ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the religio-political motivations of the Shia-Sunni divide in early Islam, and focuses on the political developments of that schism in medieval Islam. According to Shia beliefs, the Saqifat assembly, therefore, was the opposite moment for al-Ghadir as the former unjustly supplanted the latter. Vali Nasr reported that after the toppling of Saddam’s regime in April 2003, he ‘happened to be on the outskirts of Lahore, visiting the headquarters of a Sunni fundamentalist political group known as the Jamaat-e Islami or Islamic Party’. Historically speaking, Sunni Islam has governed the most parts of the Islamic world with very short and scattered Shia experiences especially during the 4th century AH or what some scholars mark as ‘Shia Century’. The Sunni-Shia dispute has manifested itself through theological polemics with a rejection of the ‘other’s’ beliefs and practices. Religious texts, both old and modern, abound in statements. History, politics and religion are thus present at the core of this old-age debate.
