Arab lands: historic inter-Islamic conflict
After the death of Muhammad, Islam’s founder, in 632 AD, his followers disagreed over a successor (Caliph), thus ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’ branches of Islam were established, each later subdivided many times.
MERF
Sunnis advocated the leadership of the most qualified (Sunnis are now a strong, but shrinking, Muslim majority). Shiites insisted that the Caliph be the dead leader’s blood relative, as with royalty. Over the centuries until today, much blood has been spilled in conflict between the two groups. Although most Muslim countries contain sizeable numbers of both groups, for much of the past 100 years Saudi Arabia has led the Sunnis while Iran led the Shiites.
