When a man raised his hand to ask what was the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, fourth-year communication studies student Faryal Humkar was taken aback.
She was surprised because the event she was hosting was not an information session about Islam for non-Muslims. Rather, it was the first meeting of Salaam Youth Group, which Humkar helped found with the goal of bringing all types of Muslims together.
“There are people in the (Muslim) community who don’t even know the differences between Sunni and Shiite. There’s a need to know the differences,” she said.
Today marks the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, a conflict that has escalated divisions among traditionally strained Sunni-Shiite relations in the country, resulting in acts of violence between the sects.
The primary difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is that the Shiites believe that the Prophet Mohammad appointed his successor, through his direct bloodline, while the Sunnis believe that the prophet did not.
Shiite Muslims now follow a direct line of Imams, or religious leaders, whereas Sunnis have followed elected leaders.
Sunnis make up the majority of Muslims today.
Though Humkar grew up in a Shiite family, her parents allowed her to explore other sects of Islam and visit Sunni mosques.
She started the youth group at the Resalat Mosque in the San Fernando Valley with her sister and a friend in order to fill a void in the Muslim community in the U.S. by building a dialogue among Muslim youth, Humkar said.
The group brings in speakers each Friday night from both Sunni and Shiite backgrounds as well as from various races and nationalities to provide a wide array of perspectives on Islam.
“There wasn’t a place where all Muslims felt like they could learn,” Humkar said of her experiences growing up in the Muslim community in Los Angeles.
“There’s a division only because there’s a lack of understanding. It’s not something that should be causing divisions amongst Muslims,” she added.
Recent incidents in Iraq, such as the bombing of the Shiite al-Askari shrine in Samarra and the subsequent retaliations, have exacerbated these divisions in the country.
Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister of Iraq, recently remarked that the current sectarian violence in Iraq was nothing short of a civil war.
The United States has vehemently denied remarks that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war.
Mohammad Tajsar, a second-year English and Arabic student, was born to Iraqi parents in Iran and spent the first 11 years of his life there before immigrating to the United States.
Tajsar said he feels that the current state of the Sunni-Shiite conflict is more a result of the United States’ occupation of Iraq than historical tensions.
“It’s not something that’s natural, the whole Sunni-Shiite conflict. The ultimate cause is the nature of the occupation,” he said.
Tajsar added that his family had originally been fairly optimistic about the war and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, but the long duration of the occupation and various widely publicized acts of terrorism have resulted in new conflicts.
“These (conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shiites) are the kinds of relationships that dominate as a result of the situation. When conditions get worse, you get ... stigmas, where everyone is at each others’ throats,” he said.
But he said these kind of strained relationships are not echoed in the American Muslim community.
Khadeeja Abdullah, a fourth-year physiological sciences student, also said she felt that the situation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the U.S. was not a major issue.
When people ask here if she’s Sunni or Shiite, she prefers to respond that she’s Muslim.
In fact, she shares her Westwood apartment with Muslims of both sects, and she knows some families that are mixed Sunni-Shiite.
“For the kids that I know in a family with a Sunni parent and a Shiite parent, it gives them that opportunity to figure things out. It allows the children in that family to do a little research on their own,” Abdullah said.
For Humkar, getting children to do research and learn about the various sects of Islam at a young age was one of her major goals.
“They don’t really venture out until they get to the university level and we felt it was important to start (Salaam Youth Group) so that people could branch out while they’re young”, she said.
Humkar said she is optimistic about the future of the group and the dialogues it is encouraging within the Muslim community.
“There’s all sorts of things that all Muslims agree on, and through these things we can all come together,” she said.