Bobby Ghosh's March 5, 2007 cover story in Time does not justify its title, "Why They Hate Each Other," because it doesn't clearly explain why the Shia and the Sunni are fighting each other so fiercely in [Iraq].

The article does, however, support a point I've been making, that the sectarian conflict in is not a religious war between the two groups. In fact, what are the theological differences between a Sunni and a Shia? They scarcely exist. The difference is an argument over the Islamic family tree. The Shia trace legitimate descent to the Prophet Muhammad's son--in-law, Ali, while the Sunni have traditionally accepted the various caliphs and sultans who have ruled Islamic empires over the centuries as legitimately installed by Allah.

Ghosh's article has an interesting, and unintentionally amusing, list of differences between Sunni and Shia. Here's how to tell them apart.

NAMES: The Shia have names like Abdel-Hussein and Abdel-Zahra. The Sunni have names like Omar and Uthman.

PRAYER: "Typically Sunnis pray with one arm folded over the other, just below the rib cage. Shia prefer to keep their arms straight down at their sides."

MOSQUES: Sunni mosques tend to have domes and minarets while Shia worship at places "which combine the functions of a mosque and community center and don't necessarily have domes."

OUTFITS: "Shia clerics in are often more elaborately attired than their Sunni counterparts, wearing white, black or green headgear. The Sunni clergy generally wear white headgear."

HOMES: Shia Muslims like portraits, while "Sunnis tend to favor calligraphy."

ACCENTS: Since the Shia live mainly in the south of , they speak "with a pronounced southern accent." The Sunni tend to exhibit the tones associated with Anbar province where they predominate.

My conclusion? We've got to stop treating the Sunni-Shia difference as a replay of the historical conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants in Europe . The Catholics and Protestants were split over creedal differences, and at one time theose were so deeply-held that people were willing to go to war over them. But there is nothing resembling this in the Muslim world today. A new intellectual map is needed.