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Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p01s03-wome.html
Is the Sunni-Shiite Rift Mostly Politics and Media Hype?
[Christian Science Monitor] Nicholas Blanford - The Qatar Foundation hosted a televised debate Tuesday, broadcast by BBC World as part of the Doha Debate series, on the motion: "The Sunni-Shiite conflict is damaging Islam's reputation as a religion of peace." In interviews with the panelists before the debate, all four essentially agreed that the current tensions between Sunnis and Shiites are guided by political forces rather than religious differences. Sunnis and Shiites, after all, have learned to "grudgingly" tolerate each other for centuries, despite doctrinal differences, says Hisham Hellyer of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. "Those differences have never turned into religious wars like we saw in Europe." The distinctions between Sunnis and Shiites were not an issue during the height of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, says Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan. While Shiite- and Sunni-dominated countries have fought each other in the past - such as the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War - those conflicts were not motivated by disputes over religious interpretation. "They were about power and politics," Hellyer says.