds, about 17% of Iraq’s 20 million people. Kurds are mostly Muslim, with almost all of them Sunnis.

Surrounding the capital, Baghdad, but extending northwest of the city in a densely populated region is the famous Sunni Triangle which was a center of strong support for former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's government. Although Hussein favored the Sunnis, the Shia branch of Islam held a 2 to 1 majority in the population.

In 2006, Nouri al-Maliki became prime minister of Iraq, and continues in that post to the present. He is Shiite. As he attempted to unite the three political factions, he met with resistance from the formerly powerful, but minority, Sunnis. Fighting erupted and was primarily between the majority Shia and the minority Sunni. But there were reports of infighting as well. To outside observers, as well as people in Iraq who supported the American military presence, the cause of violence was obscure. Sunnis boycotted elections at first, but now have become integrated into the voting process.

It is interesting to note that Vice-President Biden, when a senator, called for a tripartite government in Iraq, modeled after that in the Balkans, each section of Iraq with its own president and constitution. This idea was not agreeable to the Bush administration. However, today, Iraq’s flag has three stars in it, each representing one of the three factions.

So much for Iraq’s political divisions which stem largely from the historical split in the Muslim religion into the Shiite and Sunni branches. So, how did Islam split? It all goes back to the seventh century, upon the death of Islam’s founder, Mohammed, in 632 AD.

One group, headed by Muhammad's close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, became the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. The thinking was that Mohammed’s successor should be one thought capable of the task, or one who follows in the traditions taught by the religion’s founder. Thus, the Arabic meaning of “Sunni.”

On the other hand, there were those that argued that leadership should stay within the Prophet's own family, among those specifically appointed by him, or among Imams appointed by God Himself. The Shia Muslims believed that following the Prophet Muhammad's death, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali.

Like the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, religious wars were fought. In the First Civil War (656-661), the third Calif, Uthman, was murdered. The group responsible for the murder, headed by Ali, came to be known as shiat Ali, Arabic for “party of Ali,” thus the term “Shiite.”

However, Sunni influence was regained in 661 with the murder of Ali. A Second Civil War (680-692) broke out upon the death of the calif Muawiyah.

Lest I get too involved in the history of Islam, suffice it to say that both the Sunnis and Shiites of today consider themselves true Muslims, agreeing on the core fundamentals of Islam - the Five Pillars - and recognize each others as Muslims, but each from their own vantage point of history. The line of Mohammed through Ali became extinct in 873 when the last Shia Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who had no brothers disappeared within days of inheriting the title at the age of four. The Shias refused, however, to accept that he had died, preferring to believe that he was merely "hidden" and would return. When after several centuries this failed to happen, spiritual power passed to the ulema, a council of twelve scholars who elected a supreme Imam. The best known modern example of the Shia supreme Imam is the late Ayyatollah Khomeni whose portrait hangs in many Shia homes. Remember the hostage crisis in Iran when Carter was president? The Shia Imam has come to be imbued with Pope-like infallibility and the Shia religious hierarchy is not dissimilar in structure and religious power to that of the Catholic Church within Christianity. Sunni Islam, in contrast, more closely resembles the myriad independent churches of American Protestantism.

I was curious to find out where the Taliban in Afghanistan fit in. The Taliban is another group on the extreme “right” of Islam. They have attacked Shiites as being too moderate. On the more liberal side of Islam are the Sunnis, to which belongs Osama bin Laden. In Egypt, for example, Sunni women commonly wear a white scarf and colored dress. Contrast this with the Shia women’s black, face-covering garb, or the Taliban’s full Afghan chadri which covers the wearer's entire face except for a small region about the eyes, which is covered by a concealing net or grille. This type of covering is also common in North Western Pakistan close to the Afghan border. It is frequently referred to as “burqa.”

What Muslim women wear has caused controversy in Europe. In 2004, France was the first country to abolish the wearing of the burqa. Islamic dress that covers the face of women has also caused controversy in the United Kingdom. If a Muslim woman is accused by her father or brother of immodesty or an attempt by the woman to be freed of an arranged marriage, there have been cases of father killing daughter in what is called an “honor killing.”

The United Nations estimates that as many as 5,000 women are murdered in such honor killings each year for offenses like immodesty or refusing an arranged marriage. Increasingly, however, killings of Muslim women are occurring on U.S. soil. On July 6th last year, in Jonesboro, Georgia, according to police, a Pakistani named Chaudhry Rashid strangled his 25-year-old daughter with a Bungee cord in her bedroom because she wanted to end her arranged marriage.

Fortunately, there are increasing condemnations of such practices from both Sunni and Shia leaders. Many Muslims are uncomfortable about how Islam has been dragged into this, because Islam categorically does not allow people to kill their own daughters.