The Forgotten Shiites of Saudi Arabia

Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the Forgotten Shiites of Saudi Arabia - The Atlantic: 

The myth of an endless conflict between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East ever since the Battle of Karbala has been ably debunked by various writers, who point to far more modern roots—perhaps 1979 and the Iranian Revolution— for the divide. In Saudi Arabia, however, the battle between Shiites and Sunnis runs back at least a century. The country’s Shia population is concentrated in al-Ahsa, an eastern province. The area abuts Bahrain, where Shiites make up a majority of the population but the ruling family is Sunni.