A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is

John McHugo

Paperback

9780863569265

The 1400-year-old schism between Sunnis and Shiis has rarely been as toxic as it is today, feeding wars and communal strife in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other countries, with tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran escalating.

This work reveals how this great divide occurred. Charting the story of Islam from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad to the present day, he describes the conflicts that raged over the succession to the Prophet, how Sunnism and Shiism evolved as different sects during the Abbasid caliphate, and how the rivalry between the empires of the Sunni Ottomans and Shii Safavids contrived to ensure that the split would continue into modern times. Now its full, destructive force has been brought out by the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for the soul of the Muslim world.

This work shows that there was nothing inevitable about the sectarian conflicts that now disfigure Islam. It is an essential guide to understanding the genesis, development and manipulation of the great schism that has come to define Islam and the Muslim world.

Contents

Part One

1. In the Beginning: Before there were Sunnis and Shi’is

2. How Civil War Came to Islam

3. Of Umayyads and Abbasids

4. The Split Between Sunnis and Shi’is

5. Of Ismailis, Assasins, Druze, Zaydis, Gnostic Shi’is, Alawis and Sufis

6. How Iran Became Shi’i

7. The Ottoman Empire, India, and the Muslim Reformation

Part Two

8. The Long 19th Century and the Coming Western Dominance

9. Between Two World Wars

10. Tides Ebb and Flow

11. The Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War

12. From the Iranian Revolution to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

13. Wedges into Fault-Lines

Family Trees