Shiite Quotes & Sayings

For the first time the people of Iraq are united. Today on CNN I saw a Kurd, a Shiite and a member of the Republican Guard coming together to cart off a big screen TV. — Jay Leno

Delta is full of guys who can stay awake for a week and walk a hundred miles and shoot the balls off a tsetse fly, but it's relatively empty of guys who can do all that and then tell you the difference between a Shiite and a trip to the latrine. — Lee Child

So the idea that you could put Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni Arabs in a nice, liberal, federal system in Iraq in a short amount of time, six months or a year, boggles the mind. — William Odom

The principle of free speech is no new doctrine born of the Constitution of the United States. It is a heritage of English-speaking peoples, which has been won by incalculable sacrifice, and which they must preserve so long as they hope to live as free men. — Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

You [can] become part of someone else's narrative. Every once in a while I would get people asking me questions like, "If your husband is a Muslim, then why haven't you converted to Islam?" Interestingly enough, almost every person who asked me that was a Sunni, and it was their not-so-subtle way of implying that my Shiite husband was a bad Muslim for letting his infidel wife run around unconverted. — Annia Ciezadlo

You have to be in good shape, basically. And then, you have to have a certain craziness, if you're going to do some of the action things. — Antonio Banderas

If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything. — Robert M. Pirsig

Policemen and five civilians on Monday. The officer says the explosion also wounded 22 people. The town of Suwayrah is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad. A medical official confirmed the causality figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. Iraq is undergoing a surge in attacks since last year, with violence reaching levels unseen since 2008. It has become the Shiite-led government's most serious challenge as the nation prepares to hold parliamentary elections. Posted: Apr 21 6:31 am — Anonymous

[It] is well and good when our convictions are based upon the "Thou shalts" and the "Thou shalt nots" of Scripture rather than our own ideas. — Billy Graham

For a new leader of Iraq, he said, "We would accept a Kurd, a Christian or even a Jew." But not, he said, a Shiite. — Anonymous

By curious accident of history and geography, the world's major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They're a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf. — Noam Chomsky

I won't be a party to a conspiracy to mobilize the Arabs against the Persians. Only the forces of colonialism benefit from such a conspiracy. I won't be a party to a conspiracy that splits Islam into two - Shiite Islam and Sunni Islam - mobilizing Sunni Islam against Shiite Islam. — Muammar Al-Gaddafi

Boredom has an important function, because pushing through it can unleash creativity. — Amy Dickinson

Our enemies - whether Shiite or Sunni - are followers of a totalitarian ideology based on Islam, which tells them that Allah wishes to rule the world through them. Israel is a central front in this war. Given the weakness of Western support for the Jews, jihadists see attacking Israel as a strategic tool for eroding the West's ideological defenses and shoring up their supporters throughout the world. — Caroline Glick

A Muslim just follows Allah. Sunni-Shiah? That's farga, the groups - Allah discourages this in the Quran, you know, never ever form the groups. — Michael Muhammad Knight

The Iraqi government will try and retake some of the cities have that been captured by ISIS. That means the Shiite government dropping bombs on civilian areas, on Sunni cities. There will likely be a response with car bombings here in Baghdad, and this could be a long fight. — Richard Engel

Julie sat back and laughed. "I don't know about that." She looked into Matt's eyes. "Even so, I love you." Matt smiled at her and winked. "I know. — Jessica Park

America entered the Lebanese Civil War. It paid the price. Two hundred marines were killed by one Shiite. Reagan pulled the troops and avoided discussing Lebanon. Lebanon, like AIDS, was hardly ever mentioned by our president. — Rabih Alameddine

The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But they are also agents of Shiite Iran, which arms, trains, and advises them. Their slogan - 'God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel' - could have been written in Persian. — Charles Krauthammer

Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person. — Horace

Initially, before the modern state of Iraq was created, there were three separate provinces here: a Shiite in the south, a largely Sunni one in the middle, and a Kurdish one in the north. — Richard Engel

If you think about Protestant and Catholic or Shiite and Sunni, they are basically the same thing ... one eats with their left hand, the other eats with their right hand. — Conor Oberst

Saudi Arabia isn't the enemy, but it is a problem. It could make so much positive difference in the Islamic world if it used its status to soothe Sunni-Shiite tensions and encourage tolerance. For a time, under King Abdullah, it seemed that the country was trying to reform, but now under King Salman, it has stalled. — Nicholas Kristof

Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran. — David Ignatius

But the U.S. has to be careful. If our strategy depends on Sunnis doing the fighting to clear Mosul and Ramadi - and, as near as I can tell, that is the strategy - then you have to be careful that Sunnis don't perceive the U.S. to be operating arm in arm with Iran or with Iranian-backed Shiite militias that Abadi - Prime Minister Abadi is using in Iraq, so that, in effect, we're fronting for Iran. — David Ignatius

First of all, there are Persians and Arabs. The fact they share a religion, a Shiite religion, does not mean that they're close. It doesn't work that way. There is a relationship because there is a long border. There is going to be trade between them. They should have a relationship. They want to make sure that - though, that there is no undue influence coming from Iran or any other country in the region. — Joe Biden

The terrorists want civil war. Al-Qaida is attacking Shiites. The Shiite militias are taking revenge on the Sunnis. And the Sunnis are become more extremist, with some joining al-Qaida. — Zalmay Khalilzad

Saudi Arabia inflames the Sunni-Shiite divide and sets a pernicious example of intolerance by banning churches. — Nicholas Kristof

Our civilization rests on a faulty premise, that the world is physical and mechanical, energy and matter only. We do not pay for it in our bridges, we pay for it in the quality of our lives. "
— Richard Grossinger

For decades, Saddam and his Sunni minority had imposed their will on Iraq, carrying on a 14-century tradition of Sunnis controlling Mesopotamia despite a Shiite majority. — Richard Engel

Actually, King Abdullah, under his supervision and guidance, has established a dialogue in Saudi Arabia whereby all the population, whether Shiite or Sunnis from north, south, west or east, they can get together and exchange their views. — Al-Waleed Bin Talal

My mother is a Shiite Muslim, as are most Iranians, while the rest of the
family was Sunni. But that was never a problem. Shiites and Sunnis had lived
side by side and intermarried for over a thousand years and our differences were
far fewer than our similarities. What was fundamental was that all Muslims,
regardless of their sects, surrender to the will of God, and believe that there is no
God but Allah and Mohammed is his last Prophet. That is the Quranic definition
of a Muslim and, in our family, what mattered most. — Benazir Bhutto

Through their wickedness we were divided amongst ourselves; and the better to keep their thrones and be at ease, they armed the Druze to fight the Arab, and stirred up the Shiite to attack the Sunnite, and encouraged the Kurdish to butcher the Bedouin, and cheered the Mohammedan to dispute with the Christian. Until when shall a brother continue killing his own brother upon his mother's bosom? Until when shall the Cross be kept apart from the Crescent before the eyes of God? Oh Liberty, hear us, and speak in behalf of but one individual, for a great fire is started with a small spark. Oh Liberty, awaken but one heart with the rustling of thy wings, for from one cloud alone comes the lightning which illuminates the pits of the valleys and the tops of the mountains. Disperse with thy power these black clouds and descend like thunder and destroy the thrones that were built upon the bones and skulls of our ancestors. — Kahlil Gibran

Shah Ismail had fallen victim to the rarely used, great Uzbek anti-Shiite potato and sturgeon curse, which required quantities of potatoes and caviar which were not easy to amass, and a unity of purpose among the Sunni witches which was likewise difficult to achieve. — Salman Rushdie