Shia or Sunni

[Мастер]

As of right now, this article

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/01/middl ... index.html

described ISIS and al-Qaeda as "Shiite extremist groups". We'll see how long that lasts.

[Lance]

I always thought the Shiite were the whack jobs and the Sunni were the sane ones. But I guess I don't pay close attention.

[Arneb]

21:58, the error has been corrected. Sunni extremist group.

@Lance:
Shia - Iranian govt, current Iraqui govt, Hizbollah
Sunni - Saddam Hussein, Muqtadah alSadr, Saudi-Arabia, al-Qaida, Taliban, Pakistan, Turkey, and pretty much every Muslim country that isn't currently in the news: Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh...
Assad and his family/ethnic group are special, they are Alawites, a significantly altered flavour of Shia Islam.

[Мастер]

I always thought the Shiite were the whack jobs and the Sunni were the sane ones. But I guess I don't pay close attention.

I think a large majority of adherents to both the Shia and Sunni forms of Islam hold extreme, radical views, for example, that the United States doesn't have the right to kill them. But, from the handy-dandy "Islam by Country" map,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Isla ... ountry.svg

we see that Shia Islam is found primarily in Iran, with Iraq and Azerbaijan (and maybe Lebanon?) being the only other countries where it is the majority form.

Iran overthrew a long-time dictator and adopted a fundamentalist Islamic regime at a time when that wasn't really cool, hip, and trendy, so this may account for the image of Shia as being the more radical form of Islam. The Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon, partially sponsored by Iran, may have contributed to that image as well, but note that Hamas is a Sunni group. Sunni Saudi Arabia has also had a strict Islamic regime for a long time; it doesn't seem to get such bad press, though, since Saudi Arabia gets on rather well with most western countries. Certainly in the 1980s, the United States was funding Sunni terrorist groups in Afghanistan. (The US was also funding terrorism in Latin America at that time, although those groups were not Islamic.) Here is the profile for Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (Sunnis don't have Ayatollahs), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Sistani, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Thomas Friedman (and apparently again later, by an Iraqi group). Often described as leader of the Iraqi Shia community, I leave it to each to judge for himself or herself whether he qualifies as a whack job.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 displaced a government that was dominated by Sunnis, although the regime was really secular; that rather comical fellow who gave all the glowing press reports about the glorious victories the Iraqi army was winning every single day, right up until the American tanks entered Baghdad, was Shiite, and the foreign minister (the grey-haired fellow with the moustache) was Christian. Thirteen years later, we have an odd combination of Sunni fundamentalist groups allied with unemployed Sunni ex-military from Saddam's regime, fighting against the new Shia-dominated government installed by the Americans, making Iraq the global centre for Jihad, in a country which had no history of Jihadism prior to its "liberation". The US now finds itself effectively allied with Iran, fighting against the remnants of the regime that used to be the US's ally against its enemy Iran, before the US crushed its former ally.

From people I know who have visited Tehran, they have found the Iranians there to be mostly pretty level-headed and reasonable. I'm thinking about visiting myself.

[Lance]

I'm thinking about visiting myself.

Aren't you already there, with yourself?

And if you do go, wouldn't yourself have to go with you, making the trip unnecessary in the first place?

[Мастер]

I'm thinking about visiting myself.

Aren't you already there, with yourself?

And if you do go, wouldn't yourself have to go with you, making the trip unnecessary in the first place?

I myself am thinking about visiting.

[MM_Dandy]

When you get to see you, say "Hi" from me (and Lance).

[Lance]

When you get to see you, say "Hi" from me (and Lance).

Yes, please do.

[Heid the Ba]

I always thought the Shiite were the whack jobs and the Sunni were the sane ones. But I guess I don't pay close attention.

They used to be, back when Saddam Hussein was the good guy and the Iranian Ayatollahs were the bad guys.

[Arneb]

AND when ObL was one of the good guys, too, because he kicked the commies' arses.

[Lianachan]

It's all pretty intricate and involved. I can't help but think the world would be a much better place if we'd never invented gods.

[Arneb]

I don'T think so, we'd have found a reason to beat each other to a pulp, don'T you worry.

[Мастер]

I don'T think so, we'd have found a reason to beat each other to a pulp, don'T you worry.

I tend to be somewhat sympathetic to this view. Mind you, I have no evidence, so it is just speculation. But I often wonder whether religion in such contexts is simply a means of expression for conflicts which have a variety of causes.

[Arneb]

And let's not forget that the three most murderous ideologies of the 20th century managed quite well, thank you, to murder millions without invoking any God.

[Enzo]

Isn't "Shia" how the Aussies pronounce "Cher"?

So the Sunni and Shia show?


Maybe???



No?

[Lance]

[Мастер]

the three most murderous ideologies of the 20th century

Can you identify those? I think there are a few different taxonomies.

[Arneb]

I am thinking of National Socialism, Stalinism and Maoism (not necessarily in that order). Lumping in Spanish/Italian/Portuguese/Austrian fascism with National Socialism is ad libitum but does not change the numbers very much.