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The Persians, as representing the Shiite division of the Mohammedan religion, consider themselves by long odds the holiest people on the earth, far holier than the Turks, whom they religiously despise as Sunnites and unworthy to loose the latchets of their shoes.
But, by the older companions of the prophet, Abubekr, Mohammed's father-in-law was appointed. The Shiites were supporters of Ali, while the Sunnites, who adhered to "the traditions of the elders," were against him. These two parties have continued until the present day; the Persians being Shiites, and the Turks, Sunnites. Mohammed, before he died, was inflamed with the spirit of conquest.
Most Sunnites expect that at the end of the world there will come from the House of Mohammed a successor to him, guided by Allah, who will maintain the revealed law as faithfully as the first four khalifs did according to the idealized history, and who will succeed with God's help in making Islam victorious over the whole world.
Even the impoverished, much-detested and powerless Muslims of the northern Caucasus Chechens, Circassians and Dagestanis have benefited from this newfound awareness of their electoral power. Though divided by their common creed Shiites vs. Sunnites vs. Wahabbites and so on the Muslims of Europe are united in supporting the Palestinian cause and in opposing the Iraq war.
The people who make so much of these descendants of Mohammed are called Shiahs; the other Moslems who think they are more orthodox are called Sunnites. What do you think of our second picture? Is not the design very pretty for an embroidery pattern? The motto is written twice; once from the right and once backward from the left, the same as in the other picture.
Time out of mind, for hundreds and hundreds of years, the struggle between the Shiites and the Sunnites has divided the Moslem World. Persia and India are the lands of the Shiites; Turkey, Arabia, Egypt, and the realm of Barbary follow the tenets of the Sunna.
After this ceremony, the cadi read the sentence, confirmed by the Mufti, which declared Tepelen Veli-Zade to have forfeited his dignities and to be excommunicated, adding an injunction to all the faithful that henceforth his name was not to be pronounced except with the addition of "Kara," or "black," which is bestowed on those cut off from the congregation of Sunnites, or Orthodox Mohammedans.
Furthermore, those souls who have followed Bahá’u’lláh and attained this condition of fellowship and affiliation are Muslims, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Nestorians, Sunnites, Shiites and others. No discord exists among them. This is a proof of the possibility of unification among the religionists of the world through practical means.
The views of the Sunnites were first promulgated and have prevailed most extensively in those regions of Islam which were once part of the Roman empire, which nominally at least was Christian; those of the Shiites, in the countries where, under the Sassanides and Arsacidæ, the doctrines of Zoroaster predominated. The Euphrates forms pretty nearly the line of demarkation between them.
Religion is a bond of union, and language is a medium of intercourse; and, what is still more, they are all Sunnites, and recognize in the Sultan the successor of Mahomet. Without a head, indeed, to give them a formal unity, they are only one in name.
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