Islam: history, beliefs, and contemporary practice

Islam

The Prophet Muhammad brought God's word to the Arab people and thus began the foundation of Islam by the year 610 when he had his first revelation of the Quran, the holly book of Islam. He became the spiritual and political leader of his tribe, the Quraysh clan who adhered to the new sect called Islam. The new Islamic community, the "ummah "was conducting its life according to God's rules, and its people were convinced that "the way forward lay in a single God and a unified ummah, which was governed by justice and equity"(Armstrong, 2003, p. 7).

At the Prophet's death (632 AD), the ummah, by then a much more powerful, wealthy and stronger community, was faced with the question of succession. What was the principle to be guided by, when choosing the next political and religious leader? Muhammad appeared to have left no indication at all. Speculations were likely to start and people were divided in their beliefs since God was not speaking to them anymore through his messenger, Muhammad. Who was more likely to continue the work Muhammad began, to keep the community united and to preserve the laws imposed by the Prophet under divine inspiration? The most suitable man chosen by the ummah to be leading the newly established Islamic people was Abu Bakr, Muhammad's father in law. He was named a "caliph" and he ruled over a "caliphate." The dispute rose between Islamists claiming that the righteous follower of the Prophet could only be his son-in-law and cousin, Ali, husband of Fatimah, Muhammad's daughter. The main point of debate lay in the principle that was to conduct to the appointment of their leader. The dilemma: who was the most dignified, respected and worthy of walking in the Prophet's shoes? There were voices of those who believed the next leaders would also be divinely inspired and therefore they could only come from Muhammad's bloodline. The most suitable in this respect was Ali. They were a minority and their voices were not loud at all, so the next leader came to be one chosen by the vote of the community, Abu Bakr. This principle of an elected leader of the ummah, among the worthiest of its people also functioned for the next two of the caliphs: Umar and Uthman. All three of them continued what Muhammad began, ruled with wisdom and imposed order, leading the troops in gaining new territories for Islam and therefore bringing stability among the tribes and strengthening the new enlarged community. By the time Uthman was murdered (656 AD), the Islamic state enlarged its territory nearly four times than its original size at Muhammad's death. Ali, sustained by his partisans, calling themselves the Shi'is (Ali's party) finally came to the leadership of the state. The first civil war broke out under his rule. It was originated by the fight between Muawiyyah's supporters, "wealthy Meccan clans and the Arabs of Syria, who had appreciated his strong and wise government"(Armstrong, 2003, p.29) and those who claimed that his predecessor, caliph Uthman, was drifting away from the original Quranic rules based on equity and justice and that he was rightly removed from the leadership. Muawiyyah, "Muhammad's old enemy Abu Sufyan's son"(Arstrong, 2003, p. 28), the governor of Syria, appointed by Uthman himself in this position, was the inheritor of Uthman at the head of the Umayyad dynasty. Ali surrendered to the arbitration between Muawiyyah's supporters and Ali's partisans and this was considered unacceptable by some of his men who formed a separate community and called themselves "the kharajis." Ali was killed by one of them in the year 661 and this opend the way to the reestablishment of the Umayyad dynasty at the head of the Islamic state, through Muawiyyah's leadership. Hasan, one of Ali's sons preferred to stay away from the political fight for power and the other one, Hussayn, died killed by the soldiers of Muawiyyah's son, Yazid, trying to overtake power at the head of the state. At this point, the Shi'is parted irrevocably from the rest of the faithful. They were opposed by the adherents of the principle that their leader should be chosen by a consensus, among one of the worthiest of its people, known as the Sunni, which were and remained a majority to this day.

The Shi'is believe that Muhammad clearly indicated his son-in-law and cousin, Ali to follow him and also intended for the succession to be ensured by Ali and Fatimah's inheritors. The Shi'is also believe in martyrdom, Hussayn's intended and benevolent sacrifice being their way to salvation just as Jesus' is for the Christians. The Shi'is believe that God's words were brought to the world only by means of the Prophet and his inheritors, the twelve divinely inspired Imams, starting with Ali. The last one will reveal himself at the end of the world to bring justice in a world that is unjust starting with the appointment of the first of Muhammad's successors and relieve its people from oppression and suffering.

So, the differences and the similarities between the Shi'is and the Sunnis rely on the issue of succession at the leadership of the ummah after Mohammned's death. Mohammed's life accounts and his words are not contested by the shi'is, they are putting under discussion the rightfulness of the decision in flavor of one leader or another to follow Mohammed. The Shi'is view of leadership differed a great deal from what leadership meant starting with the caliph Abu Bakr and culminating with the death of Ali's son, Husayn, thus the later becoming a martyr. The Shi'is were completely against a total monarchy such as it was beginning to take shape under the Umayyads, in an incipient form and then it began to grow into a real monarchy under the Abbasid dynasty whose members first claimed to have Shi'i beliefs in order to replace the Umayyads and thus promising an Islamic state under the ruling of one of Muhammad's descendants.

Muhammand's teachings according to God's rule were in the spirit of equity and they were destined to reintroduce what was considered the right way to conduct one's life. Justice had its special place in his preaching and they were founded on compassion for the fellow humans. These rules are more like those of a political work from today and they were very much concerned with the pragmatic aspects of the community's life from this world. The Shi'is counterarguments to the leadership of their ummah after the prophet's death are strongly relying on this primordial social justice all the preaching of the divine inspired Mohammed also relied on it. Mohammed's successors were easily but firmly drifting away from those primordial rules and Ali's partisans eventually declared themselves totally separated from the rest of the Islamic world. In the Shi'is eyes, "Muslim rulers following 'Ali were illegitimate because they had usurped the leadership of the ummah from the Imams and governed unjustly"(Fuller and Francke, 2000).