Sect Formation in the Middle East

THE RISE OF ISLAM AND CALIPHATES HIST 1301 | History Sect Formation in the Middle East The Islamic world had stability during the early Abbasid era, although it was short-lived. Even though there had been conflict within the Islamic ummah from the start, more separate sects emerged under the Abbasid administration due to theological disagreements and issues with community leadership that dated back to the first century of Islamic history. The two main "umbrella sects" within Islam, the Sunni and the Shia (often spelled as Shi'ite), were becoming more and more divided from one another, which served as a stimulus for the establishment of divisions within the religion. The Islamic prophet Muhammad's sunna, or practices, are where the Sunni people get their name. Although there are several schools of law that provide the religious faithful varying interpretations and advice, adherents follow a canonised, common form of hadith and interpretation of the Quran. The Sunni, who make up the majority of Muslims worldwide today, are also known for having agreed that, once Muhammad passed away, his father-in-law Abu Bakr, rather than his son-in-law Ali, would take the lead as the community's first leader. The Arabic term Shiat Ali, which translates to "the followers of Ali," ultimately acquired the name of the Shia community. They started out as individuals who accepted the assertions made by Ali and the Prophet's relatives that, after Muhammad's passing, Ali would become the new head of the Muslim community. As the second Islamic civil war was starting, tensions between the two groups grew even more after a significant portion of Muhammad's family was massacred in Karbala, including his grandson Husayn ibn Ali. The first Islamic civil war was fought between the caliph Ali and the Umayyad ruler Mu‘awiya. One of the fundamental characteristics of the Shia Islamic divisions is their remembrance of these early Islamic events. The Prophet's family was revered by the Shia, who saw in them a function that extended beyond appointing a new caliph. They hold that Muhammad's family members pass on heavenly wisdom, charm, and power. They also give some of them the title of imam, which designates the head of the Muslim community's religious hierarchy. This emphasis on the Prophet's family in the first century of the faith revolved upon Muhammad's ancestry through his daughter Fatima, Ali's wife, and her offspring, Husayn among them. Nevertheless, as time went on and Islam grew more patriarchal throughout the Abbasid era, the focus switched to Muhammad's male ancestors in general and Ali in particular. The division between the Sunni and Shia was not entirely established throughout the Middle Ages. Even though they did not believe that Ali's lineage gave them an automatic or exclusive right to govern, the Sunnis venerated the family of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the succession question that arose after his death was not intractable. Because the Abbasids insisted that the caliph be a descendant of the Prophet, the early Shia accepted the Abbasids' claim to power; nonetheless, Ali's family members were eventually left out of the succession. As tensions between the Abbasids and the early Shia increased, it is possible that the Shia subsequently stated—probably in order to bolster their own claims to power—that the imam's authority specifically flowed via Ali's family, not through any other member of the Prophet's family. During the Middle Ages, the caliph's position as a leader in the Islamic world also started to drastically alter. This change was caused by more than simply the Shia understanding of the imam. Instead, as the Abbasids gained authority, Islam also saw the rise of a religious clerical class. During the Abbasid era, a group of people known as the ulama—literally, "the scholars"—became more and more significant as the interpreters of Islamic law for non-Shia, Sunni Islam. The early caliphs had successfully argued that they were endowed with secular and religious authority prior to the Abbasid era, including the power to interpret the Bible and make religious pronouncements. However, as the ulama rose to prominence in Abbasid culture, they increasingly asserted their own power and authority, eroding the religious rights formerly held by the caliphs. The caliph's religious authority diminished over the centuries, and early Sunni Islam's decision to gather and codify the hadith—which had been passed down exclusively orally for the majority of the first two centuries—granted greater authority to those who preserved and taught it, at the expense of the caliph.