• Six rules of thumb for writing on Sunni/ Shiite concepts - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page
    http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2013/05/31/Six-rules-of-thumb-for-writing-on-Sunni-Shiite-concepts-.html

    Sur Al-Arabiya...

    Fourth: when you hear people in Muslim communities or in the Middle East speaking in Sunni-Shiite terms, or analyzing events with reference to an age old civil war, or fearing a Shiite alliance from Iran through Iraq to Syria then Lebanon, or calling for a Sunni stance; when you hear that do not take that as statements about the actual facts out there rather ask yourself why do people insist on looking at events in such an archaic way? It is well known that all peoples place their political conflicts within a bigger narrative; and the question should be: Why do many Muslims insist on this narrative? When did it start to become a widely used one? How did the Islamic Revolution of Iran influence that? Most importantly what other narratives exist out there? We hear all the time of people saying its not a Sunni-Shiite thing… but for some reason those calls are not taken to be narratives about what is going on. Many observers prefer to consider them attempts to make things different.

    The myth of the 1,400 year Sunni-Shia war - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/2013719220768151.html

    As described by the Saudi writer Abdullah Hamiddadin, this explanation of contemporary events is as absurd as explaining modern tensions between Turkey and the EU as being rooted in the ancient conflict between King Charles and the Empress of Byzantium. Positing that present-day political rivalries can be explained by examining ninth-century conflicts between European powers is transparent nonsense. However, the same logic is readily applied to conflicts within the Muslim world.