The Unending Feud: Shi’ites vs. Sunnis

There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” That confession of faith, the shahada, is professed by all Muslims, be they the 700 million Sunnis who dominate the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia or the 90 million Shi’ites who rule Iran and form majorities in Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq. To the shahada, however, the Shi’ites add, “And Ali is the Friend of God.” Those additional words in praise of Ali, whom the Shi’ites passionately claim is Muhammad’s true successor, epitomize the complex and often bloody feud between Islam’s two branches.

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In Defense of Myhrvold: Give ‘Modernist Cuisine’ a Break

It’s only natural, I suppose, for a $625 five-volume, epochal publishing event like Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine to polarize the food world. After all, this is the book the whole culinary world has been waiting for: “the cookbook to end all cookbooks,” as David Chang called it.

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Smoking Will Kill 1 Billion People

One billion people will die from tobacco-related causes by the end of the century if current consumption trends continue, according to a global report released Thursday by the World Health Organization . At a press conference held in midtown Manhattan, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, contributed $2 million to conduct the study, joined top WHO officials to present the findings

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