(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - In recent months talks of strife between Lebanon’s two largest Muslim sects - Sunnis and Shiites - have been brought to the limelight.
These talks were backed by several attacks carried out against the two sides.
The last of which was an explosion which rocked the Lebanese Southern suburb - a pre-dominantly Shiite region - earlier this week.
It was preceded by the attempted assassination of two Sunni clerics in June as well.
As international media outlets been employing such incidents to report on what they describe as Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon, Lebanese scholars assert that such a divide does not exist and that these attacks have the fingerprints of extremist affiliates trying to turn the two sides against one another.
On the political front, fingers of blame have often been pointed at Lebanese politicians for investing and even creating sectarian tensions.
Although the Lebanese political system has often been carped by civil society for being a common denominator championing sectarianism; Lebanese individuals themselves have relatively enjoyed a liberal and dynamic pattern of coexistence especially the Shiites and the Sunnis.
Islamic scholars in Lebanon believe that it is the duty of clerics to brazen out efforts aimed at instigating strife between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon by promoting unity and proximity.
Lebanon's House-Speaker - Nabih Berri - has previously uncovered that over 362,000 Lebanese families have one parent Sunni and the other Shiite; a figure believed to be quite overwhelming for a country with a population total of only 4 million. As religious scholars assert that individuals ascribing to these two sects belong to the same faith; they caution that those betting on Muslim-Muslim strife in Lebanon may not want to keep their hopes up.
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14 July 2013 - 05:44
News ID: 440409
In the past several months attacks directed against Sunni and Shiite communities in Lebanon have risen in parallel with the advancement of the Syrian Army against foreign-backed Takfiri groups in Syria. Some have been trying to invest in these incidents by fueling a divide between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon. However, Lebanese scholars say that what binds the two together is far too strong to allow such a rift.
