AL-HAFUF, Saudi Arabia: When Sadek Al-Ramadan entered King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in the early 1980s, he already knew about the religious teaching that maligned his fellow Shia.

Things got "hot" when he had to take a couple of religion courses, says Al-Ramadan, 45, now chief executive officer of Al Yaseen Agriculture Co.

The courses were calculated "to show how good the Salafi-Wahabi thoughts are (and) how bad the others -- the Shia, Sufi, secular, capitalist and communist -- are." Answers to exam questions had to reflect that teaching, and "challenging these thoughts ... could mean a big 'F.'"

That schism between Islam's two dominant sects, the Shia and the Sunni, is nearly as old as Islam itself.

Despite sitting on some of the world's richest oil deposits, the Shia are discriminated. After decades of disenchantment, they are pressing for equality.

In Hofuf, a desert oasis whose name means "whistling of the wind," the Shia tell of Sunnis dismissing them as foreigners, security threats, inferior Muslims, even infidels.

Shia children grow up with competing lessons: Sunni or Wahabi in school, Shia at home.

In November, the Saudi government announced an overhaul of textbooks, curriculum and teaching methods to promote tolerance. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and other officials have called for greater unity, and "national dialogue" meetings have focused on education and tolerance.

The Shia say they still face restrictions.

One of their most important religious observances, the Ashura, was permitted last month in the Shia-dominated city of Qatif -- but banned in Hofuf, where a larger Shia population is mixed with Sunnis.

Until recently, the government barred the Shia from building basements, which could be transformed into prayer halls called husseiniyas. They can import religious books, but cannot print their own; strict stipulations limit the building of Shia mosques.

Only seven judges -- five in Qatif, two in Hofuf -- are allowed to rule over Shia family law courts for a population of three million. Some Shia consider that an improvement over the two judges who previously presided.

The Shia cannot hold high-level military, security or political posts. Many complain of discrimination in other jobs, too, and of receiving few benefits from local oil reserves. In Qatif, the Shia driving on potholed roads laugh bitterly about a popular cartoon of a cow's milk being piped to Riyadh, the capital, the way oil revenue is siphoned off, they say.

Some restrictions ended in the 1990s, when exiled Shia activists were allowed to return. The latest demands for change were bolstered by 2003's toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Shia rise to power there.

"Before the invasion of Iraq, they were limited to asking for religious freedoms and economic solutions," says Dr. Tawfiq Al-Saif, a political analyst in Qatif. "Now they say, 'We are equal just like you. ... Why don't we have a minister in the cabinet, a high-ranking officer in the army?'

"The government has to acknowledge ... sectarian discrimination and deal with the problem on that basis."

The newly elected chairman of Qatif's municipal council, Jafar Al-Shayab, is working for change from within.

He wants more "freedom of religion and civil rights." He says the Shia are not a security threat, even though "many people raise the issue that the loyalty of the Shia citizens in the gulf and other places is questionable because they follow religious leaders outside of their countries."

The Shia had Saudi religious leaders in the 1950s, he says, before the government "closed the religious schools and banned religious books, so people went to Najaf (in Iraq) and Qom (in Iran) to study."

"You cannot just kick the Shia out of the state," says Al-Shayab. "They have to be part of the system."

Al-Saif, the political consultant, believes the government should legalize Shia religious schools to educate new Shia leaders.

"Instead of pushing the Shia to the Iranian way, try to attract them," he says. "You have all the tools, the legitimacy, the money and the willingness of the majority of the Shia."