AFTER 1300 YEARS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

AFTER 1300 YEARS

THE SHIAHS AND THE SUNNITES. WHAT THE QUARREL WAS ABOUT. The King’s jut" e will long be remembered by the millions of Mohammedans in the great Empire of India, for London witnessed the end of a feud which had raged in the Mohammedan world for thirteen cerituries. At the meeting of the Muslim Society of Great Britain the Shiahs and the Sunnites broke sweetmeats together and thus symbolised the end of the political controversy which had divided them. The Shiahs (their name means a party) were the champion of the right of Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed, to succeed the Prophet, and the Persians, as believers in the divine right of rulers, were their chief adherents.' Their branch of the faith spread through Afghanistan into India.

The Sunnites on the other hand derive their name from the traditional teaching of the Prophet which was not, like the Koran, written down by the Prophet. They believed that the Caliph, head of their religion, should be elected and regarded as a political rather than a spiritual leader. The Sunnites are the majority of the Turkish, Arab and Indian Mohammedans, and there are over 209,000,000 in the world. Soon after the war ended the Caliph was exiled from Turkey, and his power, which was mainly political, came to an end. The result was that, the cause of the quarrel having been removed, these two main branches of the faith have held their first peace ceremony in London.