Saudi cleric denounces Shi'ites as infidels
The Peninsula - 30 December, 2006
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An influential cleric of Saudi Arabia's hardline Sunni school of Islam has
denounced Shi'ite Muslims as "infidels" in a new religious edict that comes
amid rising sectarian tension in the region.

"The rejectionists (Shi'ites) in their entirety are the worst of the Islamic
nation's sects. They bear all the characteristics of infidels," Sheikh Abdel
Rahman Al Barrak said in the fatwa, or ruling, distributed on Islamist Web
sites.

"They are in truth polytheist infidels, though they hide this," it said,
citing theological differences 14 centuries after the death of the Prophet
Mohammad, such as reverence of shrines which followers of Saudi Arabia's
Wahhabi school consider abhorrent.

Concern is growing in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, over Shi'ite-Sunni
violence in Iraq which has taken the northern neighbour to the brink of
civil war. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions are also high in Lebanon, where Shi'ites
are leading efforts to bring down a Sunni-led cabinet.

"The Sunni and Shi'ites schools of Islam are opposites that can never agree,
there can be no coming together unless Sunnis give up their principles," the
fatwa said.

Barrak, an independent scholar, has come to be regarded by many as the
highest authority for Wahhabi Muslims.

Clerics of the austere Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam have long dismissed Shi'ites
as virtual heretics and Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite minority complains of second
class treatment.But Barrak's fatwa was the strongest in recent years.

The fatwa, which was published on Barrak's Web site in response to a
follower's question, also appeared to criticise efforts by some
government-backed Saudi preachers at reconciliation between Sunnis and Shi'ites.