John McHugo

The 1400-year-old schism between Sunnis and Shi`is has rarely been as toxic as it is today, feeding wars and communal strife in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other countries, with tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran escalating. In this richly layered and engrossing account, John McHugo reveals how this great divide occurred. Charting the story of Islam from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad to the present day, he describes the conflicts that raged over the succession to the Prophet, how Sunnism and Shi`ism evolved as different sects during the Abbasid caliphate, and how the rivalry between the empires of the Sunni Ottomans and Shi`i Safavids contrived to ensure that the split would continue into modern times. Now its full, destructive force has been brought out by the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for the soul of the Muslim world. Definitive and insightful, A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi`is shows that there was nothing inevitable about the sectarian conflicts that now disfigure Islam. It is an essential guide to understanding the genesis, development and manipulation of the great schism that has come to define Islam and the Muslim world.

Un viaje a través de la política, la sociedad y la cultura de los árabes desde los días del Imperio romano hasta la actualidad. La clave para entender el mundo árabe actual (y futuro) es comprender su pasado, McHugo revela como el mundo arabe llego a s

Un viaje a través de la política, la sociedad y la cultura de los árabes desde los días del Imperio romano hasta la actualidad. La clave para entender el mundo árabe actual (y futuro) es comprender su pasado. McHugo revela como el mundo arabe llego a ser lo que es hoy, por que el cambio era inevitable, y que podemos esperar despues de la primavera arabe. Concisa, breve, util y practica, esta historia sirve tambien de guia sobre la cultura y la politica de la region. Revisada y actualizada, el autor la ha ampliado

i buscaba una historia de los árabes contada en pocas páginas, desde el principio hasta hoy, y pensada para lectores occidentales sin conocimientos previos, este es su libro. Para entender cómo y cu