"These two schools of the Mohammedan religion are called there the 'Sunnite" and the 'Shiite.' "It is very interesting to note that the psychic hatred of each other formed in the psyche of the beings who belong to these two independent schools of one and the same religion has, on account of their frequent clashes, now been transformed completely into an organic hate. "Beings of certain European communities have during recent centuries greatly contributed by their incitement to the rise of this peculiar transformation of that strange being-function. "And they have employed and continue to employ this incitement in order that the animosity between the beings who follow these two independent schools of one and the same religion should increase, and that they should never unite, since if this were to happen there might soon be an end there for those European communities. "The point is that nearly half of the ordinary three-brained beings there are followers of this Mohammedan teaching, and only as long as this mutual hatred exists among them will they mean nothing terrifying in the sense of 'reciprocal destruction' to European communities. "And hence it is that accidentally arisen 'newly baked' communities always rejoice when sparks fly between these Sunnites and Shiites, because they then count on a long and secure existence for themselves."
from "All and Everything--Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson" by G.I.Gurdjieff