This research traces the political and social history of the Shiite Muslims in Pakistan. For many centuries, the Shiites, as a minority Muslim sect, have maintained a distinct cultural and religious identity in the parts of India which are now in Pakistan, despite opposition from the dominant Sunni elite and schisms within their ranks. With some notable exceptions, the Shiites have been a negligible political influence. In modern Pakistan, serious communal strife has erupted between extreme Sunni and Shiite elements, which reflect political instability and centrifugal forces which have polarized Pakistani politics.
Origins of the Sunni-Shiite Schism in Islam
According to Blood (124), Muslims account for 97 percent of Pakistan's population of 140 million people, of which 77 percent are Sunnis and 20 percent Shiites or Shia, literally "partisans of Ali" (124). The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (570-632 AD), died without a male heir and failed to designate his successor after his death. Hourani says the followers of Ali ibn Abu Talib (Ali), Muhammad's cousin and son in law, "believed that [Ali] had been the sole legitimate and appointed successor of the Prophet or imam" (61). Ali refused to acknowledge the dominance of the Quaraysh tribe, served briefly as Caliph (656-661) and then was assassinated.
Thus began the long schism and fratricidal conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims which continues to the present day. The Shiites rejected the authority of the Caliph and Islamic law, the sharia, preferring to believe that only their imams, who were descended from Ali, had the right to interpret the Quaran. After Ali was murdered, the Shiites went underground and opposed the established Umayyad Caliphate (660-749) and, after initially supporting the Abbasid overthrow of the Omayyads, found themselves being persecuted by the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258).
The Shiites themselves fragmented into various sects. The majority was c...