Reliogion and politics have been closely connection throughout the Middle Age until the early Modern Time.
And unfortunately, it seems to be similar now again.
Source: The Observer, 23.07.2006, page 27
From The Observer's
special report, online
Quote:Ten or 15 per cent of the world's 1.4bn Muslims are Shia. The differences with the majority Sunnis are doctrinal, cultural and often political, and date back to a schism over who would succeed the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago. For much of that time Shias were a persecuted minority, creating a powerful culture of martyrdom. However, there have been several episodes when the Shia, despite their smaller numbers, have been more dominant - most recently in 1979 when the Iranian revolution and the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini inspired hundreds of millions of Muslims of all denominations worldwide, promoting a re-energised political Islam. For a short period, all eyes turned to the Shia. In the intervening years their star waned. Now, it is shining bright again.
Five major elements underpin the new Shia revival.
The first is the sudden militancy of Iran, which has been led aggressively onto the world stage by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ... ...
The second major element of 'the Shia comeback' is the new power of Iraq's Shia who, though 65 per cent of the population, had been ruled by the Sunni minority for at least 400 years ... ...
Yet the other elements of the new 'Shia revival' are less certain ... ...
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