Izzy Mo had an entry about Muhummad Ali and one of his works on hadith.

I just want to share these thoughts of mine on the subject.

Muhummad Ali completed what is known as one of the best translations of the Quran (recognized and praised by both Yusuf Ali, and Marmaduke Pickthall).

Yusuf Ali said:
“It’s a scholarly work, and is equipped with adequate explanatory
matter in the notes and the Preface, and a fairly full index. But the
English of the Text is decidedly weak, and is not likely to appeal to
those who know no Arabic.” (ref: http://members.tripod.com/iaislam/Quran/translations.htm)

Obviously, Yusuf Ali also had to build a case for his own translation which was completed a decade or more after Muhummad Ali’s. Others have held that it is not the English that is weak, but the fact that the English is accurate to the Arabic.
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So far we’ve painted a fairly rosy picture of ideologies within the Muslim world, 90% Sunni, 10% Shia and few occurances of violent internal conflict. Furthermore, we’ve established that Sunni Muslims prescribe to a sophisticated legal system, defined within four schools of thought, which have led them into relative prosperity for centuries.

Although there were imperfections within the Muslim community from each century, there were theological barriers in place to avoid a complete self destruction of the ummah. What destroyed this balance between the Muslims of all types? The answer, although it may seem like simple fingerpointing, is the ideology of Wahabi’ism.
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So we’ve discussed the basics, (Quran, Sunnah, Hadith, the schools of thought) of traditional, Sunni Islam.

Now lets talk about the ‘other’ guys. 90% of the Muslim community is Sunni, 10% is Shia. So let’s talk about the Shia.

Shia muslims, which is what we are hearing a lot about in Iraq at the moment, are the next largest group. Shia is actually a contraction of “Shiat Ali”, or the “Party of Ali”. Shia muslims are the largest minority sect within Islam. Sunni’s have considered the Shia as Muslims, and therefore protected and with all the rights of Muslims under the religious law. Sunni and Shia have lived together, relatively peacefully, for centuries under Sunni rule.

In terms of why they are different from Sunni Muslims, it comes down to two things. Politics, and time.

Shortly after the Prophet’s death (Peace and blessings be upon him), there was a ‘vote’ for who would lead the Muslims now that the Prophet had passed. The vote landed on his best friend for some time, Abu Bakr (R). Abu Bakr ruled from 632-634 A.D.

Shia simply believe that there was evidence that the Prophet(S) desired that his nearest male relative, Ali (R) be the leader of the Muslims from the beginning. For Sunni’s this is hard to reconcile since Ali (R) willingly submitted to Abu Bakr’s (R) leadership. There were two additional Caliphs elected by the people (Umar(R), and Uthman(R)) who led the people before Ali (R) became the elected Caliph in 656 AD.

Although Shia’s hold that Ali (R) and his progeny were the only one deserving of the right to the Caliphate from the very first transfer of power, Shia’ism as we know it today did not appear until the death of last of Ali’s two sons, hence the last male relative of the Prophet (S). This son, Hussein (R), died in 680 AD in a power struggle with the Caliph at the time.

The Shia regretted his death greatly, and today there is still a Shia cultural ceremony which honors the pain he suffered. At this point the Shia began to develop as an entity. They split into a few groups within themselves, but the majority began to hold the opinion that twelve other Imam’s had been divinely selected to lead the community.

The “twelvers” believe this twelth Imam has dissappeared and they are awaiting his return.

This, of course, is all foreign to casual Sunni Muslim who cannot see any hadith or Quranic verses hinting towards divinely chosen leadership. Sunni’s have been ruled by Caliphs of their own choosing for some time, until such time that Caliph’s began to hand power to their heirs. Even then there was nothing divine about the chosen Caliph, except he had to be obeyed as a matter of order and respect to authority. The Islamic world did have periods and cycles of democratization and dictatorships.

Sunni’s have largely left Shia alone, although there have been clashes scattered throughout history. This time ‘apart’ have left Shia to develop their own legal schools of thought and largely develop a religous philosophy apart from the larger Sunni world.

Since the Shia are firm believers in continual divine intervention their beliefs are generally based off of relatively recent events and people that they hold as supernatural.

This is in contrast to traditional Sunni Muslims who are more concerned with the details of the time period of the Prophet(S) and his Companions as they consider that period the period of refinement and perfection of the Islamic message.

I’ll continue later tonight on the real problem, the new reformists within Sunni Islam.

Traditional Islam is simply the sect of Islam which has held the majority position since the time of the Prophet(S). Tradition Muslims are known in Arabic as “Ahl-ul Sunnah” (”those of the Sunnah, those of the Prophet’s example”), also known as Sunni Muslims.

Traditional Muslims believe in the finality of the Prophethood of Muhummad (Peace and blessings be upon him), as well the authenticity and divine nature of the Qur’an. Furthermore, Traditional Muslims scholars derive the religious Law from the combination of the Qur’an and Sunnah. While the Qu’ran is obviously now a written and referenceable document, the question arises as to the meaning of “Sunnah” or “Example”.

Sunni Muslims have formalized the example of the Prophet (Peace and Blessings be upon him) as it has been communicated in hadith (written accounts of sayings and actions of the Prophet, Peace and Blessings be upon him).

Most American Muslims who call themselves Sunni, know at least this much about their religion, however things get a bit more complicated as you get into the details. This level of belief is what some consider to make them “Sunni Muslims”, but unfortunately this is logical point where recent reformists within the religion have decided to introduce their innovations.

Sunni Muslims are split into four schools of thought (madhabs) when it comes to Religious Law (Shariah). The schools are: Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, Shaa’fi. Each has their own patriarch or founder, and each is slightly different in the importance they give to various transmitters of hadith and they differ slightly in the methods they use to coming to conclusions. In general these schools are dealing with detailed questions of inheritence and other minute details of daily life.

There are different schools of thought within Aqidah (beliefs) that deal with details such as whether God has a direction.

The point of the matter is that all these schools accept the validity of one another, that there is room for valid scholarly interpretation within Islam is one of it’s greatest highlights.

Recent innovations, which I will speak to later will discourage this point of view. I’ll save more detail for tomorrow.