It has been estimated that Sunnis make up approximately 85 percent of the world’s Muslim population, with Shi’as accounting for much of the rest. When people talk of sectarianism in Islam, these two names, which are rooted in the earliest days of the Islamic caliphate, are the most often mentioned. It may be tempting to make a passing comparison here with the great Protestant-Catholic divide in Christianity. However, whereas that division didn’t occur until well over a thousand years into the life of the church, the great Sunni-Shi’a break came within the lifetime of the surviving companions of the Prophet Muhammad and was not centered on doctrinal disputes. The main reason for the existence of the Shi’a sect is directly related to the election of Abu Bakr as the first caliph of the Muslim community in the year 632. The Prophet had just passed away, and the leaders of Medina gathered to choose a political successor to keep the fledgling Muslim nation united. There was no question about doing this because the Prophet had spoken about it so often. After a heated debate, Abu Bakr was chosen to lead. Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad (he was married to Muhammad’s favorite daughter, Fatimah), was not present at that meeting, and he later protested that he should have been given a fair shot at being selected the caliph. Although Ali refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr for a few months, eventually he caved in and both he and his supporters took the oath. The stage was set for bad blood, however; and as each new caliph was elected, Ali’s friends stood by in anger, watching other men being given the nod while their beloved leader was passed over. Finally, in 656 when Ali was elected the fourth caliph, his group felt vindicated...
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...priesthood consisting of men with such titles as Ayatullah, Mullah, and Hojatulislam. (The late Ayatullah Khomeini, who participated in the Iranian Revolution in 1978, achieved the highest rank in the eyes of the worldwide Shi’a community and was considered infallible.) The Shi’a differ with the majority Sunnis on many issues related to leadership, doctrine, practice, and scriptural selection. (By way of contrast, Sunnis have no priesthood or identifiable religious structure.) Competing Shi’a and Sunni political factions have struggled for power all throughout Muslim history. While some Shi’a dynasties were formed, most notably the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt (910–1171), it has pretty much been a Sunni party for most of Muslim history. Today there is only one Shi’a-dominated country, Iran, with significant Shi’a minorities found in Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and India
Battles raged on between the Ottoman Empire and religious group Safavid Empire. Ismail I was leading the Safavid Brotherhood. Ismail I control much of Iran and expanded his empire to parts of modern day Georgia and Turkey (Safavid Empire). He named the religion of the soon Safavid Empire, Shi’ism. Which was disturbing to neighboring civilizations. He was thought to be the rightful head of the Muslims. This is the reason for conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, because they seized control of the Islamic religion. In the year of 1514 AD Shah Ismail I was defeated by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, which was his Sunni rival (Ismail I).
...nce on use of physical violence as a justifiable act and each have their own justification for their acts. Bray believes that act of violence which he is committing is justifiable in a sense that they want to save their society and reconstruct the Christian society based on true biblical teaching of Jesus Christ. For instance, one of the act of violence committed by Bray is bombing abortion clinics and they justify their act by saying that we are saving our society from brutal killers who kills unborn innocent babies. On the other hand, Hezbollah is trying to build the society based Islamic principle and order but not only based on Islamic principle but based on Shiite values, believes and views because they believe that Shia population is one of the oppressed population and being ignored by Lebanese government in giving their rights and response to their demands.
After its founding in 1979, Iran became a Theocratic Republic. It was originally a monarchy, but after much fighting, the last Shah (king) went into exile and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic (Kagan, 2012a). In a theocratic republic, God is the supreme civil ruler of the nation. The people elect a supreme leader and president to oversee political and some civil laws, but the leaders must look to the Qur’an for spiritual and civil guidance (Theocratic, 2016). The supreme leader has the overall control in all matters to include the military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a military entity charged with protecting the revolution of 1979 and its achievements (Kagan, 2012). The state’s government is a multi-tier system with some checks and balance systems in place so that one group does not have total power. The first tier is the Islamic consultation assembly, a parliamentary group who creates and passes laws. The second tier is the Guardian Council. Elected by the supreme leader, this group is the approval authority for all of the parliament’s decisions. The Guardian Council also has the power to remove the Supreme Leader if they feel he is not worthy of the title. The Expediency Council is the last tier, which mediates decisions between the previous two entities. The
Over the course of the last century, the Islamic Republic of Iran (formerly known as Persia) has seen colonialism, the end of a dynasty, the installation of a government by a foreign power, and just over three decades ago, the popular uprising and a cleric-led revolution. These events preceded what could be considered the world’s first Islamic state, as politics and fundamentalist religion are inextricably linked in contemporary Iran. Looking at Iran from the mid 1940’s until the present day, one can trace the path that led to the rise of fundamental Islam in Iran in three distinct periods. The first is that which began with the rise of secular nationalism and the decline of Islam. In the second, the secular, western-friendly government eventually gave way to the Islamic revival in the form of a government takeover by hard-line clerics and disillusioned, fundamentalist youth; both motivated and led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Rule of Iran by these fundamentalist clerics then led to the formation of the fundamentalist Islamic theocracy that governs present-day Iran. The current government has some democratic appearances, but all real power is in the hands of the supreme leader, an Ayatollah who is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics chosen by the Guardian Council. With the Iranian Revolution, political Islam was born, with the fundamentalists holding the reins of power in Iran to the present day.
