I think the increasing division in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa is indicated in the Bible, and I am writing a book about it right now that will be Book 3 in my Still Here series on Bible prophecy. Something happened this week that will further divide this region politically as well as religiously due to its religious sects Islam: Sunni (85% of Islam) and Shiite (15% of Islam).
The two most powerful countries in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and Iran. Iran’s population is over 77 million, and Saudi Arabia’s population is over 30 million. Both countries have massive oil reserves, with Saudi Arabia as the world leading producer and exporter of petroleum.
These two Islamic nations have been opposed to each other for decades, actually centuries. It’s because the government of Saudi Arabia is thoroughly Sunni and Iran has had a Shiite theocracy since 1979. Saudi Arabia, of course, is the birthplace of Islam, with Mecca, its capital, being regarded as its most holy city. For decades, Iran has been accusing the Saudi government of moral corruption and being apostate “infidels” as the keepers of the holy city and thus as the center of Islam.
Iran financially supports physical terrorism in various parts of the Middle East in an effort to spread its Shiite brand of Islam. The Iran government sometimes makes verbal threats of violence toward the Saudi government. But so far it has not carried through with anything. Such threats cause Saudi Arabia to further increase its military equipment, which it purchases mostly from the U.S. Iran purchase much of its military equipment from Russia.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have a common fear of Iran’s beligerance. For Israel, it’s because in recent years some Iranian government leaders have called for the extinction of the State of Israel. Iran sponsors Hezobollah, an enemy of Israel located in Lebanon with which Israel has fought two wars. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are opposed to the peace agreement the U.S. and other nations signed this week with Iran concerning Iran’s ambitious program to develop nuclear energy. Iran has always maintained that its nuclear development is only for peaceful purposes. But much of the world, including especially Israeli government leaders, have believed Iranian leaders constantly lie about that. Analysts speculate that if the governments involved in this nuclear agreement with Iran approve of it, the result could be a further escalation of arms, and perhaps the obtaining of nuclear weapons, in the Middle East, especially by Sunni governments in the Persian Gulf, of which Saudi Arabia is chief.
WikiLeaks recently published on the internet a mass of documents containing private emails and cables of the government of Saudi Arabia. They reveal a Saudi government obsession with Iran’s mission to export its Shiite propaganda and with it violence. These documents reveal that from 2010 into 2015, many Saudi branches of government have given billions of dollars to Islamic organizations in many parts of the world in an effort to oppose Iran’s activities in spreadying Shiite Islam.
WkikLeaks reportedly obtained these documents from little-known Yemeni Cyber Army, which is back by Iran. Yemen has been suffering civil war due mostly to the incursion of Iranian sponsored Shiite terrorist groups which have forced the president of Yemen into exile in Saudi Arabia. As a result, in recent days the Saudi military has been conducting a bombing air campaign in Yemen against these Shiite terrorist organizations.
These WikiLeak documents reveal that the Saudi Arabian government trains and sends thousands of Sunni Islamic imans, preachers, to various parts of the world, especially the Middle East and North Africa, to spread its Sunni religious doctrine, and it even keeps many of them on the payroll.
These WikiLeak revelations are being confirmed by various sources, some of them by other national governments. I think they will further alienate Saudi Arabia and Iran and further the divide between the Shiites and Sunnis as almost the two sole sects of Islam.
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