Sunni Islam

Part of a series on Sunni Islam
Schools of Law
Hanafi • Shafi`i • Maliki • Hanbali
Beliefs
Tawhid • Anbiya' and Rusul Kutub • Mala'ikah Qiyamah • Qadr
Rightly Guided Caliphs
Abu Bakr • Umar ibn al-Khattab Uthman • Ali ibn Abi Talib
Texts
Qur'an Sahih Bukhari • Sahih Muslim Al-Sunan al-Sughra Sunan Abi Dawood Sunan al-Tirmidhi Sunan ibn Maja • Al-Muwatta Sunan al-Darami Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal

Sunni Muslims are the larger of the two main branches of Islam. Sunni Islam is also referred to as Sunnism or as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة) (people of the example (of Muhammad) and the community). The word Sunni comes from the word Sunnah (Arabic : سنة ), which means "example" and refers particularly to the the words and actions or "model" or example of the Prophet Muhammad. They represent the branch of Islam that accepted the caliphate of Abu Bakr due to him being chosen by Shurah, or consultation. Abu Bakr, as leader of the community, was regarded as first among equals rather than as possessing extraordinary spiritual authority or a unique ability to determine what was the correct Muslim view. Rather, Sunnis use concensus or ijma to determine what is Islamically acceptable. The main difference bewtween Sunni and Shi'a Islam lies in where authority is located. For Sunnis, authority is shared by all within the community (even if certain individuals have, in practice, claimed special authority) while for Shi'a authority resides in the descendants of Muhammad, and in their representatives. Sunni Muslims may follow one of several law schools, and may also identify with various movements or schools, including Sufi Islam which possess their own distinctive traditions. The nition of a single Sunni in which Islam governs all aspects of life, religious and political, community remains an ideal for many Muslims although historically the Sunni world sub-divided into various political units, and in the modern world there are many different types of government in Sunni-majhprity states, including a secular system in Turkey several more or less absolute monarchies as well as democracies in for example Indonesia and Malaysia.

Demographics

File:MuslimDistribution2.jpg

Distribution of Sunni and Shia populations

Demographers attempting to calculate the proportion of the world's Muslim population who adhere to each of the main traditions face several challenges. For instance, there is no Sunni–Shi'a breakdown available for many countries, and the CIA World Factbook gives a Sunni–Shi'a breakdown only for countries where Shi'a are a significant minority. When no breakdown is given, all the country's Muslims have been enrolled, provisionally, in the Sunni column. Thus, the exact percentage of the world's Muslim population that adheres to the various Shi'a sects, as opposed to the majority Sunni groups, is indeterminate.

Using various sources, an estimate of anywhere from a low of 7.5% to a high of 15% Shi'ite can be made. Sunnis are commomly cited as representing 90% of all Muslims.

Sunni schools of law (Madhhab)

Approximate distribution of the four main Sunni legal schools

Islamic law is known as the Shari'ah. The Shari'ah is based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and those who ascribe to different interpretations of the law pray in the same mosques with no hostilitybetween them.

The four major Sunni schools of law, and the scholars for whom they are named, known as the four Imams, are as follows :

• Hanafi School (named after Abu Hanifa)

Hanafites Abu Hanifa (d. 767), was the founder of the Hanafi school. He was born in Iraq. His school is considered to have more reason and logic than the other schools. Muslims of Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Turkey follow this school.

• Maliki School (named after Malik ibn Anas)

Malikites Malik ibn Abbas(d. 795) developed his ideas in Medina, where he apparently knew one of the last surviving companions of the Prophet. His doctrine is recorded in the Muwatta which has been adopted by most Muslims of Africa except in Lower Egypt, Zanzibar and South Africa. The Maliki legal school is the branch of Sunni that dominates in nearly all of Africa, except Egypt, the 'Horn' area and the East Coast countries.

• Shafi'i School (named after Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i)

Shafi'ites Al-Shafi'i (d. 820) was considered a moderate in most areas. He taught in Iraq and then in Egypt. Present Muslims in Indonesia, Lower Egypt, Malaysia, and Yemen follow this school. He placed great emphasis on the sunna of the Prophet, as embodied in the Hadith, as a source of the sharia. Scholars have argued that it was Shafi'i who first ayttributed special significance to the Sunna of the Prophet as opposed to that of the early Muslim rulers and other prominent Muslims.

• Hanbali School (named after Ahmad bin Hanbal)

Hanbalites Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) was born in Baghdad. He learned extensively from al-Shafi'i. Despite persecution, he held to the doctrine that the Koran was uncreated. This school of law is followed primarily in the Arabian Peninsula.

