The world of Islam and Mohammad's successor

The great rift between the two Shiites and Sunnis branches

Even since the U.S. intervention in Iraq, attention to Shiite Islam has been growing. The last event of international relevance that brought the Shiite issue under the limelight was the Iranian revolution of 1979. That event marked the beginning of a political process where religious leaders were no longer seen only as magistrates of Islamic law, but as potential political leaders in every sense of the word.

The Two Branches of Islam

Sunnis and Shiites are the two main branches of Islam; throughout the 13 centuries of their history, Sunnis have always been predominant, while Shiites were both a religious and political minority. Nowadays, about 90 percent of Muslims are Sunnis, while Shiites account for the remaining 10 percent and are mostly concentrated in Iran, Iraq and Southern Lebanon.
One of the key moments was the Iranian revolution of 1979, with the triumph of Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini: for the first time in Islamic history, a Shiite authority became the head of an Islamic state. The consequences would be revolutionary.

Sunnis and Shiites

It all began with the death of Prophet Mohammad, in 632 AD. On the one hand, most Muslims believed that the Prophet had not named any successor, and that the task of designating one befell to the Islamic community; on the other, however, a minority of followers claimed that Mohammad had in fact designated one, in the person of his son-in-law Ali. The former group, following tribal customs, entrusted the election of the successor to a meeting of wise men, who chose Abu Bakr as 'the first Caliph.' The latter faction kept supporting Ali as the 'real' successor to Mohammad, rejecting the election of the Caliph as illegitimate and regarding Abu Bakr as an usurper.
That quarrel marked the beginning of the rift within Islam, a rift that persists to this day. Those who recognized the election of the first Caliph as just and correct became known as Sunnis, due to the great importance they attach to the Sunnah, the Tradition of the Prophet.
Sunnah (literally "way of life") is an Arabic word that means "tradition"; in fact, the testimonies and tales that form it have been handed down from one generation of Muslims to the next. The basic unit of the Sunnah is the hadith, a word meaning "tale", "anecdote", "testimony", concerning a deed, a speech or a sentence or any other episode related to the Prophet.
The opposers, who rejected the Caliph's election and followed Ali instead, became known as Shiites; Shi'a means "faction", "party", and was given to this group because those who supported Ali were called "Shiiatul Ali", "Ali's Party".
Sunnis are known as "people of tradition and community", indicating the great importance they attribute to the Sunnah, considered as the only reliable source after the Quran for the Muslim world, while "the community" plays a big role, being regarded as a primary patrimony to be preserved at all costs, which is why religious authority in Sunni Islam does not concentrate on specific persons but in a book (the Quran) and in its common interpretation through the work of generations of wise men and jurists.
Shiites, on the other hand, follow the family of the Prophet as a source of inspiration and leadership to understand the Quranic revelation brought by the Prophet. The members of his family are the link through which the teachings and grace of revelation reach the adepts of the Shi'a. In a sense, Shi'a is the Islam of Ali (first Imam), while Sunna is the Islam of Abu Bakr (first Caliph).
Discussing the Shiites means chronicling a form of dissent both theoretical and ideological, and sometimes of concrete opposition, to the institutional apparatus that formed right after the death of the Prophet.

