Sunnite terrorist attack to Teheran political and religious heart is something pretty unprecedented, even if from the ‘80s Iran territory had been assaulted by different sides; anyway, this terrorist raid needs to be considered as strictly related with previous diplomatic seclusion against Qatar as the ongoing civil war in Syria and Iraq.

However, before facing up to contemporary scenarios, it is prominent to highlight the historical reason behind Sunni- Shi‘a fracture which is far away from ongoing reciprocal accusation of heresy and religious understanding.

After the Prophet Muhammad death in 632, the main problem was to preserve the unity of the Umma, the Islamic community, between those who sustained Muhammad’s political heritage (the religious prophetic one, ended with the prophet’s expiry) within his closed clan, supporting ‘Ali’s candidature (the Prophet’s cousin), from those, who argued that Muhammad’s successor could have been any closer collaborator and friend of early Islamic years, but not in specific a member of his clan or family.

Assuming that all four Rightly-guided caliphs, the follower leading caliphs, were members of the Prophet family for matrimonial policy, only one, ‘Ali was really a member of Muhammad’s clan, the Banu Hashim.

The fragmentation of the community, in particular after the murder of the third of them, Othman ibn ‘Affan (656), and the not unanimous decision to choose ‘Ali as fourth caliph, was unequivocally based on clan and political reasons, without the religious acrimony that emerged today.

Only one century after the civil war caused by political inheritance, we could religiously start to identify religious differences between Sunnite and Shi‘a groups.

The contemporary situation is clearly different and the emphasis granted on Shi‘a- Sunnite divergences is part of a reciprocal propaganda game without real religious basis.

Religious diversities concerning Islamic leadership structure, some moral values and religious orthopraxis clearly exist, anyway, Qur’an and Tradition remained similar and Mecca – Medina pilgrimage remained, until 2015, a faith pillar committed also by many Shi‘a.

However, in order to be able to recruit many fighters on both sides, religious impact need to be overemphasized.

On the contrary, the actual conflict is related with economic, strategic and political reasons at least since the success of Iranian revolution in 1979.

Post’79 political factor concerned that Iran is the only Islamic country in which a religious revolution took successfully power and even if today, the urbanized young generation support political reformists actors, the Iranian political system is still religiously leaded and ruled.

Saudi Arabia on the contrary, in spite of the rigid Islamic puritanism (neo-Wahhabism), became a fossil oil economy through religious alteration of original Islamic message, usually antithetic to rate interests and money deify, favouring the creation of Islamic Investment Bank and Fiscal paradise in the Arab Emirates during the ‘80s.

In the ‘80s Iraq-Iranian war, Teheran was militarily attacked by Saddam Hussein with the support of United States and the majority of the Arab Sunnite countries of the region, to foster Iranian revolution failure, but without success.

Today Iran is solidly allied with Iraqi relative majority population, the Asad family in Syria and Hezbollah Lebanese party, as extra, it can splinter Saudi Arabia from side to side, in Yemen, with the Houthi Shi‘a minority, in Bahrain, where the 70% of the population is Shiite, along the Iraqi-Saudi long desert border and probably, in a short future also through Qatar, which is a Sunnite country, but with prominent gas reserve in sharing with Teheran, which is the likely reason for the last week diplomatic crisis.

This short strategic synthesis finally observe the indirect support of Putin’s Russia on Iranian and Syrian’s back.

The final economic factor reflects on Teheran involvement in being admitted as to invest money within Arab geographically closed fiscal paradises, as well as, after decades of economic embargo, to bolster his trade market of eighty millions habitants.

International investments will certainly favoured Iran as had already did with Turkey in the previous decades, with the opportunity to create a working-urbanized middle class, still missing in the majority of Arab states.

An Islamic religious civil war is clearly possible, and considering the Syrian-Iraqi situation is already effective; wondering on Saudi Arabia investments in Us weapons defence and offense systems, a war between Teheran and Riyad could turn from cold to warm; however, nowadays, it is hard to consider it as a real option, Saudi Arabia and Iran are both engaged in the fragmentation of Arab Near East more than in face to face war.

At the same time, in the last days has become very clear that the actual ongoing crises in the Middle East have not a real impact on global or european economy, as on the oil price, which remained under 50$ at barrel.

As conclusion, the limited presence of Shi‘a Muslims in Europe is clearly an important factor, Europe is under the attack of radicalized young Sunnite with continental citizenships, but will not become the war setting of an Islamic religious civil war.

The propaganda that this is an intra-Islamic religious war continues.