What dangers does Shiite Islam represent to Sunni Islam?

Answer 1

Answer 1

There are no dangers to Sunni Muslims. They are under the protection of Almighty Allah Karim, if they remain true to Him and to the last Prophet of Islam our beloved Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa (SAW).

Answer 2

The theology and beliefs of Shiite Islam do not present any "dangers" to Sunni Islam. There are certainly disagreements such as the importance or infallibility of Imams, the role of the Mahdi, and methods of prayer, specific additional religious texts, etc. However, practice or belief in Shiite Islam is not a threat to the practice or belief in Sunni Islam. The two religions can easily be practiced in tandem.

Unfortunately, the human followers of each religion have not always been as conscientious as they should be. While the dominant direction of persecution has been of Sunnis repressing Shiites, there are certainly instances of Shiites repressing Sunnis. Some of those "dangers" to Sunni Muslims perpetrated by Shiite Muslims are listed below:

The first major attack of Shiites against Sunni leadership was in the final days of the Fatimid Caliphate when Fatimid rulers created the Assassins who took down many notable Sunni leaders such as Grand Vizier Nizam ul-Mulk of Baghdad, Mohammed Ghori, the Atabegs Maudud and Zengi of Mosul. The Assassins even targeted Saladin the Ayyubite, but were unsuccessful.

The Persian Safavids fought several wars against neighboring Sunnis in Samarqand to the North and the Ottomans to the West. Ismail I (the first Safavid) adopted Twelver Shiite Islam and began to persecute the Sunnis in Iran. This reduced their community to a small minority in the Persian heartland. He destroyed numerous Sunni mosques and grave sites as well as mandating curses against the first three Rightly-Guided Caliphs. He also imprisoned and killed large populations of Sunnis for their beliefs and compelled conversion to Shiite Islam through violence. The Safavids also spread this form of Sunni oppression through conquest Azerbaijan and of southern Iraq and imposing conversion to Shiite Islam there as well.

There are also current examples of repression of Sunnis by Shiites. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Shiite repression of Sunnis has become dominant again in Iran. Sunni Iranian Cleric Abu Muntasir Al-Baloushi has said that the government of Iran (because of its repressive practices towards Sunnis) is a greater threat to Islam than even Israel. In Iraq, Shiites and Sunni militants fight for the attempt to have greater control of the government after America removed Saddam and each group sought to advocate its views to the suppression of the other. As the Shiites are more numerous in Iraq, they seem to have the upper hand in determining policy. In Syria, the current civil war is between a secular Shiite-led government and the majority Sunni population of Syria which has historically been denied the same accessibility to jobs, healthcare, and living-standards.