Today we will take a closer look into who the Sunni’s and Shia are in Islam.

Mark and I believe, along with a host of scholars, that we are currently living in HISTORIC and BIBLICAL TIMES in 2025 and it’s important to understand who the Middle Eastern players are and what is their story, so that we can get up to speed in understanding the significance of what’s coming.

In the Middle East, Muslims of Islam divided into territories initially by tribes. Borders were fought over and today most have settled their land, their borders and have both striving and thriving economies.

Within the Islamic Religion, there lies another conflict that remains unresolved due to disagreements as to whom should have been Muhammad’s successor.

Though the two main sects within Islam, Sunni and the Shities or Shia, agree on most of the fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam, a bitter split between the two goes back some 14 centuries. The divide originated with a dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic faith he introduced.

Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 2 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while 15 percent are Shia.

Shia represent the majority of the population in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan and a plurality in Lebanon.

Sunnis are the majority in more than 40 other countries, from Morocco to Indonesia.

Despite their differences, Sunni and Shia have lived alongside each other in relative peace for most of history. But starting in the late 20th century, the schism deepened, exploding into violence in many parts of the Middle East as extreme brands of Sunni and Shia Islam battle for both religious and political supremacy.

“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” says Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Sunni-Shia Split in Islam. “This was important, because by the time he died, he had basically brought all the tribes of Arabia together into a kind of confederation that became the ummah—the people or nation of Islam.”

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.

Until non-radicalized, moderate or mainstream peacekeeping Muslims, both followers and Imams, stand up and explain their faith to the rest of us and hold their radicals to account…things will not get better.

Is Hamas Sunni or Shia?

Why does Iran support Hamas?

Why does Qatar support Hamas?

Does Egypt support Palestine?

One Reference Source of many:

BY: SARAH PRUITT

Sarah Pruitt is a writer and editor based in seacoast New Hampshire. She has been a frequent contributor to History.com since 2005, and is the author of Breaking History: Vanished! (Lyons Press, 2017), which chronicles some of history's most famous disappearances.

Send us a text