If he were a Shiite, he'd have a turba with him.

A group of men march through the streets cutting themselves with knives.

A Shiite Muslim stationed at Camp David. Died of unknown causes two weeks ago.

A turba is a small stone tablet that the Shiites set their forehead on while praying.

For the first time in years,

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The last decades have provided the regime with near ideal conditions to seize control over the Shiite clerical establishment in Iraq as well. Under Saddam Hussein, restrictions were imposed on the Shiite seminary in Najaf traditionally a counterbalance to Iran s Shiite establishment forcing the emigration of a number of clerics to the Iranian seminary in Qom.

The Sunnis have four imams and the Shias have twelve their teachings all differ. Then there are other divisions, including the Druze, the Alawites, and the Wahabis.

The truth is, women, you've had our back on this issue for a very long time, starting with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to Theo Colborn's Our Stolen Future to Sandra Steingraber's books

It was also strengthened by the regime s activities in the 1980 s, when it created Hezbollah as a guerilla organization in Lebanon, thereby expanding its domination over the most important Shiite areas in the region. The Iranian regime then consolidated its mastery of the Shiite network in the Middle East, and now uses this control to further its own interests.

My last book was about the story behind the Shi'a Sunni split, and for that I'd worked closely with the earliest Islamic histories, so I knew the events to which the Koran constantly refers, its frame of reference.

But the whole community, all the different sects, including Shi'a and Sunni, would sit together and pray.

He was the especially sadistic head of al Qaeda in Iraq who sent hundreds of suicide bombers to attack not Americans but Iraqis.

The same impulses toward extremism are used to justify war between Sunnis and Shia, between tribes and clans.

Iran under a new and more radical president is moving irresistibly towards possessing a nuclear capacity. A free electoral process brought Hamas to power in Palestine, and the unfortunate episode of the Danish newspaper cartoons illustrated the almost combustible nature of relations between Islam and the West.

Some believe that we are experiencing a new kind of conflict culture wars, such as those between Sunni and Shiite Muslims or tribal groups in Africa and Asia, or indeed Islamists and Westerners. However, the deeper reasons for some of these conflicts may well be more traditional.