The bombing of one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites in Iraq has reverberated across the Muslim world. But so transparent is the attempt to drive a wedge between Islam’s two main sects, that it may, outside Iraq, have the opposite effect to the one the bombers had intended.

“We are expecting a very big demonstration in Bahrain today, and it will be shared between Sunni and Shia, which is a very good thing,” said Sheikh Ali Salman, the young leader of Bahrain’s Shia el Wefaq party.