These four schools are somewhat different from each other, but Sunni Muslims generally consider them all equally valid. There are other Sunni schools of law, although many are followed by only small numbers of people and are relatively unknown due to the popularity of the four major schools; also many have died out or were not sufficiently recorded by their followers to survive. Fear that constantly adding to the law could result in distortion or in misuse or in the intrusion of human content resulted in the work of the four Imams gaining recognition as comprehensive and definitive, closing the so-called "gate of ijtihad". Subsequently, the task of jurists was to interpret the existing corpus of law, taken to be a divinely revealed code that required no supplement. The notion that lawmaking is a purely divine task leaves both rulers and jurists with the task of interpretation, not of legislation. Innovation (bida) in matters of law or religion is considered to be heresy, while taqlid (imitation) is a virtue. Some Sunnis - inspired among by, among others, Muhammad Iqbal regard all fiqh as interpretation, and argue that even the opinions of the four Imams and of the greatest scholars of the past should not be binding on succeeding generations, since even better intepretations might be possible. In this view, the sources of the law are divine and infallible but anything written about them are the product of fallible people.

Diversity in Unity

Interpreting the Shari'ah to derive specific rulings (such as how to pray) is known as fiqh, which literally means understanding. A madhhab is a particular tradition of interpreting fiqh. These schools focus on specific evidence (Shafi'i and Hanbali) or general principles (Hanafi and Maliki) derived from specific evidences. The schools were started by eminent Muslim scholars in the first four centuries of Islam. As these schools represent clearly spelled out methodologies for interpreting the Shari'ah, there has been little change in the methodology per se. However, as the social and economic environment changes, new fiqh rulings are being made. For example, when tobacco appeared it was declared as 'disliked' because of its smell. When medical information showed that smoking was dangerous, that ruling was changed to 'forbidden'. Current fiqh issues include things like downloading pirated software and cloning. The consensus is that the Shari'ah does not change but fiqh rulings change all the time. Differences in what can and can not be consumed as halal (for example, all seafood for Malikis but only fish for Hanafis) as well as some divergence of opinion in other areas exist. However, it is generally considered that the four schools agree on all major issues.

A madhhab is not to be confused with a religious sect. There may be scholars representing all four madhhabs living in larger Muslim communities, and it is up to those who consult them to decide which school they prefer. Each of the four schools give priority to different tools, or usul, in interpteting the law. For example, Hanbalis are reluctant to rely on anything other than an explicit reference in the Qur'an or hadith (sunnah) which in practice leave a lot of scope for local practice, while Hanafis are probablt the most open to the use of maslaha - that is, what seems to be in the public interest based on the exercise of reason. Local custom was recognized by Muhammad. It allows rulers and governments to regulate such matters as what side of the road people drive on, who qualifies for a license, for example.

Many Sunnis advocate that a Muslim should choose a single madhhab and follow it in all matters. However, rulings from another madhhab are considered acceptable as dispensations (rukhsa) in exceptional circumstances. Some Sunnis however do not follow any madhhab, indeed some Salafis reject strict adherence to any particular school of thought, preferring to use the Qur'an and the sunnah alone as the primary sources of Islamic law.

Other schools

In addition, two smaller schools are recognized by many Sunnis, namely, the Zahiri school associated with Dawud ibn Ali al Isfahani al Baghdadi (d 884) and the Ibadi (predominant in Oman. The Zahiri's reject use of analogy (qiyas), preferring the literal meaning of a passage.

The Shi'a legal school of Jafari is sometimes cited as a fifth Madhhab in order to minimize differences and to assert the notion of a single Islamic community in which diversity exists in unity. Sunnis point to the co-existence of different legal schools to emphasize that Islamic Law allows for difference of opinion, and is not totally inflexible.

Sunni theological traditions

Some Islamic scholars faced questions that they felt were not specifically answered in the Qur'an, especially questions with regard to philosophical conundra like the nature of God, the possibility of human free will, or the eternal existence of the Qur'an. Various schools of theology and philosophy developed to answer these questions, each claiming to be true to the Qur'an and the Muslim tradition (sunnah). There were the following dominant traditions:

