Shaul Gabbay, Middle East expert A cleric revered as an “ayatollah” in his native Iran, Al-Nimr was a Shia Muslim who had long railed against the royal family in the Sunni majority Kingdom.

(Raheb Homavandi/Reuters) Sunni Muslims generally fold their arms across their chests while praying, while Shia Muslims tend to extend their arms, with palms resting on thighs. The latter is the ...

If you pay attention to the debate over western involvement in the Middle East, you’ll eventually hear someone explain the United States and its allies have blundered into an age-old sectarian ...

But his words explain why Iraq's Sunni minority feel so vulnerable since they lost power to the Shia majority when Saddam Hussein was overthrown five years ago. Reconciliation between Sunni and ...

Around 85 percent of Muslims worldwide adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, while 15 percent are Shia. The Shia, however, are concentrated in Iran, Iraq and other key territories around the ...

Actually, they never stopped, but the recent takeover of the northern part of the country by militants from The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has brought the ages-old Sunni-Shia conflict ...

Again, the issue is not Sunni vs Shi'a or Arab vs Persian, but shared interests. In the case of Iraq and Lebanon, this interest is defined by creating a common front against Israel; in the case of ...

Could Iraq become three states? Sure, though Turkey says it will never allow an independent Kurdistan. However, a national federation with Shia, Sunni and Kurd regions running local governments is ...

Ongoing ‘Shia-Sunni’ clashes have jolted Pakistan’s Kurram, near the Afghan border causing chaos and claiming more than 130 lives. The death toll from the sectarian clashes in Kurram ...

It was all too easy to imagine the carnage and devastation if the extremists of Isis try to carry out their threat to attack the most holy place in Shia Islam. Sunni rebels in Iraq claim they have ...