Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Roza Imam Hussain

Many Sunni Muslims have continued to harbor prejudices from medieval times, against Shia Muslims that are  completely counterproductive in this day and age of Global village.  In a recent Poll, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has defined, what joins and separates the Muslims.  There is a 164 page report of the poll that took 38,000 face to face interviews.  However, in this post, I want to visit the issue of how the Sunni Muslims perceive their Shia brethren and sisters in faith in different countries:

The survey asked Muslims whether they identify with various branches of Islam and about their attitudes toward other branches or subgroups. While these sectarian differences are important in some countries, the survey suggests that many Muslims around the world either do not know or do not care about them.

Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa tend to be most keenly aware of the distinction between the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia.²(See text box for definitions.) In most countries surveyed in the region, at least 40% of Sunnis do not accept Shias as fellow Muslims. In many cases, even greater percentages do not believe that some practices common among Shias, such as visiting the shrines of saints, are acceptable as part of Islamic tradition. Only in Lebanon and Iraq – nations where sizable populations of Sunnis and Shias live side by side – do large majorities of Sunnis recognize Shias as fellow Muslims and accept their distinctive practices as part of Islam.

Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, the distinction between Sunni and Shia appears to be of lesser consequence. In many of the countries surveyed in Central Asia, for instance, most Muslims do not identify with either branch of Islam, saying instead that they are “just a Muslim.” A similar pattern prevails in Southern and Eastern Europe, where pluralities or majorities in all countries identify as “just a Muslim.” In some of these countries, decades of communist rule may have made sectarian distinctions unfamiliar. But identification as “just a Muslim” is also prevalent in many countries without a communist legacy. For example, in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, 26% of Muslims describe themselves as Sunnis, compared with 56% who say they are “just a Muslim” and 13% who do not give a definite response.

Read further in the Pew Forum Website.

Editor’s note: We as a nation of Muslims need to grow beyond these medieval prejudices in the 21st century and the Pew Forum is holding mirror to us.  Anyone who calls himself or herself a Muslim is a Muslim and God will be the final Judge, in the hereafter.  These divisions may have served some politics in the past, but, not any more! We do not have to divide and weaken the Muslims, in an age when we are trying to find what unites humanity rather than what divides us.