Heirs of the Prophet
How does the division between Sunni and Shia Islam play out in Britain today? Shaimaa Khalil – herself a Sunni Muslim from Egypt – ventures into the world of Shia Islam and finds out how recent political events have shaped relations between the two communities in Britain. She joins a Shia mourning ritual, and meets a Sunni-Shia couple who – after marrying for love against their parents’ wishes - are negotiating a difficult path between mutual understanding and the need to live out their own faith. Shaimaa also consults Sunni and Shia experts – Tim Winter from Cambridge University, and Sheikh Mohammad al-Hilli – to get to the bottom of what has remained the most divisive issue in early Islamic history: the succession of the Prophet Muhammad.