I was born with no knowledge about what it meant to be different. I had no imagination to actually think that people can be judged and discriminated for their skin color, race, or beliefs. To children, thoughts such these would never occur unless they are being implant in their brains from schools, media, newspapers, and politics. I did not know what it meant to have different religion as a child but even as I was a child I saw kids in my class being friends with their own people (what they have in common which was religion) racism implants inside children hearts without even realizing or paying attention to those relations, but to me as a child I never distinguished any person for any of what they followed. Christian children were in one group away from Muslims and so as for Muslims. Then Iraq war starts and I acquire more information about sectarianism and it was new to me and there was no way possible for me to comprehend the reasons behind it. I started asking for reasons and I came with more understanding about what it meant to be different and I did not think it would actually matter to people that they would slaughter and kill just because the other person do not have his own freedom to believe and follow what they desire.
Islam:
Sunna and Shi’a what is the difference?
Both are Muslims but sadly there has to be differences to shatter the union of our faith. Those two groups of Islam have spiritual and political differences. After the Prophet Muhammad’s death the leadership became to his close friend and became the first Caliph Abu Bakr as he was elected by the people and Sunni word means “one who follows the traditions of the Prophet”. However, Some people believe the leadership should have stayed among the Prophet’s family and supposedly should be passed directly to his cousin Ali bin Abu Talib. The word Shia meant for those who follow Ali and believe that he should have been the leader. “Shiaat Ali” which means the “party of Ali” are the followers of “Ahl al Bayt” meaning “People of the household” of the Prophet.
All over the world Sunni’s are the majorities and estimated to be 85%-90% of Muslims and minorities of Shia are found in countries such as Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and few others.
In Sunnis governed countries Shias tend to be the poorest and are victims of discrimination and persecution. Some Sunni doctrines encourage and arise hatred toward Shias.
“Today the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims all agree that Allah is the only God and Muhammad his messenger. They follow five ritualistic pillars of Islam, including Ramadan, the month of fasting, and share a holy book, the Koran. But while Sunnis rely heavily on the practice of the Prophet and his teachings (the “sunna”), the Shia see their ayatollahs as reflections of God on earth. This has led Sunnis to accuse Shia of heresy, while Shia point out that Sunni dogmatism has led to extremist sects such as the puritanical Wahhabis” From - http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-19
Prayer differences:
Shia pray the five prayers three times a day the first “morning” alone then two combined “noon and afternoon” and the last two combined as well “dusk and dinner” and they also use small tablet of clay made in Karbala (A city in South Iraq) for their heads to rest on it while Sunnis pray five times a day each by its time with no use of the clay tablet. Moreover, Sunnis enfold their arms while Shias do not.
For those minor differences terrorists wants to eliminate who claim Shias to be infidels and increase the sectarianism within the Muslim souls. Instead of being one united nation people slaughter their brothers over land and force to follow what they want us to follow with no freedom, mercy, nor love. The ruthless hearts making us go back in time and forget how to be civilized or the meaning of being a human. If they truly were educated enough to understand what Islam means, the Islamic Nation possibly would have the potential to be a great powerful peaceful nation because Islam is religion of Peace not War and our greetings starts with “Peace upon you”.
Zahraa Hassan