Word: schism
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...actually backfire and bolster their position with a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment. Nonetheless, internal pressures on Jaafari to withdraw are mounting. On the same day that Rice and Straw made their visit, a senior member of the Shi'ite alliance asked Jaafari to step down, making a schism likely within the national assembly's leading voting block. If a faction of the alliance (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) backs out of its agreement to vote for Jaafari, as one Western official says they will, a new leading candidate will have to emerge...
...struggled to make sense of what their countrymen had wrought. Although the violence of last week may have been sparked by a single act of provocation, it came in the context of a history of Shi'ite-Sunni enmity. The roots of the sectarian divide lie in a schism that arose shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. Under Saddam, communal hostilities in Iraq were suppressed, their very existence denied. Beneath the surface, though, relations between the two sects have always been tainted by prejudice and discrimination. Although Shi'ites make up the majority...
...Imam Hussein. They rejected the three Caliphs chosen by consultation among the Prophet's followers after his death - those recognized by the Sunnis, who constitute about three quarters of the world's Muslims today - and instead followed a series of 12 imams who were direct descendants of Muhammad. The schism originated as a violent power struggle, with both Ali and Hussein murdered by rivals. The latter, killed at the battle of Karbala in Iraq, came to symbolize the cult of martyrdom in the Shiite tradition, with followers still today flagellating themselves during the annual Ashura festival for their failure...
...contemporary conflict between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq is based not only on a schism that happened almost 14 centuries ago, but on the politics of the Saddam Hussein era. The Sunni Arabs, some 15-20% of the population, provided the bulk of the governing class under Saddam, while the Shiites, who comprise upward of 60% of the population, were denied political rights and their religious freedoms were curtailed. The contemporary politics of the divide also has a regional dimension: The main Shiite religious political parties that have dominated both of Iraq's democratic elections have close ties to Iran...
...there are also no denominations more in danger of ceasing to exist. Churches that once held the sway of large percentages of the American population are now smaller than several non-Christian faiths, there is no end in sight to their membership collapse, and many are near schism because of unsolvable, usually partisan, arguments among their adherents...