Shiite-Sunni Rivalry Rests on Issue of Rightful Succession

It was a single Land of Islam that the prophet Mohammed claimed on behalf of his followers. But the years after his death saw a power struggle that would forever divide Muslims between Sunnis and Shiites.

The long-ago contest persists to this day, as Iran’s Shiite government rivals Sunni leaders--from moderates in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Sunni fundamentalists in Sudan--for ideological and political supremacy over the world’s 1 billion Muslims.

The beginnings of the split go back to the year 632, when Mohammed died without naming a successor.

In the simmering rivalry that ensued, that role was filled by Abu Bakr, a learned man and Mohammed’s closest friend. He took the name and title Khalifat Rasul Allah (successor of the prophet of God), later shortened to Caliph. Abu Bakr united the still-mutinous tribes of Arabia in a holy war, or jihad , to claim new Muslim territory in Syria and Iraq.

Abu Bakr died two years after the prophet, and Omar, another strong and powerful companion of Mohammed, succeeded as caliph. When Omar was assassinated, Othman, one of the prophet’s earliest converts, continued the land campaign into Persia (now Iran), Egypt and Cyrenaica, in what is now Libya.

Othman himself, sitting on a wealthy but increasingly restive empire, was murdered by insurgents who broke into his house, and Ali, the first caliph to come directly from Mohammed’s family, succeeded to the caliphate. In addition to being a relative of the prophet, Ali gained prominence when he married Mohammed’s daughter Fatima and fathered the prophet’s only two grandsons, Hussein and Hassan.

Ali left Medina to set up his own capital at Koufa in Iraq, but he fell into trouble with the Umayyad leaders in Syria, who were outraged at Othman’s murder and bent on revenge. The Umayyads never forgave Ali for not pursuing the assassins. Ali’s political influence diminished in the turmoil, and he was assassinated by former followers in 661.

Thus ended the era of the so-called rightly guided caliphs, all related to Mohammed by marriage and chosen by the prophet’s companions.

The Umayyad governor of Syria, Muawiyah, took over next, leading to an era of what historian Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. called the “swollen bureaucracies of Damascus and Baghdad, headed by kingly caliphs who succeeded by heredity.”

A significant number of Muslims believed that the caliphate should be held in the hands of the prophet’s own family. With Ali and his son Hassan dead, Hussein remained, and he refused to recognize Muawiyah’s Umayyad successor as legitimate.

Hussein’s followers in southern Iraq urged him to rebel against the Umayyads, but when he and his band of 72 men reached Iraq, he found himself pitted against an Umayyad force of several thousand. Hussein died in the famous Battle of Karbala in 680, and his followers, who since Ali’s death had been calling themselves Shi’at Ali, or the Party of Ali, never forgot.

They believed that only when the rule of Mohammed’s rightful family heir was restored would tyranny and injustice be replaced with good government under the Koran. The parade of historic caliphs notwithstanding, the Shiites believed that the rightful leadership of Islam began with Ali and proceeded down in a line of male heirs.

Their message grew. From Iraq, they spread throughout the Muslim empire, and Shiite Islam was born. Today, it has 100 million followers--nearly 10% of the world’s Muslims--forming majorities in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain.