SUNNISM AND SHI ‘ISM AND THEIR BRANCHES
Today about 87 percent of all Muslims are Sunnis and about 13 percent are Shi‘ite. The Sunni majority within Islam is the largest in comparison with any denomination in other religions, such as Catholicism within Christianity and Mahayana within Buddhism. But the Shi‘ite population is located almost completely in the heartland of Islam, that is, in the area between Egypt and India. Such countries as Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Islamic Lebanon have majority Shi‘ite populations, and India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, and East Africa have notable Shi‘ite minorities. Both intellectually and historically, Shi‘ism has played a much greater role in the Islamic world than its number might warrant, and the accord or discord between Sunnism and Shi‘ism today is one of the most important factors in contemporary Islamic society.
The word sunni in Arabic comes from the term ahl alsunnah wa’l-jama‘ah, that is, people who followed theSunnah
of the Prophet and the majority, while Shi‘ism comes from the Arabic term shi‘at ‘Ali, meaning partisans of ‘Ali ibn AbiTalib. After the death of the Prophet, while ‘Ali, his son-in-law and first cousin, and the rest of the family were burying him, the rest of the community gathered in Medina and chose Abu Bakr as the Prophet’s successor, not in his prophetic function but as ruler of the newly established Islamic community. He was thereby given the title of khalifah rasulAllah
, or the vicegerent of the Messenger of God, from which comes the title caliph, taken not only by the first four caliphs, who are called the “rightly guided”(rashidun)
, but also by later Muslim rulers of the Umayyad, ‘Abbasid, and Fat.imid dynasties and even by the Ottomans. A number of people thought that ‘Ali should have become the Prophet’s successor and rallied around him, forming the first nucleus of Shi‘ism. ‘Ali himself refused to oppose Abu Bakr and in fact worked closely with him and his two successors, ‘Umar and ‘Uthman, until he himself became the fourth of the “rightly guided” caliphs of Sunni Islam. It was only after his death at the hands of a member of the Khawarij, an extremist group that rejected the claims of both Mu‘awiyyah, who had contested the caliphate of ‘Ali, and ‘Ali himself, that Shi‘ism became an organized religio-political movement in Iraq.
The major point of contention between Sunnism and Shi‘ism was not only the question of who should succeed the Prophet, but the question of what the qualifications of such a person had to be. For Sunnism, the function of the caliph was to protect the borders of Islam, keep security and peace, appoint judges, and so forth. For the Shi‘ites, such a person also had to have the deepest knowledge of Islamic Law as well as esoteric knowledge of the Quran and Prophetic teachings. He could therefore not be elected, but had to be chosen by the Prophet through Divine command.
The Shi‘ites believe that this investiture did in fact occur at the pool of water called Ghadir Khumm when the Prophet was returning to Medina from pilgrimage to Mecca. According to Shi‘ites, the person chosen by him was ‘Ali, whom they consider their first Imam, using this term in the special sense of someone who bears the Muh.ammadan Light (al-nur al-muh. ammadi) and the power of initiation within himself and who is master of
both the exoteric and the esoteric sciences. Otherwise the term imam, coming from the root meaning “standing before or in front,” is used in general for the person who leads the daily prayers, and in Sunni Islam also as an honorific title given to great religious scholars such as, for example, Imam al-Ghazzali, one of the foremost theologians and Sufis in Islamic history. Sunni authors have also occasionally referred to the caliph as imam, but all of these meanings must be distinguished from the specific Shi‘ite usage of the term.
The understanding of the term imam therefore differs greatly in Sunnism and Shi‘ism. In Sunni Islam the term has many uses, but it is never used in the mystical and esoteric sense given to it in Shi‘ism. In Shi‘ism, the Imam, like the prophets, is inerrant (ma‘s.um) and protected from sin by God. He possesses perfect knowledge of both the Law and the Way, both the outer and inner meaning of the Quran. He also possesses the power of initiation (walayah/wilayah
) and is the spiritual guide par excellence, like the Sufi masters within their orders. In fact, the first eight Shi‘ite Imams are also central spiritual authorities or poles of Sufism and appear in the initiatic chain of nearly every Sufi order. ‘Ali, who is the representative par excellence of Islamic esoteric teachings, is not only the first Imam of Shi‘ism, but also at the origin of the initiatic chain of nearly all Sufi orders. There are in fact many Sunnis, such as the majority of Egyptians, almost all of whom are Sunnis, who have the same love and respect for the Shi‘ite Imams and the Ahl al-bayt, that is, members of the family of the Prophet with whom the Imams and Shi‘ism itself are associated, as do Persian or Iraqi Shi‘ites.
As far as Sunnism is concerned, its followers are divided according to the schools of Law(madhhab)
they follow. In the eighth and ninth centuries the schools of fiqh, or jurisprudence, were codified by the doctors of the Law.
Some of these codifications or schools died out, but four have survived during the past millennium and constitute the main body of traditional Sunnism. They are the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali. Hanafism was founded by a Persian, Imam Abu Hanifah (d. 768), who was a student of Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq (d.757), the sixth Imam of Shi‘ism and founder of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ite Law, which is called Ja‘fari Law. Imam Abu Hanifah sought to create possibilities for the integration of local practices into the Law as much as possible. His school held great attraction from the beginning for Turks as well as Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Today the Hanafi School has the largest number of followers in the Sunni world, including most Sunni Turks, the Turkic people of Caucasia and Central Asia, European Muslims, and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. As for the Sunni part of Afghanistan, its people are, like the Sunnis of Pakistan, mostly Hanafi, and this is one of the elements that especially links the eastern part of Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Malikism, founded by Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), is based mostly on the practice of Medina and is very conservative in its approach to the Law. There have been some Malikis in the Arab East and especially in Egypt, but the heart of Malikism is North Africa. In fact, the whole of Islamic North and West Africa outside of Egypt is solidly Maliki, and this legal
homogeneity has made an important contribution to the cultural unity of the area, which in traditional Islamic geography is called al-Maghrib, or the West, the name that is now used for the “Far West” of the Islamic world, that is, Morocco.
The Shafi‘i School was founded by a student of Imam Abu H. anifah, Imam Muh.ammad al-Shafi‘i (d. 820). It is he who completed and perfected the methods of jurisprudence in Islamic Law. In many ways, of the different Sunni schools of Law, his school is the closest to the Ja‘fari School. Buried in Cairo, he is greatly loved and admired by Egyptians, nearly all of whom are Shafi‘is, as are many others south of Egypt as well as most of the Malays in Southeast Asia, whether they are in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand.
The Hanbali School, founded by Imam Ah.mad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) from Baghdad, based itself solely on the Quran and Hadith and gave a very strict interpretation of theShari‘ah
. Although in days of old it had many followers in Iraq, Persia, and other lands, in recent times its adherents have been confined mostly to Syria. Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, is an offshoot of H. anbalism, but must not be simply identified with it. Wahhabism, which arose as a reformist movement in the eighteenth century in Najd in southern Arabia, opposed the later refinements of Islamic culture in the form of philosophy and theology as well as the arts; in the domain of religion itself it strongly opposed both Sufism and Shi‘ism, the visit to the tombs of saints, and intercession by saints before God for an individual believer. It was opposed not only by Shi‘ites, but also by orthodox Sunnis, and in the nineteenth century the Ottoman caliph even sent an army to defeat the movement. But through an alliance made between the Wahhabi scholars and the House of Sa‘ud, the movement was kept alive in Najd until the beginning of the twentieth century, when it began to consolidate political power. After World War I it captured Hijaz, where Mecca and Medina are located, and created the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a result of this historical process, Wahhabism became accepted throughout Saudi Arabia as the official interpretation of Islam. Despite its opposition to mainstream Sunni Islam, Shi‘ite, and Sufism, however, Wahhabism was not in itself always violent, although it was quite exoteric and exclusivist in its interpretation of Islam. Its influence remained, however, confined to Saudi Arabia until the increased wealth in the kingdom due to income from oil made it possible for Wahhabi schools and mosques to be established in many other areas of the world. But even then its influence remained limited, and today the vast majority of Sunnis cannot in any way be described as Wahhabi, not to speak of Shi‘ites, who have always opposed Wahhabism. Within Arabia itself during the past two decades there has been a notable opening in certain religious circles toward other schools of Islam, both Sunni and Shi‘ite, although the influence of Wahhabism is still dominant.
The four founders of the traditional schools of Sunni Law mentioned above are highly respected and revered by all Sunnis. Converting from one school to another takes place occasionally, and in modern times some governments have drawn from various schools, including the Shi‘ism, to create civil laws in their countries. The difference between the Sunni
schools of Law and the Ja‘fari or other Shi‘ite schools of Law is minor, especially when it comes to the practice of rites. In certain fields, such as laws of inheritance or the legality of temporary marriage, there are, however, notable differences.
As for Shi‘ism, although one could distinguish the various schools from each other on the basis of their legal orientation, a more telling criterion for distinction, used by Muslims themselves as well as by Western scholars, is the position each branch of Shi‘ism takes on the Imams. After ‘Ali, his son H. asan became Imam. He lived a quiet, politically inactive life in Medina disseminating knowledge of the Quran, but his brother H. usayn, who became the third Imam, arose against Yazid, the son of Mu‘awiyyah, who had opposed ‘Ali and who had founded the Umayyad caliphate with its capital in Damascus. H. usayn was invited to go to Iraq by the people of the Iraqi city of Kufa, who promised to support him. And so in the year 680 he set out with his family and many followers from Medina for Iraq. Before reaching Kufa, however, he was met by the army of Yazid in Karbala’, where he and all the male members of the family of the Prophet, save Zayn al-‘Abidin, who was ill, were killed. H. usayn’s body was interred in Karbala’ and his head brought to Damascus, but Yazid, afraid of the reactions that might follow, tried to distance himself from the incident and exiled Zaynab, the sister of H. usayn, to Egypt with the head of her brother. According to Sunni tradition, she buried the head at a site that became the heart of what was later to become the city known as al-Qahirah, or Cairo.
This tragic event crystallized the Shi‘ite movement in Iraq and later elsewhere, especially in Persia, and finally led to the downfall of the Umayyads. To this day the tragedy of Karbala’ is commemorated on the tenth of Muh. arram in many countries, especially Iran, Iraq, the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, and Lebanon, and these events are the most notable popular religious ceremonies in Islam after the annual pilgrimage, or hajj. Recollection of vast religious processions, sermons, and passion plays of Muh. arram, which dominated the life of Tehran during my childhood spent in that city, are still indelibly etched in my memory.
All other Imams of Shi‘ism were descendants of H. usayn through his one son who survived, Zayn al-‘A bidin al-Sajjad, who became the fourth Imam. The main branch of Shi‘ism, which includes the vast majority of Shi‘ites, is called Ithna ‘ashariyyah, or Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism, which is dominant in Iran and is a majority in Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and among the Muslims of Lebanon. The Twelvers accept a chain of Imams descending from the fourth, including his son, Muh.ammad al-Baqir, the fifth Imam, and his son, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, the sixth Imam, down to the Twelfth, Muh.ammad al-Mahdi, whom they believe to have been given a mysteriously long life by God, but who is in occultation(ghaybah)
. He is alive like Elijah, who was taken to Heaven alive according to Jewish belief. But the Twelfth Imam is also the secret master of this world and can appear to those who are in the appropriate spiritual state to see him. He will appear publicly before the end of time, when inequity and oppression have become dominant, to reestablish justice and peace on earth, and he will prepare for the second coming of Christ, an event in which Muslims have as firm a
belief as Christians. This eschatological expectation is therefore called Mahdiism and is by no means confined to Shi‘ism. Sunnism also contains such teachings, the difference being that Shi‘ites claim to know here and now who the Mahdi is, whereas Sunnis expect a figure with such a name to appear in the future.
Apocalyptic thought, although present in Islam, does not, however, play the same role there as it does in contemporary Christianity, especially among certain televangelists in America who have commercialized their contentious interpretations of the Book of Revelation and other Christian sources on the basis of an exclusivism that is utterly astounding. In the Islamic world, although the idea of the coming of the Mahdi exists, there is much less public talk about it, especially on television, and there is little emphasis on creating an exclusive club of those who will be saved while the rest will be damned. Although in Black Africa there have been a few Mahdiist leaders with followers willing to die for them, in the heartland of Islam phenomena such as Waco and Jonestown have not existed, except for the one episode in Mecca in 1980 when a person claiming to be the Mahdi entered the Holy Mosque with his followers and was finally killed when government forces attacked the group inside the mosque.
The second most important branch of Shi‘ism is Isma‘ilism, which separated from the main body of Shi‘ism over the question of the identity of the seventh Imam. The sixth Imam, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, had chosen, by Divine command according to Shi‘ite belief, his son Isma‘il as the seventh Imam, but Isma‘il died while his father was still alive.
Subsequently, Imam Musa al-Kaz.im was chosen as the seventh Imam, but a number within the Shi‘ite community refused to accept this investiture and continued to consider Isma‘il their imam, hence the name Isma‘ilism. For some time their imams were not present in public, until suddenly in the tenth century the Isma‘ilis arose in Tunisia to declare themselves rulers and were able to extend their domination to Egypt, much of the rest of North Africa, and even as far as Syria. They established the Fat.imid caliphate, which vied with and opposed the Sunni ‘Abbasid caliphate, which had its capital in Baghdad. They made Cairo their capital and built it into a great center of the sciences and the arts. Al-Azhar University, over a thousand years old and the most important seat of Sunni learning in the Islamic world today, was built by the Fat.imids, whose rulers were also Isma‘ili imams.
Fat.imid Isma‘ilism was its most moderate form, but other more radical movements followed from it. The Fat.imid caliph Mustans.ir bi’Llah had transferred the investiture of the imamate from his older son, Nizar, to his younger son, Musta‘li. Upon his death in 1094, some Isma‘ilis followed Nizar and others Musta‘li. The Musta‘lis, or followers of Musta‘li, continued the moderate teachings of the earlier Fat.imids, but those who followed Nizar became more radical. In Iran the Nizaris created fort cities on top of mountains, of which the most famous was Alamut. The Persian Isma‘ili Hasan S. abbah. had a major role to play in the creation of these forts and the propagation of the Nizari cause. In 1164 the Isma‘ili imam of the time, H. asan, declared the “Great Resurrection” and proclaimed that henceforth only the spiritual and esoteric aspect of Islam mattered and the
legal and formal aspect was to be put aside. Nizari Isma‘ilism became a radical and revolutionary force until finally defeated by the Mongols. It is said that Isma‘ili devotees, who would sacrifice their lives as martyrs and were called fada’iyan, assassinated their Sunni opponents who were oppressing them. The English word “assassin,” in fact, comes most likely from the name H. asan, although some Western scholars have claimed that it derives from hashish, which the assassins are said by their enemies to have taken before committing acts of assassination.
The revolutionary character of Isma‘ilism died down after the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, and in Persia itself most Isma‘ilis went underground. Meanwhile, the Musta‘lis were flourishing in the Yemen. There was also a third group of Isma‘ilis, who had settled in Sindh and Gujrat in India in early Islamic history and also converted some Hindus to Isma‘ilism. This community was split later and the major group came to be known as the Sat Panth (True Path). This branch of Isma‘ilism was very eclectic in its practices, incorporating many Hindu themes. Its religious poetry, called the Ginan, has verses in which the major figures of Islamic sacred history such as ‘Ali are compared to and even identified with various Hindu avatars. By the nineteenth century the Persian and Yemeni branches of Isma‘ilism, known as the T. ayyibiyyah, were also centered in India, especially with the migration of the Aga Khan from Persia to India. One now has primarily two branches of Isma‘ilism, the Aga Khanid and the Bohras, both having their concentration of followers in India and to some extent Pakistan. But there are also notable Isma‘ili communities in Central Asia, Persia, Syria, East Africa, and Canada, to which many Isma‘ilis from East Africa migrated after the political tragedies of the 1960s and 1970s.
No one outside of the Isma‘ili community knows the exact number of Isma‘ilis, although, since their imam is alive and functioning as the head of the community, they are well organized and have a strong global network that embraces the whole community. Although their number is relatively small in comparison to the Ithna ‘ashariyyah, Isma‘ilis have played an important role in Islamic history, intellectually, artistically, and politically, and constitute, despite their relatively small number, a notable part of the Islamic spectrum.
Finally, the third branch of Shi‘ism, the Zaydi, chose Zayd, the son of the fourth Imam, as its leader. The Zaydis represent a moderate form of Shi‘ism and, in contrast to the Isma‘ilis, do not emphasize the esoteric over the exoteric dimension of the religion. They had many followers in Persia and the Arab East in the tenth century, but gradually they receded to the Yemen, where they constitute almost half the population today and where they ruled for a thousand years until 1962, following the Egyptian invasion of the Yemen. Zaydiism has its own school of law and theology as well as a political philosophy according to which any Muslim who is pious and learned and can defend the country and preserve peace and security can be accepted as imam and ruler.
Although the Zaydis and Isma‘ilis number in the few millions, Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism has some 150 million followers.
The history of its early expansion was less connected to political institutions than to the spread of its teachings by individual adherents. In fact, its political expression came later than both Zaydiism and Isma‘ilism. It was not until 1499 that the Safavids established themselves as rulers of Persia, which included not only present-day Iran, but also Afghanistan as well as parts of Pakistan, Caucasia, and Central Asia. They established Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism as the state religion and gave support to Shi‘ism elsewhere, especially in Iraq, over which they ruled for some time before losing it to the Ottomans. There were also local dynasties in India that were Twelve-Imam Shi‘ite. Consequently, the number of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ites rose considerably during the past few centuries and today it constitutes the vast majority of Shi‘ites throughout the world.
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Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