The Imam and the Caliph

Concerning the problem of the succession to the Prophet, we might say that, according to the Sunnah, the "successor" (khalifah, Caliph) of the Prophet was just supposed to be able to lead a recently founded community, while Shiites believed that the "successor" (Imam) was to be the "heir" to his esoteric science and the interpreter of theology.
According to Sunni Islam, the Caliph is the successor of the Prophet and the leader and defender of the community; he's considered as the warden of truth, but his task is not to interpret divine law and religious matters in general, but of administering the law and carrying out the duties of a judge. Caliphs have no status as religious authorities in their community, wielding only temporal, not spiritual, power; in fact, he's neither impeccable nor infallible, and his words have no strength of dogma. The earliest Sunni authorities conceived the caliphate as the rightful political institution of the Islamic community. Just like there is only one Muslim community and one divine law, ideally there is one Caliph leading the community, duty-bound to protect and administer it. Later, when the caliphate lost political strength and powerful rulers established their power over Islam, this theory was further elaborated to include the caliphate, the sultanate, and divine law.
Government founded on religion is compelled, according to Shiite tradition, to preserve true Islamic order within the community, in order for people not to worship any other god but Allah, enjoy individual and social freedom within their possibility, and enjoy justice, individually as well as socially. According to Shiite doctrine, such goals can only be achieved by someone infallible and protected by God against the possibility of error; Shiites call such a person Imam. Because of this, after the Prophet's death Shiites believed that the community needed an Imam, and that such a person had been designated by Mohammad himself before his death, during his last pilgrimage.
Generally, with the word Imam people mean the person who "stays in front", directing the public collective prayer on Fridays; however, the same word is also used for the leading figure of a juridical school of thought. In this sense the word is normally used by both Sunnis and Shiites. Lastly, the term has an honourary meaning, qualifying someone who leads a religious community.
In the Shi'a, "Imam" has a specific value: in fact, an Imam is the real head of the community, and particularly the heir of the prophet's esoteric teachings. He's the defender and interpreter of the revelation, his task is three-fold: governing the Islamic community as a representative of the Prophet; interpreting theology and law, especially in their inner significance; and leading people in their spiritual life.
In other words, an Imam leads an Islamic community in social, political, material and spiritual affairs according to divine orders, and all Muslims follow him as a wise and supreme leader; that's why an Imam must have the Isma ("immunity from error") that can only be bestowed by divine will.
The Imamate is considered a divine institution, as the continuation of the Prophet's mission. This institution, after Mohammad's death, began with Ali (cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet), whom Shiites consider the first Imam. His right is proven by being of the same bloodline of the Prophet and having married Mohammad's most beloved daughter. Moreover, Imamship gets passed down from father to son, and it includes the right to spiritual as well as temporal leadership of all Islam.
Imams succeed one another as bearers of God's eternal light ("al-nur Allah" in Arabic), in an uninterrupted chain that supports the world, which would collapse if one of the Imams were to die without a heir. For this reason, the Earth cannot be left without an Imam, even if hidden or unknown; as a consequence, after the Prophet left this world it was the Imam who, with his continued presence, supported and defended Islam through the epochs.

The Division of Shiites

Shi'a Islam today includes three main schools of thought: an extremist one (Isma'ilis), a conservative one (Twelvers, or Imamites) and a moderate one (Zaydites). The most important part of Shi'a, both for the number of its followers and for its central position in the traditional religious range and the current political scene, is that of the Twelvers; then come the Isma'ilis and the Zaydites.

The Twelvers ("ithna ashari"), also called Imamites, group the majority of today's Shiites in Iraq, Iran and part of Lebanon. Imamites claim that the leadership of the Islamic world, both spiritual and temporal, rightfully goes to Ali and his descendents. They also believe that, based on the explicit designation of the Prophet, the Imams of the House of Mohammad have been twelve. They believe that the twelfth Imam, known as the Mahdi ("the expected one" or "the well-led one"), had chosen to disappear in the year 940 AD and that he will return in future, re-establishing religion and justice, re-generating the world before its end.

The Islamic state

Through the centuries, Shi'a Muslim authorities felt the need to create a state where politics, institutions and religion would coincide. Such theories prepared the Shi'a theologians to state the need of a wholly Islamic state, where the Constitution would conform to Islamic law, with the goal of preparing a near-perfect society, deserving of the return of the twelfth Imam.
That posed the problem of who could lead such an institution, since the only qualified person in Shiite doctrine is the Imam, and they believe him to be hidden. The problem found a very pragmatic solution in Ayatollah Khomeini's works: among Twelver Shiites, he was the first religious authority to use the specific term of "Islamic state", in a book on religion entitled Ketab al bai.
With the 1979 revolution, the new form of state was implemented.

From Corriere Canadese Editorial department

Publication Date: 2005-08-07
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=5444