How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape The Future. Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr has become one of America's leading commentators on current events in the Middle East, admired and welcomed by both media and government for his "concise and coherent" analysis (Wall Street Journal, front-page profile). In this "remarkable work" (Anderson Cooper), Nasr brilliantly dissects the political and theological antagonisms within Islam, providing a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis and shedding crucial light on its modern-day consequence and the future of the Middle East, and its modern embodiment in the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for political and spiritual leadership of the Muslim world.

"Historically incisive, geographically broad-reaching, and brimming with illuminating anecdotes."--Max Rodenbeck, New York Review of Books