ABSTRACT
For most people Shi'ism stands for "radical Islam", or – worse – "Islamic terrorism". Shi'ism is reduced to a narrow political notion as if, since time immemorial, it has represented little more than a political ideology focused on the conquest of the state and the formation of a strict Islamic Republic. Once upon a time, Shi'ism played a crucial role in the history of empires; but above all else, it was – and is today – a religion; a religion revealed to a prophet, Muhammad; a religion whose revealed essence is communicated through the letters, the verses and the suras of the Qur'an. The Holy Book is the foundation of the religious fact of Islam. In Islam the main division is between Sunnism and Shi'ism. It is important to note that the Sunni and Shi'i worlds do not represent two disconnected, geographically separate communities. Both exist side by side around the globe.
