Local Author Lesley Hazelton previews her upcoming book on the Sunni and Shia Split

How did Muhammad, the prophet of unity -- one people, one God -- leave behind such a terrible legacy of division between Sunnis and Shia? This was the question that led Lesley Hazelton to an epic historical narrative known throughout the Middle East, where it is alive in many people's hearts as though it had happened just yesterday. Yet despite siz years of war in Iraq, where much of the story takes place, it is still all but unknown in the West. There is no way to understand today's headlines without this story of Islam's first civil war, Hazelton says, and without respecting its enormous depth and emotive power.