There were large Shia communities in some cities like Qom and Sabzevar as early as the eighth century. As a result of Mongol conquest and religious tolerance on the Ilkhanids, Shia dynasties were re-established in Iran, after his conquest of Iran, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. Ismail I gave land and money in return for loyalty. Later, during the Safavid period the power of the Shia Ulema increased. Iran became a feudal theocracy: the Shah was held to be the divinely ordained head of state and
Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. It is currently the second largest religion in the world today. Its beliefs come from the Qur'an which literally means "the recitation" which is believed to be a literal transcription of the word of God. Its main prophet is named Muhammad who began Islam by speaking with the angel Gabriel in a cave during his meditation and then acting as an instrument of God to help write the Qur’an. Muhammad then spread Islam to the scattered tribes of Arabia by becoming the leader of Yathrib and using his wonderful leadership abilities to then grow his influence over virtually all of Arabia. Muhammad is known by Muslims to be the seal of the profits because no profits after Muhammad should be considered legitimate. Muhammad also left behind the Hadith or “tradition” which is a collection of writings compiled of reports of Muhammad’s actions as leader of Yathrib. These reports are used as a more specific code of ethics in day to day life and from these reports the 5 Pillars of Islam are derived (Smith 160). Although Islam shares many similarities to Judaism and Christianity it is often viewed in the US with hate derived from preconceived notions following the attack on September 11th 2001. This paper seeks to provide an overview of Islam’s history as well as its two major sects and 5 main pillars to remove preconceived notions and provide a glance into the minds of the Islamic people.
The Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam have been feuding for hundreds of years dating back to the beginning of the Islamic religion. The deity or god of the Sunnis is Allah. The Sunni branch of Islam is the larger of the two branches with over 80% of the Muslim population. The Sunni are the majority in most of the countries that have Islamic followers. There are a few different translations of what Sunna stands for, one of which is “Habitual Practice.” The differences between the two branches can be traced all the back to the 7th century CE when the disagreements as to who should succeed Muhammad. Sunnis believe that the Muslim community should maintain the right to select who the successor to Muhammad is going to be. The Shiite branch maintains the belief that Muhammad has selected his son-in-law to be the successor. Even though the two branches agree on most matters, the Sunni put more power behind god and his determination of fate, and are more inclusive about their definition of being Muslim. The Sunni place heavy belief in the role of religion in some aspects of life and a lot of weight is put on the Islamic law known as Shariah as the standard for a vast range of social issues including marriage and divorce. (Patheos.com)
The Safavid Empire, which lasted from 1501 to 1722 was an empire that covered all of what is now known as Iran, as well as most of Turkey and Georgia. The Safavid Empire was a theocracy, which is a government that was founded and ruled by religious beliefs and rulers. Its was founded by a leader who declared himself Shah of Persia, his name was Ismail. The Safavids followed a religion known as Shi’ism and with the help of their strong military forces, spread it to neighbouring countries. By 1722 the Empire had begun to fall apart due to the lack of effectiveness from its former rulers. Throughout the years that the Safavid Empire lasted, they accomplished many achievements, some of them related to art. [1]
Sunni and Shia are two different part of the Islamic Religion, Sunni is the more popular side of the religion because they won who got to lead the religion. How the religion split in half is because when the Prophet Muhammad died, they could not agree on who should be ruler, so they split up and started to fight. However, they still believe in most of the things in the religion, such as Muhammad, the five pillars and Qur'an. Their main difference is what they rely on for their religion, Sunni Muslims believe in Sunnah. The Shia Muslims rely on ayatollahs. All in all, the two separate sides of the religion
The Islamization Iran was a long process by which Islam was gradually accepted by the majority of the population in Iran. During the Arab influenced Umayyad period, only a little of Iran’s population converted to Islam. With its mix of Persian and Arab rulers alike the beginning of the Abbasid period gave rise to the percent of Muslims in the dynasty’s populations. As Persian Muslims started their rule of the country, the Muslim population rose from little in the mid ninth century to close to 100% by the end of the eleventh century. It is believed that the...
The division between Shia and Sunni dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and the question of who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim nation. Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job. This is what was done, and the Prophet Muhammad's close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, bec...
Foreign powers have occupied Iran from time to time since the early years. The most important invasion is the one of the mid 600’s when Muslim Arabs took charge of the country having a lasting effect on its culture. The Muslim Caliphs (religious leaders) are the first ones to govern the country for about 200 years. During the Muslim Arab reign, the Islamic faith spread throughout Iran and up today, most of the Iranians are Muslims.
The social system of Islam is based on the belief that all human beings are equal and created by a greater being, Allah. Yet, many distinct social classes arose in Islam. The social hierarchy of Islam played a prominent role in society and had an influential role in the development of Islamic culture.
The purpose of this essay is to provide a review of the book, Unveiling Islam, by Roger Du Pasquier. Moreover, by exploring the text it will also be linked to a previous essay on the status of women in Islam, as well as related articles presented during lectures. Moreover, this book addresses common misconceptions about the religion and enlightens the reader in an attempt to introduce the reader to Islam and explain the complexities of the religion in a way that is easy for the reader to understand. First, the book briefly touches on the topics of Islamic culture and the importance of Islamic art and literature.
Point #3: Today, religion keeps the world divided. In fact, religion may be the most natural way for a person to react when in face of danger. As Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director at the Race Convention, said in the QE II Conference Centre 2006, religion within communities are dividing the cultures, whether it be not accepting other religious groups within their society or having schools that are primarily/only for one particular group of people. Wood (2006) explained, “ But if we open many more minority religion schools that are likely to be predominantly mono-ethnic and in communities that are already apart from the mainstream, are we not missing out on perhaps the only opportunity for cohesion?”