As if some Middle East Muslims didn't think they had enough reasons to fight already....

Saudis risk new Muslim division with proposal to move Mohamed’s tomb - Middle East - World - The Independent

The plans, brought to light by another Saudi academic who has exposed and criticised the destruction of holy places and artefacts in Mecca – the holiest site in the Muslim world – call for the destruction of chambers around the Prophet’s grave which are particularly venerated by Shia Muslims.

The 61-page document also calls for the removal of Mohamed’s remains to the nearby al-Baqi cemetery, where they would be interred anonymously.

There is no suggestion that any decision has been taken to act upon the plans. The Saudi government has in the past insisted that it treats any changes to Islam’s holiest sites with “the utmost seriousness”.

But such is the importance of the mosque to both Sunni and Shia Muslims that Dr Irfan al-Alawi warned that any attempt to carry out the work could spark unrest. It also runs the risk of inflaming sectarian tensions between the two branches of Islam, already running perilously high due to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Hardline Saudi clerics have long preached that the country’s strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam – an offshoot of the Sunni tradition – prohibits the worship of any object or “saint”, a practice considered “shirq” or idolatrous.

Um, if no one is going to agree to a suggestion that would be like throwing a tanker full of Saudi oil  on an existing fire, why publicise it at all??

Update:   searching back on posts I made earlier on Islam, I was interested to re-read this one based on an interview in 2006 on ABC's Religion Report with a Catholic priest who had lived for decades in Pakistan.   He was warning then of a future intensification of the conflict between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East:

Robert McCulloch was back home in Australia recently for a few days break, and he agreed to come into the ABC studio to talk about what life is like for Christians in Pakistan. He arrived clutching his copy of Pope Benedict's new Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, which he'd been to busy to read prior to his holiday. He talks about being surrounded by pervasive bigotry that seeps into every aspect of Pakistani society, and living with a permanent state of threat.

Robert McCulloch: Yes I think the characteristic of the nation unfortunately is one of conflict, even though the President and Prime Minister have on occasion said that Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace, a dominant reality of the society is the conflict between the various sects or divisions or groupings of Muslims within Pakistan, in particular Sunni and Shia. And even amongst the various groupings within those two major groupings that you've got there, and the conflict, verbal, literary, even bombings which are taking place in the north of the country in Gilgit up in the northern areas, there's a warfare going on between Sunni and Shia and that's got ramifications in every aspect of the society pay-back, it seeps over into the society and makes it conflictual.

Stephen Crittenden: It's been suggested to me in fact that it might well be harder to be a Shi'ite in Pakistan perhaps than it is even to be a Christian.

Robert McCulloch: No, I wouldn't agree with that. I think Christians have their own problems, especially exacerbated by the blasphemy laws that we might want to talk about a little later, but leaving ourselves on that question of being a Shi'ite in Pakistan, or a Shia in Pakistan, I'd like to relate that a little bit to the wider global scene, at least in the Middle East, that the conflict that unfortunately has emerged between Israel and Lebanon, I believe has taken the focus off a major conflict that has been emerging in the Middle East and other areas over the past few years. And it's been the conflict between Sunni and Shia. I think it's becoming more and more evident in Iraq that it's a conflict in Islam. It's certainly an issue with the minority of Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia that are as discriminated against as Christians.

Stephen Crittenden: And you say that actually may well be emerging as the big future conflict in the Middle East, the conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis?

Robert McCulloch: I think so. Looking at the conflict that we actually have in Pakistan, that is spoken about and each year when Ramadan takes place, the celebrations or the commemorations held by the Shias, how is that going to be picked up by fundamentalist groups amongst the Sunnis? It's an area of questioning, major, major questioning. It's ultimately an issue that Muslims themselves I think need to address more carefully. We've got a major conflictual situation in Iraq, people are striving to solve it through violence, and if this is all the relationship can lead to, well there has to be a major question that a lot has to be done.

 That was 8 years ago now.  All his fears appear to have come true...