(REUTERS/Faisal AlNasser)
Saudi Arabia's Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz (R) and Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa arrive for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting in Riyadh February 14, 2015.
The Middle East is in the midst of ever-increasing tension, as conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is spiraling to involve more countries in the region.
Saudi Arabia severed all diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday. On Monday, Saudi Arabia moved to cut off all commercial ties, saying it would ban its citizens from traveling to Iran.
"The move comes after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran, ransacking and setting fire to the building in retaliation for Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and 46 others on Saturday," Business Insider's Natasha Bertrand reports.
Notably, Saudi Arabia is governed by a Sunni Islamic government, while the majority of Iranians are Shiite Muslims, also known as Shia.
Other countries that cut ties with Iran on Monday — Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates — are ruled by Sunni governments.
The conflicts between Shia and Sunni Muslims go back to the seventh century and the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
Yet a spotlight has been shone recently on the differences between the two branches of the religion as the number of clashes between both groups has intensified.
The vast majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are Sunni, according to a 2009 study by the Pew Research center.
Between 10% and 13% are Shia Muslims, and 87% to 90% are Sunni Muslims. Sunni Muslims are also present in more countries and regions throughout the world, whereas most of Shia Muslims live in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India, and Iraq.
(Columbia.edu)
The distribution as of 2005.
The separation of the two groups began after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The majority believed that his rightful successor was his father-in-law and close friend, Abu Bakr, but a small group believed the Prophet Muhammad's successor should be Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son-in-law and father of his grandchildren.
The Sunni majority got its way, as Abu Bakr became the first Muslim caliph and successor of the prophet. Although the divide was at first mostly political, as the minority group was a faction supporting the power of Ali, over time, the divide evolved into a religious movement.
One of the most crucial differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims is the importance that the Shiites give to Ali, whom the Sunni do not recognize as being the prophet's rightful successor.