البيت المنقسم | السنة والشيعة وتشكيل الشرق الأوسط

The House Divided | A fresh look at the past, present and future of a conflict at the heart of the Middle East A landmark book shortlisted for the 2024 Prospect Prize The Guardian’s “Best Gift of 2024” “A brilliant take on the most sensitive and important topics – full of tender empathy, knowledge and rare balance” – Rory Stewart “Rogerson is an original writer – eloquent and always engaging... Few British writers understand the Middle East with such precision and depth” – William Dalrymple Recommended on “The Rest is Politics and Empire”_ At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, lies a 1,400-year-old division between Sunnis and Shiites. To understand this division and its contemporary repercussions, we must go back to its roots, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the unintended coup that overthrew the claims of his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and the killing of Hussein bin Ali in Karbala. These events, known to every Muslim, created a delicate fault line in the Middle East. A House Divided traces these narratives from the early Sunni and Shiite rifts, through the medieval Arab, Persian, and Ottoman rifts and empires, to the contemporary Middle East. The book shows how a complex set of identities and rivalries - religious, ethnic and national - shaped the region, which was rocked by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. With his innovative approach, Rogerson examines the modern chessboard of nation-states, viewing each state through its own history of empires and conquerors, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams. The result is a book brimming with empathy, understanding, and insight.