More details here from BBC News
Sunnis and Shiites differ on who should have succeeded Muhammad after his death in 632. (We're talking almost 1500 years ago people!) Sunnis supported the succession of Abu Bakr, the prophet’s friend; Shiite Muslims felt the rightful successor was the prophet’s son-in-law and cousin, Ali bin Abu Talib.
Sunnis believe Muslim leaders can be elected, or picked, from those qualified for the job. Shiites believe leaders should be direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. So they don’t recognize the same authority in Islam – kind of like the way Catholics and Protestants are all Christians and have the same Bible, but only Catholics recognize the authority of the pope. And like Catholics and Protestants, both Sunnis and Shiites have their own religious holidays, customs and shrines.
The Kurds
In the continuing conflict in Iraq, Kurds frequently are mentioned alongside Iraq’s Sunni and Shia Muslim populations as one of the key groups involved in power struggles for which sharp religious divides have played a major part. But while the Kurds are a crucial part of Iraq’s political makeup, they are an ethnic group, not a distinct religious sect within Islam. Kurds are more appropriately compared to Arabs, the largest ethnic group in Iraq, or other regional ethnic groups such as Assyrians or Turkmen.
The Yazidis
One of the groups caught in the path of Sunni militants fighting under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are the Yazidis, Violence against Yazidis predates the current offensive, although ISIS represents a more systematic threat to the group.
The Yazidis are an ethnically Kurdish religious group whose beliefs include elements similar to Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. They are mainly concentrated in northern Iraq, but some also live in Syria, Turkey and a few other countries.
If you're still confused, perhaps this 4 minute video may help clear everything up! It definitely helped me!!!
ISIS/ISL:
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a jihadist rebel group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria and also operates in eastern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, and other areas of the Middle East,[24] North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Many Islamic and non-Islamic communities judge the group to be unrepresentative of Islam.
The United Nations has held ISIL responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes, and Amnesty International has reported ethnic cleansing by the group on a "historic scale". The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, India, and Russia. Over 60 countries are directly or indirectly waging war against ISIL.
Al-Queda:
Al-Qaeda has its origins in the uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan as mujahideen, warriors fighting to defend fellow Muslims. In the mid-1980s, Osama bin Laden became the prime financier for an organization that recruited Muslims from mosques around the world. These "Afghan Arab" mujahideen, which numbered in the thousands, were crucial in defeating Soviet forces.
Taliban:
The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread throughout Afghanistan and formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001.
While in power, it enforced a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, an interpretation of which leading Muslims have been highly critical. The Taliban were condemned internationally for their brutal treatment of women.
From 1995 to 2001, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and military are widely alleged by the international community to have provided support to the Taliban. Pakistan is accused by many international officials of continuing to support the Taliban. Pakistan states that it dropped all support for the group after 9/11. Al-Qaeda also supported the Taliban with regiments of imported fighters from Arab countries and Central Asia.
Hamas:
Hamas' 1988 charter states that Hamas "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" (Article Six) and that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." Article Thirty-One of the Charter states: "Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions—Islam, Christianity and Judaism—to coexist in peace and quiet with each other.
Hezbollah:
Hezbollah emerged in South Lebanon during a consolidation of Shia militias as a rival to the older Amal Movement. Hezbollah played a significant role in the Lebanese civil war, opposing American forces in 1982–83 and opposing Amal and Syria during the 1985–88 War of the Camps. However, Hezbollah's early primary focus was ending Israel's 18-year-long occupation of southern Lebanon[2] following Israel's 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut.[41] When the Shia population of southern Lebanon realized that Israel had no intention of leaving, they rebelled. Amal, the main Lebanese Shia political group, initiated guerrilla warfare.
Boko Haram:
Boko Haram was founded as a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist sect advocating a strict form of sharia law and developed into a Salafist-jihadi group in 2009. Boko Haram killed more than 5,000 civilians between July 2009 and June 2014, including at least 2,000 in the first half of 2014, in attacks occurring mainly in northeast, north-central and central Nigeria.[16][17][18] Corruption in the security services and human rights abuses committed by them have hampered efforts to counter the unrest.[19][20] Since 2009 Boko Haram have abducted more than 500 men,[21][22] women and children, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014.[23] 650,000 people had fled the conflict zone by August 2014, an increase of 200,000 since May; by the end of the year 1.5 million had fled.
Who am I missing? Here's a whole list of the other wackos!
But then again (from a Christian perspective)...there's always
Mike Huckabee!
You know this wacko isn't happy about the latest Pew Research findings (see below).
Needless to say...this is gonna piss off the current cast of the Rethuglican clowns that have declared their run for the Presidency of the United States, not to mention more Rethuglican wackos on the Presidential horizon, the Evangelicals and many more right-wing wackos!
Pew Research details here.
PS. BTW...Mr. Huckabee is the author of "Gods, Grits, Guns and Gravy"! To me, there is some thinking that he is as qualified to be President of the United States as much as Mrs. Palin was qualified to be a heart-beat away from the Presidency of the United States! But then again, currently, there are other options...Carson and Fiorina! WTF!
Carly Fiorina:
Mrs. Fiorina ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground and still got rewarded for it in the end, unlike many of the employees who lost everything through no fault of their own!
Marco Rubio:
Whoops...almost forgot about him!
More Rethuglican wackos are expected to join the circus later this week. All this scares the hell out of me! But then again, in my opinion, the majority of the American electorate are not the sharpest knives in the drawer!
Below is an Introduction to EVEN more Religous WACHO Insane SH*T!
Let's behead somebody!!!
And then let's behead other folks who are innocent of all this Wacko Religious Sh*t! And then lets do another innocent one! And then another one!
But then again...how could any sane/educated person (people) fly a jet-liner into a building!!! Oh...my bad...I forgot about the 27 virgins! Terrorism is a bitch...and IMHO...so is religion! 'Nuff said! Pass the collection plate please! Reverend Jones needs a new Cadillac!
Ya just can't make this sh*t up!
