The word Sunnah, which gives the name to the largest branch of Islam, originally meant the right path that has always been followed, a concept dating back to pre-Islamic language before it became a defining political and theological label. This term gained its critical political significance following the murder of the third caliph, Uthman, during a time when the Islamic community was fracturing into warring factions. It was during the second Civil War, spanning from 680 to 692, that the phrase Sunnah began to be used to distinguish those who remained loyal to the established community from the heretical teachings of the Kharijites and the Shia. A scholar named Masrūq ibn al-Adschda, who died in 683, recorded a need to love the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, and acknowledge their priority, a sentiment that would later be popularized by the scholar ash-Sha'bi. This scholar, who initially sided with the Shia in Kufa, turned away in disgust at their fanaticism and eventually joined the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, helping to cement the concept of Sunnah as a unifying force against division. The term was not used as a short form for Sunnis until much later, with some scholars suggesting it was first used by Ibn Taymiyyah, and later popularized by pan-Islamic scholars like Muhammad Rashid Rida in the early twentieth century. The core of this identity lies in the belief that the Prophet Muhammad did not appoint a specific successor, leaving the choice to the community, which resulted in the election of Abu Bakr at the meeting of Saqifa. This stands in stark contrast to the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor, yet Sunnis revere Ali alongside Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman as the rightly-guided caliphs. The term Sunnah itself is derived from the practices of the Prophet, forming the basis of all traditional jurisprudence alongside the Quran and scholarly consensus. The history of this identity is written in the blood of civil wars, where the definition of who belonged to the community was determined by who stayed away from the heresies of the warring parties, a distinction first articulated by the Basric scholar Muhammad Ibn Siri in the early eighth century. He noted that when the fitna, or turmoil, started, people began to ask for the names of informants, accepting hadith only from those who were Sunnah people and rejecting those who were people of innovations. This early definition of the Sunnah was a laudatory designation for honorable and righteous believing people, a meaning that persisted even as the political landscape shifted from the Umayyad to the Abbasid Caliphate.
The Caliphate And The Dynastic Shift
The seeds of the metamorphosis from a caliphate to a dynastic monarchy were sown as early as the regime of the third caliph, Uthman, who appointed many of his kinsmen from his clan Banu Umayya to important government positions. This nepotism became the main cause of turmoil resulting in his murder and the ensuing infighting during the time of Ali, who maintained an austere lifestyle and tried hard to bring back the egalitarian system idealized in Muhammad's message. Ali faced continued opposition and wars one after another by Aisha-Talhah-Zubair, by Muawiya, and finally by the Kharijites, before he was murdered. His followers elected his elder son, Hasan ibn Ali, to succeed him, but Hasan shortly afterward signed a treaty with Muawiya relinquishing power in favor of the latter, with a condition that one of the two who would outlive the other would be the caliph. Hasan was subsequently poisoned to death, and Muawiya enjoyed unchallenged power, dishonoring his treaty by nominating his son Yazid to succeed him. Upon Muawiya's death, Yazid asked Husain, the younger son of Ali and Muhammad's grandson, to give his allegiance, which he plainly refused. His caravan was cordoned by Yazid's army at Karbalā, and he was killed with all his male companions, a total of 72 people, in a day-long battle. This massacre established Yazid as a sovereign, though strong public uprisings erupted after his death to avenge the massacre, which the Banu Umayya were able to quickly suppress. The rule of the Banu Umayya came to an end at the hands of the Banu Abbas, a branch of the Banu Hashim, the tribe of Muhammad, ushering in another dynastic monarchy styled as a caliphate from 750 CE. This period is seen as formative in Sunni Islam, as the founders of the four schools of law, Abu Hanifa, Malik ibn Anas, Shafi'i, and Ahmad bin Hanbal, all practiced during this time. The Abbasid caliphate ended with the death of the Caliph al-Ma'mun in 833 CE, when the period of Turkish domination began. The fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I brought the caliphate to an end, resulting in Sunni protests in far-off places, including the Khilafat Movement in India. The demise of the Ottoman caliphate also resulted in the emergence of Saudi Arabia, a dynastic absolute monarchy that championed the reformist doctrines of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The sequence of events of the twentieth century has led to resentment in some quarters of the Sunni community due to the loss of pre-eminence in several previously Sunni-dominated regions such as the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Balkans, the North Caucasus, and the Indian subcontinent. The latest attempt by a radical wing of Salafi-Jihadists to re-establish a Sunni caliphate was seen in the emergence of the militant group ISIL, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is known among his followers as caliph and Amir-al-mu'mineen, the Commander of the Faithful.
The Schools Of Law And Theology
There are four major legal schools within Sunni Islam, known as the Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi'i, which represent clearly spelled out methodologies for interpreting Islamic law. While conflict between the schools was often violent in the past, the four Sunni schools recognize each other's validity and have interacted in legal debate over the centuries. The Hanafi school, representing reason, is the major tradition in Central Asia, while the Maliki school was particularly important from the ninth to the eleventh century in the Great Mosque of Kairouan. The Ottoman Empire later reaffirmed the official status of these four schools as a reaction to the Shiite character of their ideological and political archrival, the Persian Safavids. In the contemporary era, the Amman Message issued by King Abdullah II of Jordan recognizes the Zahiris and keeps the number of Sunni schools at five. Theological diversity is equally significant, with the Ash'ari and Maturidi schools of theology forming the majority of Sunni orthodoxy, alongside the textualist Athari school. The Ash'ari school, founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari who died in 935, stresses divine revelation over human reason, rejecting the Mu'tazilite position that ethics can be derived from human reason. The Maturidi school, founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi who died in 944, is more influenced by Persian interpretations of Islam and allows for the rejection of hadiths based on reason alone, though revelation remains important to inform humans about that is beyond their intellectual limits. The Athari school, or traditionalist theology, rejects rationalistic Islamic theology in favor of strict textualism in interpreting the Quran and sunnah. Adherents of traditionalist theology believe that the zahir, or literal, meaning of the Quran and the hadith have sole authority in matters of belief and law, and that the use of rational disputation is forbidden even if it verifies the truth. In the modern era, Salafism represents a continuation and revival of the Athari school, maintaining its commitment to the textualist interpretation of revelation and the rejection of speculative kalām. The Barelvi movement, a Sunni revivalist movement following the Hanafi school of jurisprudence and Maturidi school of theology, has over 200 million followers globally and encompasses a variety of Sufi orders. This movement defines itself as the most authentic representative of what is known as Sunni Islam, adopting the generic moniker Ahl-i-Sunnat wa-al-Jama'ah, the people who adhere to the Prophetic Tradition and preserve the unity of the community. The theological landscape is further complicated by the fact that some scholars, such as the Andalusian scholar Ibn Hazm, excluded the Ash'arites from Sunnism, while others, like the Saudi scholar Muhammad Ibn al-Uthaimin, excluded them from the circle of Sunnis in the special sense, taking the view that only the pious ancestors who have agreed on the Sunnah belonged to this circle.
The Six Pillars Of Faith
The doctrines of the Sunnis are recorded in various creeds, which summarize the most important points in the form of a list in the manner of a catechism. Most of the mentioned branches testify to six principal articles of faith known as the six pillars of iman, which are believed to be essential. These six articles are common that present-day Sunnis agree on, from those who adhere to traditional Sunnism to those who adhere to latter-day movements. The first pillar is the belief in the Oneness of God, known as Tawhid, which asserts that God is a single God, besides whom there is no other deity. He is single, has no partner, no opposite, no counterpart, and no adversary. God created everything, the years and times, day and night, light and darkness, the heavens and the earth, all kinds of creatures that are on it, the land and the sea, and everything living, dead and solid. Before he created all of this, he was completely alone, with nothing with him. In contrast to his creation, God has a timeless nature, being beginningless because he has existed for all eternity and endless because he continues to exist without interruption for all eternity. The second pillar is the belief in the Angels of God, who fulfill duties assigned by God. The angel Gabriel has the mission to transmit God's revelations to chosen Prophets, while the angel Michael is assigned over rain and plants. The angel Israfil must blow into the trumpet during thunder and the day of resurrection. Furthermore, to the angels belong the recording angels, who supervise humans and the angel of death, who takes the souls of the inhabitants of the world. The third pillar is the belief in the Books of God, sent to the envoys of God, which include the Quran, the Torah, the Gospel, and the Psalms. The Quran is according to Sunni views the speech of God, uncreated and eternal, a teaching that is rejected by those who believe the Quran was created. The fourth pillar is the belief in the Prophets of God, with Adam being the first and Muhammad being the last. The Sunnis do not differentiate between the messengers of God, considering everything they have brought to be true. The fifth pillar is the belief in Resurrection after Death and the Day of Judgment, and the sixth is the belief in Preordainment, or Qadar. These creeds are found in various texts, including the confession of the Egyptian Hanafi at-Tahawi, the Qadiritic Creed, and the confession of al-Ghazali, all of which deal with the doctrine of God and the other doctrinal points.
The Nature Of God And Revelation
To absolve God of all anthropomorphism, the Quranic statements that God sat on the throne receive a lot of the Sunni creeds attention. The creed of al-Qadir emphasizes that God did not set himself up on the throne in the manner of the rest of the creatures and that he created this throne, although he did not need it. Al-Ghazali's knowledge of the faith states that the sitting down is free from contact with the throne. It is not the throne that carries God, but the throne and its bearers are carried through the grace of his power. Even if God does not need the throne and what is below, because he spatially occupies everything, including what is above him, the throne and stool are a reality. The Sunnis confess that the names of God cannot be said to be anything other than God, as Mu'tazilites and Kharijites claim. Rather, they teach that there are correlating attributes which exist in each of the names of God mentioned in the Quran. God is alive through life, knowing through knowledge, mighty through power, wanting through will, hearing through hearing, seeing through sight, and speaking through Speech. The attributes are not identical to God, nor are they anything different from him. Only those attributes are ascribed to God which he ascribed to himself in the Quran or which his prophet ascribed to him. Every attribute that he or his prophet has ascribed to him is a real attribute, not an attribute figuratively. The Quran is according to Sunnism uncreated, and the teachings of the creation of the Quran is rejected by Sunnis. Anyone who takes this teaching is regarded as an unbeliever. The Quran is recited with the tongue, written into books and memorized by the heart, but remains the uncreated speech of God, because it is indivisible and cannot be split by the transmission from heart to paper. Ibn Taymiya explains that the Quran originated from God and will return at the end of times. The path of God's speech to the community of Muslims is a multi-stage process: God pronounced it, the angel Gabriel heard it and Mohammed repeated it, Mohammed repeated it to his companions, and the Ummah repeated them. This belief in the uncreated nature of the Quran is a central tenet that distinguishes Sunni orthodoxy from other theological currents, such as the Mu'tazilites who believed the Quran was created.
The Prophet And The Community
Muhammad from the tribe of the Quraish is not only the seal of the prophets, rather, God placed him above all other prophets and made him Lord of men. He is God's chosen servant, Messenger, the Imam of the godly, and the beloved of the Lord of the Worlds. He is sent with truth, guidance, and light, to Arabs and Non-Arabs as well as sent to the general public of the jinn and humans. Part of the Sunnis path is to follow the traditions of Muhammad internally and externally, preferring his guidance to the guidance of anyone else. Muhammad's prophethood is proven by miracles such as the splitting of the moon, and the most obvious miracle is the Quran's inimitability. Every claim to prophethood after him is an error or imagination, since Muhammad is the last prophet. Another important point of teaching is the belief in Muhammad's Ascension, or Mi'raj. The Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad are reliable transmitters of Islam, since God and Muhammad accepted their integrity. Medieval sources even prohibit cursing or vilifying them. This belief is based upon prophetic traditions such as one narrated by Abdullah, son of Masud, in which Muhammad said: The best of the people are my generation, then those who come after them, then those who come after them. Support for this view is also found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Therefore, narratives of companions are also reliably taken into account for knowledge of the Islamic faith. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran. Sunni Islam does not have a formal hierarchy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law or Islamic theology. Both religious and political leadership are in principle open to all Muslims. According to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a well-educated person to lead the service, known as a Khateeb. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, and it is estimated over 85 to 90 percent are Sunni. This vast majority makes Sunni Islam the largest religious denomination in the world, with significant populations in countries like Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims in the world, the majority of whom are Sunni.
