RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - The burial mounds lie in two neat rows outside the tiny Shah Najaf mosque, a reminder that those who lie beneath the soil were pious Muslims martyred by violence.
Inside, Shafiq Hussain prays at the bullet-pocked Shiite mosque, marking the first Ramadan since two armed Sunni Muslim extremists walked in and opened fire with assault rifles, riddling worshipers with bullets and killing 11 people.
Sectarian violence is all too common in Pakistan, and tension is usually high during the Muslim holy month, when large numbers of faithful gather. The victims are usually Shiites, who are outnumbered by Sunnis by about 4 to 1. But Hussain, whose close friend was among those killed in the February mosque attack, said he was not afraid and does not harbor any resentment toward his Sunni neighbors.
''I do not feel unsafe,'' Hussain said, sitting on a prayer mat in the dank one-room mosque, with dozens of bullet holes along its doors and walls. ''Whether Shiite or Sunni, we all sit together and eat together. The people who did this were terrorists.''
''Besides,'' Hussain whispers. ''Everybody has to die sometime.''
The sectarian violence belies the meaning of Ramadan, a month of meditation and thanksgiving that marks God's revelation of the Koran to the Prophet Mohammed 1,400 years ago.
This Ramadan, political and religious leaders are hopeful a new alliance of Sunni and Shiite political parties can help stop the bloodshed. The ultraconservative religious bloc, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal did well in Oct. 10 elections, troubling many because of its anti-American stance.
But the alliance has also given the religious right its clearest chance to exercise national power, and has raised hopes Sunni and Shiite leaders can put aside their differences to stamp out violence between their two groups.
''Since we have this alliance with the MMA, it changes a lot of things,'' said Allama Sajid Naqvi, chairman of the Shiite Tehrik-e-Islami Party. ''I think there will be less violence this year, or maybe none at all.''
Naqvi used to lead a militant Shiite group, Tehrik-e-Jaferia, blamed for attacks on Sunnis, but the group dissolved last year after President Pervez Musharraf banned it and its Sunni counterparts. This year, Naqvi's new political party is backing a hard-line Sunni cleric, Fazl-ur Rahman, as the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal's candidate for prime minister, a sign of the newfound cooperation.
His Sunni counterparts in the alliance also see signs of hope.
''With the grace of God, with the formation of the MMA, the message of peace and harmony between Sunni and Shiite will travel down to the mosques and the people that they should put aside their petty differences,'' said Mansoor Jafar, a spokesman for the Sunni Muslim Jamaat-e-Islami Party.
Still, many doubt an alliance of the elite will have a dramatic effect on the armed extremists on both sides. Small-scale religious violence has continued since the elections, and age-old enmities don't go away overnight. Sunni extremist leader Maulana Azam Tariq ran for office from his prison cell and won a seat in the national assembly last month. He has since been released from jail.
Religiously motivated attacks on minority Christians and Westerners have sharply increased since last year, when Musharraf threw his support behind the US war on terrorism, angering many militant groups.
''The religious minorities of Pakistan are very worried and feel extremely insecure and unsafe during this Ramadan period,'' said Shehbaz Bhatti, a Christian who heads the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, which represents the country's religious minorities. ''I don't think the MMA will help at all.''
Shehbaz called on the government to increase security at churches and Shiite mosques throughout the country.
Back at the Shah Najaf mosque, worshipers, some of whom had been wounded in the attack, said they were still optimistic.
''I think the alliance of Sunni and Shiites will help bring peace, especially for us Shiites,'' said Raza Zehdi, 40, a mosque caretaker. ''There are extremists on both sides, but they are not Muslims; they are terrorists. They will never stop us from praying for peace.''