• Ash'ari, founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (873–935). This theology was embraced by Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazali.
  • Ash'ariyyah theology stresses divine revelation over human reason. Ethics, they say, cannot be derived from human reason: God's commands, as revealed in the Qur'an and the practice of Muhammad and his companions (the sunnah, as recorded in the traditions, or hadith), are the source of all morality.
  • Regarding the nature of God and the divine attributes, the Ash'ari rejected the Mu'tazilite position that all Qur'anic references to God as having physical attributes (that is, a body) were metaphorical. Ash'aris insisted that these attributes were "true," since the Qur'an could not be in error, but that they were not to be understood as implying a crude anthropomorphism.
  • Ash'aris tend to stress divine omnipotence over human free will. They believe that the Qur'an is eternal and uncreated. Opponents represented this as compromising the oneness of God, since it posited the existence of two separate, etwrnbal entities, God and God's Book. This was related to the issue as to whether God's qualities, or attributes (sifa) (such as God's mercy, power, knowledge) had some sort of distinctive existence within God, since God's mercy and God's knowledge were different. For some, this also compromised God's oneness. For others, it represented plurality within a single divine being.
• Maturidiyyah, founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944). Maturidiyyah was a minority tradition until it was accepted by the Turkish tribes of Central Asia (previously they had been Ashari and followers of the Shafi school, it was only later on migration into Anatolia that they became Hanafi and followers of the Maturidi creed). One of the tribes, the Seljuk Turks, migrated to Turkey, where later the Ottoman Empire was established. Their preferred school of law achieved a new prominence throughout their whole empire although it continued to be followed almost exclusively by followers of the Hanafi school while followers of the Shafi, Maliki, and Hanbali schools within the empire followed the Ashari school. Thus, wherever can be found Hanafi followers, there can be found the Maturidi creed.
  • Maturidiyyah argue that knowledge of God's existence can be derived through reason.
• Athariyyah (meaning Textualist) or Hanbali. No specific founder, but Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal played a key historic role in keeping this school alive.
  • This school differs with the Ash'ariyyah in understanding the names and attributes of God, but rather affirms all of God's names and attributes as they are found in the Qur'an and Sunnah (prophetic traditions), with the disclaimer that the "how" of the attribute is not known. They say that God is as He described Himself "in a way befitting of His majesty." Thus, regarding verses where God is described as having a yad (hand) or wajh (face), the textualists say that God is exactly as He described himself in a way befitting of His majesty, without inquiring as to the "how" of these attributes.
  • The Athariyyah still believe that God does not resemble His creation in any way, as this is also found in the texts. Thus, in the Athari creed, it is still prohibited to imagine an image of God in any way. The Athariyyah say that the yad" (hand) of God is "unlike any other yad" (since God does not resemble His creation in any way) and prohibit imagining what God would be like, even though this attribute of a yad is still affirmed.
  • The Asgarites used the formula, "billa kayfa" (without asking how) arguing that if the Qur'an says that God hears and sees and sits on a throne, this should be accepted without "going beyond His description, nor removing from Him any of His attributes."

Sunni view of hadith

The Qur'an was codified as a "text" by Sahabah (Companions of the Prophet]] in approximately 650 C.E., and is accepted by all Muslims as containing all of the revelations that Muhamamd recieved. However, there were many matters of belief and daily life that were not directly prescribed in the Qur'an, but were simply the practice of the community. Later generations sought out oral traditions regarding the early history of Islam, and the practice of Muhammad and his first followers, and wrote them down so that they might be preserved. These recorded oral traditions are called hadith. Muslim scholars sifted through the hadith and evaluated the chain of narration of each tradition, scrutinizing the trustworthiness of the narrators and judging the strength of each hadith accordingly. Most Sunni accept the hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim as the most authentic (sahih, or correct), and grant a lesser status to the collections of other recorders. These two books (Bukhari and Muslim) are strict in their accuracy and are, therefore, recognized by all Sunni Muslims. There are, however, six collections of hadith that are held in particular reverence by Sunni Muslims:

• Sahih al-Bukhari
• Sahih Muslim
• Sunan an-Nasa'ii
• Sunan Abu Dawud
• Sunan at-Tirmidhi
• Sunan ibn Majah

There are also other collections of hadith which, although less well-known, still contain many authentic hadith and are frequently used by specialists. Examples of these collections include:

• Muwatta of Imam Malik
• Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal
• Sahih Ibn Khuzaima
• Sahih Ibn Hibban
• Mustadrak of Al Haakim
• Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq

Traditions, however, are classed according to their reliability, and only those considered most sound can be used as the basis of law. A number of criteria were used to evaluate traditions, as it was openly admitted that fraudulent material existed, invented to claim legitimacy for different opinions. Much effort was invested in determining a chain of narration, or isnad, that traced the saying back to a companion of Muhammad and the moral character of each link was also examined, since only those narrators with a reputation for honesty and piety could be trusted. This interest gave impetus to the science of biography in Islamic society. In addition, content that was obviously contrary to the spirit, ethics or teachings of Islam, or that attributed qualities to Muhammad (such as predicting future events) that he did not claim, was suspect. Many Muslims, however, regard the content of the hadith collections as subject to ongoing scrutiny, while in comparison there is noty uncertainyl about the status of the content of the Qur'an. There are also 40 hadith, known as Qudsi hadith which are considered to be "revelation", while the rest of the sayings of Muhammad are regarded as inspired but not as revealed. A great deal of scholarship of the hadith by Muslims as well as by non-Muslims has identified evidence of party and personal bias, including gender-related bias, within the collections.

See also

• Islam
• Shi'a Islam

Sufi

External links

All links retrieved November 18, 2007

• University of Southern California, Compendium of Muslim Texts
• Muwatta by Imam Malik
• Searchable Ar-Risala by Imam Shafi'i
• Foundations of the Sunnah, by Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
• Source Methodology in Islamic Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh), by Taha Jabir Al 'Alwani

az:Sünni

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