What do God"s words say?
And why so different?
<~~ believes that God showed himself in ways people could understand.
Differently for sure. But certainly he talked to all.
Even Catholics.
different ppl have different thoughts....
difficult to fnid two men of similar thoughts....
anyway, just to simply differentiate between sunnis and shiaa, let me give u the basic difference....
Hussain (may Allah be pleased with him), grandson of Muhammad (peace be upon him) i.e. his daughter's son, was martyred, along with family members and friends, tyrannically by the ruler at that time....
sunnis, admitting the rank of Hussain and the greatness of his sacrifice, do no however make a big fuss of it....
prophets have been martyred, as have been the companions of prophets....
3 of the first four khalifaas (including Hussain's father, Ali) were martyred....
even Hussain's elder brother Hassan was martyred, through poisoned food, for very much the same reason for what Hussain was martyred....
shiaas r very much moved by the incident bacause the beloved grandson of the prophet was betrayed and murdered and his family (women and children) treated very badly....
a lot of importance is given to the event by these people....
armughal i think you could do better then that..she just asked a simple question...i am going to try to answer:
Sunni = majority of the muslims are sunnis...i think about 85% of the muslims are sunnis...sunni basically means a person who follows the tradition of Prophet Mohummad (pbuh)..they basically believe all of the Prophets (pbuh) companions were good muslims and good people and they respect everyone
Shia = minority about 15 %...shia basically means the follower of Imam Ali (as)..Prophet (pbuh) said in His lifetime to everyone that follow Ali (as) after me..but muslims of the time ignored that..Imam Ali (as) was the cousin, son in law, friend, bodyguard of Prophet (pbuh)...shias believe only few of the companions of Prophet were on the right path..history tells us that the muslims of the time fought two battles against Imam Ali (pbuh) whom Prophet (pbuh) loved so much
i dont wanna get into details because you might get confused then..i also wanna point out to you that i am a shia muslim and this post is coming from the shia side
the prophet (saw) said "all my companions r like stars, whichever u choose to follow, u will find the right path"....
so if someone wishes to follow Ali(ra), he is very well on the right path, as is one who wud choose to follow any other....
the difference between them lies on the difference of understanding things....
e.g. a guy hammers in a stick on a road so anyone passing by may tie his horse to it, if he wishes to stop there....
another person comes along and thinks someone might trip over and removes it from there....
both do the opposite, yet none of them intended wrong....
both r right, and will be rewarded for it....
^ flaw in your logic. What if companions are contradicting eachother, who do u decide to follow? Are you gonna say both are right? This leadership of Islam we are talking about, not some horse on the wayside.
Anyhow- the difference came about after the Prophet's death. People split in to two groups over who should succeed the Prophet (saw). Baisically, Sunnis believe Caliph Abu Bakr was the right elected leader, and have 3 other caliphs, last one being H Ali. Shias(not shi'ite) believe Imam ALi was the rightful sucessor, and dont accept the leadership of the other 3 caliphs.
That is the major difference.
My two pence, this is a controversial issue, but I oobject to the point when people say Sunnis did not side with Hazrat ali and Imam Hussain, while there is a small minority of sunnis who think siding with Muawiyah and Yazid was a correct move, the majority do not. Historically after Karbala Muslims stood out in revolt against Yazid for what he had done. Yazid's response was brutal he used his Syrian Army to burn the Ka'bah and massacre countless Muslims including many Sahaba. As a sunni I'd be the first to say Yazid was a tyrant, who used money and power to masacre his own people and convert what was a tribal form of Democracy into a Monarchy. While the event was tragic, and a sign of what happens when good people remain quiet. I don't agree with the self punishment Shia's do during Ashura.