There has been a disunion in the Islamic countries for centuries, a disunion that has been bubbling under the surface. That disunion has never been tested as much as it is now. The ISIS crisis is a real one and it speaks volumes that Saudi Arabia has arrested 431 people suspected of being affiliated or part of Islamic State cells. The arrests also helped thwart attacks on mosques in the desert kingdom and came just after a bomb exploded outside the kingdom's biggest prisons, killing one and injuring two.
The Shia - Sunni divide has been the biggest threat to Islam, pitting countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran against each other, as they fought for the honour of being the spiritual leaders of Islam. In 2015, these two countries will have to stand together to fight against, what could possibly be termed as the third front, Islamic State.
Born out of the ashes of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, after the downfall of Saddam Hussain, ISIS has been spreading terror through many Arab nations, Iraq obviously, but also Syria, Bahrain and even further down in Africa, where as recently as March 2015, Boko Haram, Nigeria's biggest Islamist group pledged their allegiance to ISIS. The organisation's tentacles have spread into Europe too, with alledged affiliations to the groups that were behind the Charlie Hebdo attack. They view Shias as heretics and their attacks on the Shia community and the countries is completely destroying any semblance of the 'friendly' identity that Saudi has worked on for so long with the West.
Saudi Arabia enforces a very hard version of Islam, quite alike ISIS, but that's where the similarity ends. ISIS preaches terror and violence, while Saudi is the leader of the Islamic countries. There are many within the kingdom that now believe the hardline preachings of ISIS, which has perhaps spurred Saudi on to combat this with an iron fist. This is also where Iran can now play a part, one that the US has definitely recognised.
Iran is now almost free of sanctions, post the nuclear deal and will not only get back into the economic game with regards to oil but also now be the second superpower in the world of Islam. It may have been at loggerheads with Saudi in the past but there is hope that these two countries, although Sunni and Shia, along with Jordan and Egypt, can fight to break the hold that ISIS has on that part of the world.
If ISIS succeeds in getting people to join the fight against Saudi, as they have now called for people to sow dissent in the kingdom, they will have struck at the very heart of Islam and if they do manage to destroy that heart, Islam could fall back into the age of totalitarianism and the world has a very serious problem.
