Week 6, Part 2

I searched Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims.  I chose these two searches because I don't believe a lot of people know the difference.  I think most people just lump them all together.
   I went to the Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa.  Sunni is the majority of muslims making up about 90% of all muslims.  After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the political issue of how leadership was to be chosen split the new community.  The Sunnies maintained that since the Prophet had not clearly designated a successor, Sunna by which thery were to abide mandated elections.
   The Shi'a of Ali (Shi'ite) insisted that the Prophet had intended for his cousin Ali to succeed him.
  The majority of Muslims maintained that the caliph should be elected and did not have to belong to the Prophets family.
  Tensions between Sunnis and Shi'a were very high in early Muslim history as Shi'ite groups tried to destabilize the Sunnie caliphate and ensure leadership to the followers of  of the imams.  The problems subsided after the victory over the Shi'ite regimes of Egypt and the Near East in the late twelve century and the coming to power of the Ottoman Turks, who were staunch Sunnis.
  Tension still exist today, but most of it is due more to ethnic and tribal strife rather than religious divisions.