Across Arab World, a Widening Rift

Sunnis and Shiites have long prayed together at Cairo's Shiite shrine to Imam Hussein. But growing sectarian friction has frayed that amity. (By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post)

"There's a proverb that says, 'Divide and conquer,' " Mohammed said. "Sunnis and Shiites -- they're not both Muslims? What divides them? Who wants to divide them? In whose interest is it to divide them?" he asked.

"It's in the West's interest," he answered. "And at the head of it is America and Israel." He paused. "And Britain."

That sense of Western manipulation is often voiced by Shiite clerics and activists, who say the United States incites sectarianism as a way of blunting Iran's influence. In recent years, some of the most provocative comments have come from America's allies in the region: Egypt's president questioned Shiites' loyalty to their countries, Jordan's king warned of a coming Shiite crescent from Iran to Lebanon, and last month King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia denounced what he called Shiite proselytizing.

The charge drew a lengthy retort from Nasrallah. "Frankly speaking, the aim of saying such things is fomenting strife," he said in a speech. He dismissed charges of Iranian proselytizing or the emergence of a Shiite crescent.

"People in the region always complain about a Shiite crescent. You always hear, 'Shiite crescent, Shiite crescent.' That's just a crescent. What about the full Sunni moon?" said Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric in the eastern Saudi town of Awamiya, who spent five days in police detention for urging that a Shiite curriculum be taught in his predominantly Shiite region.

Shiites make up less than 15 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, many of them in the oil-rich Eastern Province. The austere Sunni religious establishment considers them heretics. One cleric, Abdul Rahman al-Barak, considered close to the royal family, has called Shiites "infidels, apostates and hypocrites."

"There are conflicts in Palestine between Sunni sects -- Hamas and Fatah -- in Somalia, in Darfur. None of that is sectarian," said Hassan al-Saffar, the most prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia. "There's a campaign against Shiites. Why is all this anti-Shiite sentiment being inflamed at a time the United States is trying to pressure Iran because of its nuclear ambitions?"

In Cairo recently, Hassan Kamel sipped sweet tea in a cafe beside the shrine to Imam Hussein, the prophet's grandson, who was killed in battle in 680 in what is now Iraq. The shrine is believed to hold his severed head. Across the street was al-Azhar, one of the foremost academic institutions of Sunni Islam, founded, ironically, by the Shiite Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt for 200 years until 1169. On the shrine's wall was a saying attributed to the prophet and often intoned during Shiite commemorations: "Hussein is from me, and I am from Hussein." Kamel pointed to the doors, topped with a Koranic inscription; Shiites and Sunnis like him worshiped at the shrine together, he said.

As cats scurried across the cafe's grimy floor, he wondered aloud about past conflicts that have splintered the Middle East.

"Egyptians, all their lives, without exception, have endured so many crises, catastrophes and problems," he said. He listed wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973. "But they have a gift. It's a gift from God. They have the ability to forget."

Then he talked about the rest of the region, and whether this bout of strife and tension would pass, too.

"They might forget, they might not," he said. "Right now, no one knows what's coming."

Correspondent Faiza Saleh Ambah in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.