While I was away in Ethiopia I rented my house to a Muslim family. They were quiet, friendly, reasonable, reliable.
Being Muslims, they were different, of course, but very nice people. But then I open my newspaper, listen to the news, turn on the TV, and I meet a violent, unreasonable, belligerent people: Muslims, of course, but not at all like the family who lived in my house. So, why the difference?
A divided Islam
Iraq has showed us all that there are two Islams: Sunni Islam and Shi’a Islam. They really do dislike one another. That’s mainly because the Shi’a Muslims have al-Hussein, the grandson of Muhammad, as their great hero, and he was killed by the Sunnis. Every year the Shi’a remember this terrible event, the battle of Karbala, and that keeps the fires of hatred growing. And that partly explains why Muslims kill Muslims in Iraq.
