Free Republic

The Islamic State (IS) group says it was behind a suicide bombing on a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia that killed at least 10 people. The attack in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province is the first to be claimed by the Saudi branch of IS, which was formally established last November. The claim was posted on Twitter with an image of the bomber by an account that is a reliable source on the group. IS has previously threatened to attack Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Witnesses reported a huge blast at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh, in...

Imam Hussein was killed by armies of the Yazid near Karbala in 680 AD. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan have day as national holiday. Blood-covered young men swarm into the streets as part of a religious procession in Pakistan. Children also take part in the gory ritual self-flagellation which is held ahead of Ashura on the ninth day of Muharram in Peshawar. Shi'a Muslims all over the world pay their respects with the flowing of their blood as they mourn the slaying and martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad.

An angry mother has accused a primary school of denying her child water on one of the hottest days of the year for fear of upsetting pupils observing Ramadan. Kora Blagden, 32, claimed a teacher at her son Luke’s school refused to let the 10-year old drink from his water bottle because it was unfair to fasting classmates. Many pupils at Charles Dickens Primary School, Portsmouth, Hampshire, are fasting during Ramadan, which means they refrain from taking food or water between sunrise and sunset for around 30 days, depending on the moon. Mother-of-four Kora said: 'Just before bedtime me and...

Syrian rebels say they respect all holy sites but damage to Sayyida Zeinab shrine has spurred 10,000 Shias to volunteer. Not long after a friend called from Damascus to tell him one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam had been damaged by Syrian rebels, Baghdad student Ammar Sadiq was on the move. Raging with a desire for vengeance, the 21-year-old set off for the border, a six-hour drive through Iraq's western deserts. He was one more jihadist on a road to war, a well-trodden path through lands that not long ago were used by jihadists coming the other way....

Tensions and violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are often in the news in countries like Iraq, Pakistan and Bahrain, but why are they at daggers drawn? swissinfo.ch: How did it come about that a Sunni minority should rule over a Shiite majority, as for example in Bahrain, where there are currently popular protests? Arnold Hottinger: This is a matter of power which has historical roots. Bahrain has a Sunni government but the majority of the population – 70 per cent - is Shiite. The example of Iraq, which also has a Shiite majority, can be easily explained in the...

The protests usually start after the Jummah prayers on Friday (6AM EST). Will the Saudi Shi'a Muslims "stick it to the man"? How about Bahrain?The Qatif region has the largest concentration of Shi'a Muslims in Saudi Arabia. The Shi'a minority is traditionally discriminated against by the Wahhabist monarchy, and their discontent should not necessarily be taken as indicating a wider rebelliousness among Saudi subjects generally. However, they do form a large part of the population in many of the principal oil-producing areas in the east.

Roger Stockham ... The California man accused of plotting to blow up a Detroit-area mosque rejected his court-appointed counsel Friday, upset that the attorney is a Shiite Muslim and a "patron" of the Islamic center where he was arrested. There are two main sects within Islam, Shiite and Sunni. The schism between Sunni and Shiite stems from the early days of Islam and arguments over the Prophet Muhammad's successors as the faith's spiritual leader.

ISLAMIC fanatics are mutilating themselves at a British mosque in a bloody ceremony carried out only yards from a busy high street. Shia Muslims use a five-bladed chain called a Zanjeer to whip their own backs and make cuts in their foreheads with razor blades in homage to their faith. Bare-chested men were left bleeding heavily during the ritual known as Matam – self-flagellation – which a witness described as being “like a scene from a horror film”. The Matam takes place during the annual Shia Ashura ceremony and commemorates the death of Husayn, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad....

SCENES of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims expressing their newfound political power on the streets of Iraq’s cities are causing growing concern in Western and Arab capitals. A fortnight after American and British troops deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime, there is a growing consensus that the only credible force to have emerged in the country is the Shia clergy and its followers, many of whom advocate the creation of an Iranian-style Islamic state. “There is real concern,” a senior British official said. “The Iraqi Shia are the only group to have made any real impact so far. There was...

Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims used a long-suppressed pilgrimage on Tuesday to flex their newly found political muscle in post-Saddam Iraq, with some demanding the withdrawal of United States-led forces. The crowd beat their heads and chests and flogged their backs with chains in grief for Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, who was beheaded in this holy city in AD 680 by an Omeyyad caliph. Many entered Hussein's domed mausoleum crawling, in a sign of humility and guilt because the imam's followers abandoned him in the battle against the Omeyyads. Thousands of Iraqi Muslim Shia pilgrims crowd around...

Religious fervour grips Iraq's Shia pilgrims Self-flagellation is one of the rituals of the pilgrimage Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims are thronging the streets of the central Iraqi city of Karbala for the climax of a religious pilgrimage that has been banned for a quarter of a century. The Shia, who form the majority in Iraq, are using the occasion to celebrate both their faith and the end of Saddam Hussein's rule, correspondents say. As many as 500,000 Shia have descended on the centre of Karbala, chanting as they pass the shrines sacred to their faith, while many more...

BY THIS time next week, Ibrahim al-Zayad hopes to be walking through the streets of his home town in southern Iraq dressed in American combat fatigues with an M16 assault rifle at his shoulder, ready to fight. “If I don’t help the Americans to kill Saddam, then who will? Iraq is my country. I must fight for it,” he said after Friday prayers at a community centre in the shabby suburbs of Detroit. But although he expects to fight alongside American soldiers and to be equipped for battle by a US Army quartermaster, Mr al-Zayad will belong to a different...