Mysticism And The Modern Era
There is broad agreement that the Sufis are also part of Sunnism, a view that can already be found in the Shafi'ite scholar Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi who died in 1037. In his heresiographical work, he divided the Sunnis into eight different categories of people, including the theologians, the Fiqh scholars, the traditional and Hadith scholars, the Adab and language scholars, the Koran scholars, the Sufi ascetics, those who perform the ribat and jihad against the enemies of Islam, and the general crowd. The Tunisian scholar Muhammad ibn al-Qasim al-Bakki also included the Sufis in Sunnism, dividing the Sunnis into three groups according to their knowledge: the people of Hadith, the people of theory and the intellectual trade, and the people of feeling and revelation, which are the Sufis. In the 11th century, Sufism, which had previously been a less codified trend in Islamic piety, began to be ordered and crystallized into Tariqahs, or orders, which have continued until the present day. All these orders were founded by a major Sunni Islamic saint, and some of the largest and most widespread included the Qadiriyya, the Rifa'iyya, the Chishtiyya, the Shadiliyya, and the Naqshbandiyya. Contrary to popular Orientalist depictions, neither the founders of these orders nor their followers considered themselves to be anything other than orthodox Sunni Muslims. Many of the most eminent defenders of Islamic orthodoxy, such as Abd al-Qadir Jilani, Al-Ghazali, and Sultan Salah ad-Din Al-Ayyubi, were connected with Sufism. The Salafi and Wahhabi strands of Sunnism do not accept many mystical practices associated with the contemporary Sufi orders. In the modern era, the rise of the Wahhabi, Salafiyya, Islamist, and Jihadist movements has revived the doctrines of the Hanbali theologian Taqi Al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah. The expediencies of the Cold War resulted in the radicalization of Afghan refugees in Pakistan who fought the communist regime backed by USSR forces in Afghanistan, giving birth to the Taliban movement. After the fall of the communist regime in Afghanistan and the ensuing civil war, the Taliban wrestled power from the various Mujahidin factions in Afghanistan and formed a government under the leadership of Mohammed Omar. The Taliban regime was recognized by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia until after 9/11, when the war on terror was launched against the Taliban. The sequence of events of the 20th century has led to resentment in some quarters of the Sunni community due to the loss of pre-eminence in several previously Sunni-dominated regions. The latest attempt by a radical wing of Salafi-Jihadists to re-establish a Sunni caliphate was seen in the emergence of the militant group ISIL, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is known among his followers as caliph and Amir-al-mu'mineen. Jihadism is opposed from within the Muslim community in all quarters of the world, as evidenced by the turnout of almost 2 percent of the Muslim population in London protesting against ISIL. Modern trends of Islamic interpretation are usually seen as adjusting to a modern audience and purifying Islam from alleged alterings, some of which are believed to be intentional corruptions brought into Islam to undermine and corrupt its message. The usage of tafsir'ilmi, which stands for alleged scientific miracles found in the Quran, is another notable characteristic of modern Sunni tafsir, though some scholars, such as the Commentators of Al-Azhar University, reject this approach, arguing the Quran is a text for religious guidance, not for science and scientific theories that may be disproved later.