A (Very) Brief History of the Middle East Part 14: The Much Anticipated Who's Who

I may be overly optimistic here. I can’t say for certain that this post has been “anticipated.” I’ve certainly built up the suspense (I’ve been talking about it since the beginning of the series). I assure you that the hype was completely unintentional, being the result of the unexpected length of this series, and chances are the Who’s Who will fall pathetically short of any expectations set for it.

In reality chances are so few people have been reading this blog or will read this blog, that it doesn’t make one bit of difference, so I’ll quit with the preface and get on with it.

The point of this post is to outline which of the Middle East’s major players are Sunni and which are Shiite. Hopefully when I’m finished we can get a better grasp on some of the sectarian conflicts taking place in the region.

Sunni: The Sunnis often consider themselves the more traditional sect. They consider Shiites to be heretics because they do not follow the originally chosen Caliphs. Worldwide, 90% of the world’s Muslims are Sunni.

Amongst the most prominent Sunni Muslims are Osama bin Laden (Making Al-Qaeda ostensibly a Sunni organization, though they are usually able to set aside sectarian differences for their common hatred of the west). Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath party were also Sunni and were oppressive and often brutal to Shiites (one of the main causes of the sectarian conflicts that are going on now). This stems from the Iraq-Iran war, in which predominantly Shiite Iran tried to install its brand of Islamic rule in the rest of the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni, as well as Syria (though they are ruled by a small Shiite subsect) and Kuwait.

Shiite: The Shiites consider the Sunnis to be heretics because their religious leaders are outside of the Mohammedan bloodline. As a whole, they have long been oppressed by the larger Sunni sect.

The most influential Shiite nation in the Middle East is Iran. They are suspected of funding most of the Shiite Militias in the region, including the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, the Palestinian Hamas militia, and Iraq’s Mhadi Army (the militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.)

In the first election in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was removed from power the Shiite’s (backed by al-Sadr) swept and now control the Iraqi political scene (Iraq is 60% Sunni, 40% Shiite, but Sunnis boycotted the election). Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as well as most of the country’s military and police force, are Shiite. This has further fed sectarian distrust as Iraqi Sunnis accuse the police of acting as death squads.


If you want to know more about why so much sectarian conflict exists, check out this article from Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592849-1,00.html
It’s very insightful, and definitely worth a look. I’ll be back tomorrow with an interesting explainer, and then wrap this series up.

Thanks for reading.