What's the difference between Sunni and Shiite?

Answer 1

The Sunnis are your everyday garden variety Muslims.
The Shiite (Shias) are your extremist variety Muslims.
Kinda like compareing Baptists to the Jim Jones cult.

Answer 2

Sunna (with an "a") is an arabic word that has ONLY one meening: it relates to everything that the Prophet Mohamed used to do, how he ate how he slept, how he showered, etc. Entering the bathroom with the left foot is Sunna, exiting with the right foot is Sunna, wearing pants that go about a couple of inches above the ankle is Sunna. So the word Sunni relates to the people who follow the Sunna, meaning the people who follow the Prophet as he described the religion of Islam. Sunni, therefore, is the true religion of Islam. In this world, 95% of all Muslims are Sunni.
Shiite, is also pertaning to Muslims. But these muslims chose to follow a different path after the death of the Prophet Mohamed. In their belief, Mohamed's daughter was a prostitute. They also swear to Ali (one of the desiples of Mohamed) instead of swearing to God. They have made up a couple of verses in the Qoran which is a HUGE mistake. Because Qoran is exactly the same all over the world, word by word, letter by letter, so changing any comma, or periode or a letter is a big sin. So pretty much, Shiites are Muslims who took a different path, made slight differences that have tremendous impact on the understanding of Islam itself.
Shiites also, aren't all over, they're mostly in Iraq and Syria. And obviously here in the US since a lot of them migrated. In other muslim countires they don't even exist.

Answer 3

I have a friend who is Sunni they do not like Saddam, bin laden, Iran or the Shiites. They share a hatred for the Jews with the Shiites.

Answer 4

The Shiite : IRAN , Hezbollah and part of Syria and Irak ....
The Sunni : Egypt , KSA ,Jordan and most of the muslim world .
Ousama Bin Lasen is a Sunni ,
Hezbollah is Shiite .

Answer 5

It is a division that started the day Mohammad died without naming his successor (he had no male children despite having numerous wives). The first Caliph (his first successor) was Abu Bekr, the most intimate confidant of Mohammad (as well as his friend at the time of his alleged revelations and one of his first converts, and the father of his child bride Aesha), although Ali, the husband of Mohammad's daughter, as well as his cousin, felt himself to be the rightful successor. Ali the grandfather of the sect known as the Shiahs eventually became Caliph, only to be (unsuccesfully) attacked by an army raised by Aesha the wife of Mohammad and daughter of his first successor. He was eventually assasinated in a Mosque.

The next Caliph, Ali's son Hasan, was poisoned by his wife at the request of a rival named Muawiya who then ruled until his death. At that time the younger son of Ali was invited to become Caliph, while a powerful group backed Yezid, the son of Muawiya. Both factions set out to meet, Hussain ignoring warnings to bring a large force travelled with 72 supporters. Hussain was wounded 33 times before he finally fell, his head was cut off, taken to the governor of Kufa who struck it over the mouth with a stick.

The death of Hussain is mourned to this day by Shia devout by parades of self flagellation, which you may have seen during recent coverage of events in Iraq. Anyway, the fighting and killing started almost the day Mohammad died, and has not stopped since.

Answer 6

Just enough that the Shi'ites launched another missile attack on the Sunnis in Baghdad.

Answer 7

They are different sects of Muslims. Like how Catholics and Protestants are the major sects of Christianity.

Answer 8

One is a bright light in the sky, the other is brown and smelly.