The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East

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Barnaby Rogerson: The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East (Hardcover, 2024, Profile Books)

Hardcover, 432 pages

Published Jan. 4, 2024 by Profile Books.

ISBN:
978-1-78125-725-8
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5 stars (1 review)

At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his son Ali, and the slaughter of Ali's own son Husayn at Kerbala. These events, known to every Muslim, have created a slender faultline in the Middle East.

The House Divided follows these narratives from the first Sunni and Shia caliphates, through the medieval caliphates and empires of the Arabs, Persians and Ottomans, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a complex range of identities and rivalries - religious, ethnic and national - have shaped the region, jolted by the seismic shift of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Rogerson's original approach takes …

1 edition

A vital and detailed history of the Middle East

5 stars

I don’t think anyone needs to be reminded that Islam has predominantly been in the news for over 20 years now. With the two Gulf Wars and other actions that have involved Western forces, the views of the followers of this religion have, largely, been directed by mainstream news and social media. However, is what we have witnessed on our screens and in newspapers a realistic description of not just the Islamic religion, but those who follow it? In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East, Barnaby Rogerson takes us through the history of this fascinating religion and provides an indispensable insight into its followers who have not just made history but helped shape the world in which we live.

Although the beginnings of Islam are filled with as much mystery as they are the spirit of adventure, its origins in Medina are of some …