How do you tell a Shiite from a Sunni?

[Tab]

Seriously. Is it manner of dress or grooming or some kept religious artifact? Is it language? Is it printed on some ID card? Is it some physical characteristic? Or just their neighborhood?

[babylonsister]

1. Great question. I'll bet most of us couldn't tell the difference, but I

hope someone can chime in with some facts.

[robinlynne]

2. Ask Jenk from theyoungturks. he will know.

[MonkeyFunk]

3. The same way

you tell a Presbyterian from a Methodist.

Why do you need to tell them apart?

[Tab]

14. I don't, but all this violence is predicated on religious affiliation

I personally have not idea (or care) who is Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, whatever, and except for a few icons (folding hands for Christians, crosses for Catholics, and even here I may be overstepping my knowledge), but we don't have one group overtly trying to eliminate another group here.

[Enrique]

4. good question

you hear about incidents like where a bus gets hijacked and they separate out all the Shiites or Sunnis, but how?

[JVS]

6. The must be some kind of theological question you could ask to sort it out?

Kind of like you could ask about trans-substantiation to see who is Roman Catholic and who isn't

[JVS]

7. The must be some kind of theological question you could ask to sort it out?

Kind of like you could ask about trans-substantiation to see who is Roman Catholic and who isn't

[Solly Mack]

5. My husband - who served in Iraq - said this was more or less accurate

http://www.slate.com/id/2137109/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Probably much in the same way the Protestants & Catholics could tell who to kill.

I think, in my slight knowledge, that they're names are somewhat different. (Based solely on a recollection of a of an Iraqi blog I read a few months ago).

Also, it is good to recall that the Jews in Europe seemed easy to find when the Germans took over countries. The Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, and Muslims in Yugoslavia, were also able to differentiate and murder each other despite living in the same country.

[Tab]

15. Well, the jews were "easy" (or easier) to identify

Aryan nation was blond hair, blue eyes. Hitler wasn't, but he was from Austria anyway. Yarmulkas, dark hair, and "physical features" (noses, etc, according to stereotypists) and speaking Hebrew didn't help disguise either.

However here they are all speaking the same language, and physically similar, I believe, and hence the question.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Many European Jews were completely assimilated.

Non-religious or converted. They didn't speak Hebrew, didn't wear distinctive clothing, and considered themselves completely German, Polish, Russian, Dutch, French, etc.

I suggest reading "I Will Bear Witness" by Victor Klemperer.

[Tab]

19. True, but that was much more nuanced

And remember, Hitler first went around to get everyone to register as Juden, the purging came later. Sort of the equivalent of putting you in the pot of water and THEN turning it on to boil.

Regardless, I'm not an expert on everything that happened, but this situation is different - out of nowhere neighbors are attacking neighbors and militias are killing Sunni or Shi'a, and I wasn't exactly sure how through what mechanism they could tell. There was no ramp-up - these went immediately into boiling water.

[Recursion]

9. It's roughly like how you tell a Catholic from a Protestant

There are several ways, none of them entirely reliable except the final one

I'll divide them up into categories:

Provenance:
1. Look at his family name and his country of origin -- a Faysal from Saudi Arabia is almost certainly Sunni and a Talabi from Iran is almost certainly Shi'ite. (Like, Seamus O'Toole from Cork is probably Catholic and Gottfried Liebniz from Berlin is probably Protestant.)

2. Even if you don't know his name, but do know what country he came from, you can often get a good idea. Saudis are almost entirely sunni, Bahranians almost entirely shi'ite, etc.

Appearance

2. In more traditional areas, sunnis will wear all white and shi'ites will wear mostly black

3. If he is Muslim and wearing a turban, he is almost certainly shi'ite

Theology

4. If you're discussing Fiqh, ask him if niktah mut'ah is haram or halal: if he says haram, he is sunni, if halal, he is shi'ite (this and the last one are the only true and reliable diagnostic criteria)

5. If you can watch him pray, if he folds his hands in front of him he is probably shi'ite but might be hanbali (a subsect of Sunnism)

6. The stereotype is that shi'ites are, for lack of a better term, more "emo" than sunni's; they are the gloomy Protestants to the Sunni's cheerful Catholics -- this, obviously, is not of much use

7. If he often mentions saints by name he is probably shi'ite

8. If he has a millenial (in the Christian sense) and messianic outlook he is shi'ite almost by definition -- again, not very useful unless you're talking pretty deeply to him

9. Finally, if all else fails, ask him who was the rightful leader of the Umma after the Prophet died -- if he says Ali ibn Abi Talib, he is definitively shi'ite; if he says anything else he is sunni or sufi.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tab]

13. I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.

n/t.

[rug]

11. Shiites break their eggs on the large side.

[madrchsod]

12. names..it`s all about your name

[Tab]

16. Solly Mack and DMesg seemed to have the most telling answers

Thanks; I never quite knew how that shook out.

[kestrel91316]

18. Same way you tell Catholics from Protestants. One has horns,

the other a halo.

Which has which, of course, depends on who is talking.

[happyslug]

20. What tribe do they belong to, that is how you an tell.

One of the way tribe hold themselves together is to make sure everyone of the tribe is thinking along the same lines, thus a tribe is either Sunni or shiite or some other religion (Which in Iraq can be Christian). Notice I said TRIBE not Nationality. A person can be an "Arab" and be a Christian, Shiite or Sunni (or various other religions in the region). The key is the person;'s TRIBE not his Nationality. Nationality is a Western Concept, at best, is a thin sheet over the underlaying Tribal basis of most people in the Middle East. The most Iraqi people think of themselves as Arabs. That is their nationality (i.e NOT Iraqi but Arab, or Kurd or even Turk). The arabs are formed into tribes, and these tribes determined your place in society, for it is more important to stay a member of your tribe then anything else. Given a choice between your tribe and your nation, most arabs have no problem, they tribe comes first. In Fact they put a higher value on being Arabs and Moslem's then they do being an Iraqi.

Given tribal identity is so thick, the tribe sets how people viet themselves. If the Tribe is Christian, so is all of the members of that tribe. If the tribe is Sunni so are all of the members of that Tribe. If the Tribe is Shiite so are the members of that tribe. Alliances between the tribes are set up along religious lines but also along trade lines. For example when Syria went into Lebanon in the 1980s it was to bail out the Christian trading partners of the tribe of the Moslem leaders of Syria NOT to bailout his fellow Moslem (And I know the Syrian President is NOT considered a True Moslem by other Moslem's, he is a Alawites or "Little Christian" considered by other Muslims as Heretics).

More on the Alawites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites

List of Tribes in Iraq:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_tribes_in_Iraq




Site for a CBS Map that shows where each religion dominates in Iraq:
http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2006/12/05/iraq/frameset2232115.shtml