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.

John McHugo is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies at St Andrews University. A board member of the Council for Arab British Understanding, he is also a he is also an advisor to Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, on peace in the Middle East. McHugo's writing has featured in History Today, The World Today, Jewish Quarterly and on the BBC News website.www.johnmchugo.com

CHAPTER ONE: In the Beginning - before there were Sunnis and Shi'is p.3; CHAPTER TWO: How Internal Strife came to Islam p.18; CHAPTER THREE: Of Umayyads and Abbasids - The Political Background to the Split between Sunnis and Shi'is p. 33; CHAPTER FOUR: The Split between Sunnis and Shi'is p. 48; CHAPTER FIVE: Of Ismailis, Asassins, Druze, Gnostic Shi'is, Alawis and Sufis p. 68; CHAPTER SIX: How Iran became Shi'i p. 80; CHAPTER SEVEN: The Ottoman Empire, India and the Muslim Reformation p.98; CHAPTER EIGHT: The long Nineteenth Century and the Coming of Western Dominance p.110; CHAPTER NINE: Between the two World Wars p.132; CHAPTER TEN: Tides ebb and flow p.158; CHAPTER ELEVEN: 1979 p. 183; CHAPTER TWELVE: From the Iranian Revolution to the Invasion of Iraq (2003) p. 198; CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Disaster with many Fathers p. 224