Damascus, Syria - At the end of a dark, narrow tunnel that passes beneath a house in the Old City of Damascus is a small and unkempt courtyard. Raith Hassan's workshop, littered with sawdust and antique wooden furniture, opens onto the yard where he makes tea over a portable gas stove and washes before prayers.
The 25-year-old Syrian carpenter represents a quiet controversy in the Muslim world: He has turned his back on the Sunni sect of his birth and become a Shiite.
"When I told my father he was angry and refused me -- I was disowned and banished from our house," he said. "My whole family were upset and fought with me and each other. They told me 'Shiites are not Muslims,' and said I had rejected religion and rejected God."
His employer noticed the apprentice craftsman -- Hassan was 17 at the time -- had started to pray differently, in accordance with Shiite protocols. "That was eight years ago, but I remember it clearly," he said, smiling at the thought of his livid Sunni ex-boss. "The master came up and told me I was a kuffar (nonbeliever). Then he told me I wasn't welcome there anymore, and that I must never come back. I didn't argue, I just walked away."
The rift within Islam between Sunni and Shiite is almost as old as the religion itself, a sometimes bloody internecine conflict that has again come to the fore. King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi Arabian government have all warned of a "Shiite Crescent" -- a religious swathe that stretches from Afghanistan through Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean coast.
The government line in Syria, where Sunnis make up 70 percent of the population, is that there is no difference or dispute between Sunni and Shiite. Abdul Albuzin, the grand mufti of Damascus, said the country had a proud history as a home to all faiths.
"There have been Shiites in Syria for a long time," he said. "We don't want any clash between sects. We all belong to the same prophet, we have the same God, we pray in the same direction. We must work hand in hand."
That's not a universally held view.
Just outside Damascus, the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, one of the prophet Muhammad's granddaughters, has become a thriving hub of Shiite activity, dominated by a mix of Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans -- mainly Shiite -- who have opened a phalanx of offices and Islamic schools. According to local sources, influential figures with representation in Sayyida Zaynab include a host of Iranian clerics, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader; Iraq's two most prominent Shiite clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and militant Muqtada al-Sadr, and senior Lebanese cleric Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadullah.
Sheikh Mahmoud Alhaery, of the relatively small Iranian Shirazi school there, said he dealt with more than 50 people a year shifting from Sunni to Shiite. "Conversion is quite common," he said. "We don't keep a register of numbers, but we see more than one a week in this office, they come from all different backgrounds, rich, educated, poor. What unites them all is that they are seeking the truth."
He said television was helping the cause.
"Satellite channels are very popular, and many watch the news and are troubled by what is happening in Iraq," he said. "They see the explosions and attacks and killings claimed by Sunnis and that makes them question what Sunnis are really doing. Then they start looking for the truth."
He admitted that cash played a role in the work. "We give people a little money, perhaps to help them afford their education -- we see it as a contribution toward that," he said, declining to give more details.
In Aleppo, Syria's ancient second city 230 miles north of the capital, Mahmoud Alhosainy, an influential Sunni preacher, took a different view, insisting that Shiite expansion was alarming.
"The Shiites are a problem because they are magnifying something that should not really be present in Syria," he said sitting behind the desk in his medical clinic. "Shiites get this support from the poor, and they create more and more Shiites in order to achieve the longer-term aim of regional expansion."
Alhosainy, a member of Syria's divided and suppressed political opposition, warned this trend would give Iran a new power base across the Middle East.
"There are no native Shiite families in Damascus or Aleppo or Hama (another Syrian city)," he said, "but they are allowed to establish places of worship with Iranian support, and it means that influence and power spreads at every level."
Syria's ruling Assad family is from the Alawite sect, a secretive branch of Shiism considered heretical by many Sunnis. In the face of international pressure following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, President Bashir Assad has sought to cement an alliance with Iran, opening routes for economic and political cooperation.
So, while Alhosainy praised the Syrian authorities -- who take pride in being non-sectarian -- for respecting freedom of religion, he also said Iranian support of Shiites beyond Iran's borders could spark an explosion of violence.
"Iran is capable of doing any kind of activity it wants here, without anyone from the government stopping them," he said. " I think it's obvious there is a Shiite Crescent in place. This is a problem that has surfaced suddenly. It was never in our plans to cope with that -- it is a problem to add on top of all the others in the region."
In Aleppo's middle-class Nile Street area, a 48-year-old Sunni sheikh, who asked to be named only as Abu Ali, was adamant Shiites would not form a united front.
"In Syria we have an Alawite president, and that means the Shiites have power and influence here," he said. "In Iraq after the American invasion, Shiism has flourished, and Iran is getting stronger ... but I think it's an exaggeration to talk about a 'Shia Crescent.' Iraq is an Arab country and the Shiites there are distinctly Arabs, not Persians like the Iranian Shiites. Every country is for itself, and nationalism is strong here -- there's no reality to the fact they will become a single powerful Shiite bloc. There are too many differences in habits and policy -- many Shiites outside of Iran are not remotely pro-Iranian."
Abu Ali asserted Syria "has its share of Sunnis who consider Shiites infidels worthy of execution," but insisted that was not a mainstream opinion. "Syria is not like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan," he said. "The majority here think Shiites have just deviated from the right path, but that's not enough to start a war."
He conceded that events in Iraq were forcing a wedge between Sunni and Shiite. Describing Syria's neighbor as mired in a civil war, he said, "I had hoped we'd have an epoch of more understanding. How long can we kill each other in the name of God?"
Despite the increased tensions, Alhaery, the Shiite cleric in Sayyida Zaynab, insisted the two Muslim communities had not lost their desire to live in peace.
"There is civil fighting in Iraq, but thankfully it is not an all-out war between Sunnis and Shiites," he said. "If there is such a war, the Shiites would win in Iraq because they have the majority and all the Sunnis would be killed. But if there was such a war, we would all lose. It would be a terrible thing for the Middle East and for the world. It would be terrible for humanity."
Back in the Old City of Damascus, carpenter-convert Raith Hassan recalled losing his job, his family and his home by becoming a Shiite. After months out in the cold, there was a family reconciliation, and Hassan says he is now on better terms with his mother, father, three brothers and three sisters. "I'm reunited with everyone again. A father and mother cannot deny their own son forever, it's not possible."
Hassan said he was now looking for a Shiite wife. "I know I have found the right way, and I want to have children who will grow up to know the truth I have found."