Mr Khan said:
I'm still not grasping why exactly Sunni and Shia hate each other so much. The original difference between them was a split over who should be Caliph, and since the Caliphate went out with the Ottoman Empire almost 100 years ago, why does anyone care? (being that i know that means that there are other differences, but Muslims i've asked on this board have been unable to describe them to me) |
I'm no expert so I may be misrepresenting islam, (Making this clear) most of my knowledge of Islam coming from the direct reading of text and personal revelations from such but as far as I can tell the BIGGEST bone to pick between the two is...
Shi'a Islam views their Imam's as unfallable, unsinnable beings who were basically analagous the Pope. With the last "Pope" doubling as a Messianic figure. The Mahdi who will come back and save everyone.
While Sunni's believe the Mahdi has not been born yet.
Also, they had totally different Imans. It's practically the difference between Christianity and Judiasim as far as i can tell...
Though I may be largely off.... since each branch has it's own many sub branches... but either way. There is a ton of difference.
There are plenty of other smaller differences too, but they seem not worth mentioning. (Assuming I'm right... which I could totally be wrong. Hopefully such a post will lead someone to correct me where I may be off.)
Never really asked any of my muslim friends the difference... most of them seeming to be more "liberal interpretationists" anwyay.
Oddly, most of my friends from the Middle East are Catholic.
