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By toppling Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration has liberated and empowered Iraq's Shiite majority and has helped launch a broad Shiite revival that will upset the sectarian balance in Iraq and the Middle East for years to come. This development is rattling some Sunni Arab governments, but for Washington, it could be a chance to build bridges with the region's Shiites, especially in Iran.

This report includes a historical background of the Sunni-Shiite split and discusses the differences in religious beliefs and practices between and within each Islamic sect as well as their similarities.

Reverberations from the 2003 invasion of Iraq may last for decades. But an inexorable spread of Sunni-Shiite conflict is only the worst case, and frankly it is not very likely.

Sunni and Shiite disagreements are incited, first of all, by the Western countries to keep control over the situation in the region. It is an example of exploitation of a religious factor in the political goals.

Abstract
Although few in number, the various Shiite Muslim communities in Germany are highly diversified in terms of their linguistic, national and ethnic backgrounds and ritual practice. In order to come to terms with these multi-local actors and their specific articulations of Shiism, the article aimes at an analytical framework that integrates an open understanding of belonging: employing Leave and Wenger's concept of "communities of practice", it argues that a focus on common practice in which heterogeneous actors engage, enables us to grasp, on the one hand, the varying specific characteristics of different groups and, on the other, their mutual belonging to the wider Shiite field.