Sunni and Shia: Religious differences

Today Mina hasn’t got time to play chess. She is taking part in the Ashura ceremony. Grandpa is also Muslim. Is he also celebrating Ashura? No, Grandpa and Mina believe different things and celebrate in different ways.

How come? Selma wonders. Grandpa is Sunni and Mina is Shia. To Mina, Ashura is a day of mourning. She mourns the murder of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn.

Husayn was one of the first Shia leaders - the Imams. But to Grandpa these imams are not important. To Sunni, the word Imam only means a priest or a leader of prayers. Grandpa and Mina both follow the Quran, the sacred text of the Muslims. During the centuries after Muhammad’s death, some other Islamic texts were written: The Hadiths.

The Hadiths are about how Muhammad lived his life. To many Muslims, they are as important as the Quran. But there are many Hadiths. Mina follows some, and grandpa follows others. One of the differences is that the Imams are described somewhat like saints in the Hadiths that Mina reads.

This Grandpa doesn’t like. That would make these Imams almost as important as Muhammad. No, that can’t be right, thinks Grandpa. Mina, like most of the world’s Shia Muslims, belongs to the Twelvers. Mina says that there have been twelve Imams in total.

The twelfth of these disappeared at the age of five. But he is not dead, just invisible - or hidden somewhere. He is called the Mahdi. Right now, the Mahdi is waiting for the end of the world when everyone is to be judged by God - Judgement Day. When Judgement Day is close the Mahdi will return.

Then he will fight the devil together with Isa - Jesus. Doesn’t he belong to Christianity? Jesus? No, well yes of course, but he is also important in Islam. Both Grandpa and Mina do not believe that Isa died on the cross.

Instead he rose to heaven and will return on Judgement Day. But Grandpa does not believe in the Mahdi. According to Mina, Isa prayed to Mahdi and that is why he didn’t die on the cross. That, Grandpa really doesn’t believe. Mina laughs at him.

She knows that when it comes to Mahdi they disagree completely. It doesn’t matter. She feels a bit sorry for Grandpa, missing out on some things though. The shrines of the Imams for instance: mosques that are often very beautifully decorated - sometimes covered in gold. Mina loves to visit them.

Grandpa and Mina both look upon the declaration of faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca as important things. But Mina performs some of these things differently from Grandpa. When she prays she leans her head on a clay tablet - a Turbah or Mohr. The clay comes from Karbala where the Imam Husayn died. When it comes to the declaration of faith, Mina’s begins in the same way as Grandpa’s “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger.” but then Mina adds one sentence: “Ali is the vicegerent of God”.

Selma gets a bit worried. Have Grandpa and Mina fallen out for real now? No. Regardless of what they believe in, Grandpa and Mina prefer to think of what they have in common instead of what divides them. For example, chess.