so what is the difference between Sunni and Shiite, worth killing over

[sam sarrha]

:shrug:

[Maple]

1. Same as the difference

between protestant and catholic...and that's long been worth killing over apparently.

[eleny]

2. From some little that I've read

The Sunni have ruled that area for 600 years and they don't like giving up their authority.

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

3. Mohammed

was the prophet who Allah decided to reveal the Koran to. When Mohammed died, his uncle's son, Ali, eventually became Caliph. Ali was brutally murdered. Shi'ites believed that the next Islamic leader should be a descendant of Ali, therefore a descendant of Mohammed. Sunni's believed that Caliphs should be elected from a knowledgeable member of the community. This division occured immediately after Ali's death in roughly 661. After Ali's death dynastic rule emerged and the Sunnite efffectively won. This infuriated the Shi'ites as they felt the dynastic Caliphs were not divinely inspired and therefore fallible. Chaos ensues......<very shortened version>

[Selatius]

7. I'd like to take your account to make a note

In this case, we see two groups of people. One wants to elect an authority worthy of rule (Sunnis). The others think the bloodline of Ali, therefore Mohammed, should rule (Shi'ites).

The question I pose to everyone (and I mean not to slander any religion here) is why isn't any individual allowed to interpret the Koran the way he or she sees fit for himself or herself? Every human being is endowed with the ability to learn, the ability to reason, and the ability to choose one's course. Isn't this what God did? Why is it that the prevailing attitude is that only a few should exercise that power above all others?

This is what galls me. Why do I need a pope? Why do I need a preacher in the bully pulpit telling me what is right or wrong? Why do I need an ayatollah or any other religious authority? Am I not in charge of my own soul and body?

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

8. Obviously you don't need one...

but if someone can convince you that you do, damn, have they got an unbelievable amount of power over you, and your money.

[Selatius]

9. This is what makes me despair

Man is endowed with these awesome abilities to reason and to decide, but history is the story of people throwing away these gifts through deceit and lies or having them taken away by brutal force, and the result is people exist in a lesser state for it. Humans have the ability to rise up above all this and defeat it. They have such incredible, untapped capability that it is awe inspiring. They are so much better than this, but so far, such a movement to unshackle oneself from not only physical chains but mental chains as well has never been sustained. They have all been killed and oppressed.

[The Magistrate]

13. Actually, Sir

Islam has an acephalous structure in which every person is entitled to interpert the Koran and Hadith for themselves. No formal authority really compells anyone to refrain from doing so. Authority derives from reputation, from acknowledged scholarship and skill in interpertation, which enables particular individuals to build followings. But it is not quite like, say, occupying a place in the Catholic hierachy. There are various schools of interpertation, to which people adhere, and which are often at odds with one another. In many ways, this diffudion of authority is one of the religion's great strengths, just as a lack of centralization has been pne of the cultures great political weakness.

[bonito]

10. If I was born with a "good book"

Attached to my butt well I guess I'd follow it but I was not. I'll follow my heart! My good senses... thats what I was born with.

[Igel]

14. Because in conservative Islamic thought only a Muslim is

allowed to rule over Muslims in a Muslim land; and their lapses from righteousness are forgiven as long as they both don't stop the righteous from being righteous, or allow the unrighteous to be unrighteous. The question is, What's a Muslim? And under what conditions is takfir permitted, the calling of a Muslim 'kufr', i.e., infidel? Takfir is widely condemned in some circles, and freely practiced in others.

One exhortation, I think in the Qur'an, is to not allow 'innovation' in religion. Faithful Shi'a believe that the Sunni have added much; faithful Sunni believe that the Shi'ites have added to the revelation. Wahhabi and Salafist (Sunni) thought holds Shi'a to be apostasy.

Were there no mixing of mosque and state, or were the only punishments the Pauline practice of disfellowshipment or excommunication, it wouldn't be a problem. How to say this nicely ... some Muslims believe that enforcement of shari'a is not to be left undone just because unjust rulers neglect it. Death for apostasy is part of Islamic law, and is on the books in more than one Muslim country. Whether or not the people that do this are Muslims or not--they say they are, others hem and haw, and a few say they're not--I'll leave for others to debate.

Then there are the historical battles between the Shi'a and Sunni, and the long-standing assertion of oppression for hundreds of years of Shi'a by Sunnis. It's a blood feud of sorts.

You may not have a belief system that has an authority figure or authoritative text in it. Many belief systems do: for a Muslim, there are many, many options--Sunni/Shi'a, Qur'an vs. Hadith, which school of jurisprudence and interpretation or which subsect of Shi'ism ...

[rateyes]

11. Help me here...

If I understand it correctly...Iran has been in the control of the Shiites--the ones who took Americans hostage when Jimmy Carter was president as revenge for giving the Shah safe haven...and the Sunnis were pretty muc in control in Iraq. Now, the Shiites are the majority in the Iraqi government, which means that, pretty much Iran wins the Iran/Iraq war. Shiites in Iran join forces with Shiites in Iraq. Was does that mean for U.S.?

[two gun sid]

4. It has to do with the first Islamic Civil War and...

who was to succeed The Prophet, the elective caliphs or The Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, Ali.

[pinto]

5. Don't know, but I heard an interesting snip from a young Iranian/American

historian/author on cable news this week about the conflict. His view is that we have stepped into a century old conflict within the bigger Islamic culture. Essentially, he said, we have inserted ourselves in a decades old Islamic civil war. The Sunni and Shiite have been at odds about the lineage of Islam from the Prophet and it's place in their society. I don't know nearly enough about the history to make an informed statement, but his take set me back a little. I realized we are all, here in the West, probably working from a range of "cluelessness"...and, in my view, it is besotted by oil.

[Ready2Snap]

6. Tyhey don't kill each other for religious reasons

they do it because power here on earth is what really concerns 99% of all religious leaders, and what they can control with it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. About the same as Catholics and Protestants or Jews and Muslims.

"God is the only animal to have discovered the one true religion..several of them." - Mark Twain