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Sunni Islam: Shiite Muslims
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The followers of Sunni Islam make up the vast majority of Moslems, some 80 to 85 percent. Indeed, when people speak about "Islam," or say "Moslems believe..." or "Moslems do...", they are usually referring to Sunni Islam. The basis for the difference between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam lies in their beliefs about the successor to Mohammed. Sunnis believe that Mohammed did not appoint a successor, and therefore one had to be appointed by the Moslems themselves. This lead to the establishment of the Caliphate, a series of men who took over Mohammed's worldly and temporal power, but who made no claim to be Mohammed's spiritual successor.
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Politically, Sunni Islam continued through the Umayyads (started by Mu'awiya) and other dynasties that led to the powerful Ottoman and Mughal empires of the 15th to 20th Centuries. In the wake of these empires the Sunnis emerge as an over-arching identity grouping close to 90% of the now one billion Muslims. Sunnis have a large populations stretching geographically from the Indonesian archipelago through the Indian subcontinent, central Asia, the Arab world and Africa to the periphery of Europe.
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Sunni Islam is practiced by the majority (90 percent) of Muslims, with large communities in western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Caucasus, Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia. The word "Sunni" derives from the Arabic word "Sunnah," which generally means "customary practices" and refers to the oral traditions (hadiths) of what the Prophet Muhammad said or did. Sunni Muslims regard these traditions and the Qur'an as forming the basis of their religious knowledge. The Sunnis are distinguished from the Shiʿites, the partisans of Muhammad's son-in-law, ʿAli.
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Conservative, Sunni leaders look to the ancient days of Islam for secular guidance. Only since the first quarter of the twentieth century have Syrian Sunnis become acutely aware of the need for modern education. Therefore, secularization is spreading among Sunnis, especially the younger ones in urban areas and in the military services. After the first coup d'Ètat in 1949, the waqfs were taken out of private religious hands and put under government control. Civil codes have greatly modified the authority of Islamic laws, and the educational role of Muslim religious leaders is declining with the gradual disappearance of kuttabs, the traditional mosque-affiliated schools.
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The Sunni tradition is one of the two main sectarian divisions in Islam (the other being Shi'a). A number of important principles govern the Sunni tradition. The Prophet and his revelation are of foremost authority.In order for the Qur'an to be used as a basis for sound judgement for subjects under dispute it is necessary to take sound hadiths into account. Qur'anic verses should be interpreted in the context of the whole of the Qur'an. In understanding the Qur'an rational thinking is subordinate to revelation. If the Qur'an or the Sunnah of the Prophet offers a clear judgement on anything, the Muslim is obliged to follow this judgement.
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The theological and juristic views on which the four major Sunni schools agree are considered to form the core of orthodox Islam. Although some of these views have coalesced into dogma, others have been subject to changes of interpretation through the years. Specifically, the eventual reliance by Sunni jurists on taqlid (imitation or continuation of established past consensus) led to a reification of thought and law that gave rise to reform movements in the eighteenth century. Taking a stand against past consensus and building on the thought of the Hanbali ibn Taymiyya, the reform movements (the Wahhabis of Arabia, the Sanusis of North Africa, and the followers of Sirhindi in India), rejected ijma and emphasized ijtihad, considering themselves ghayr muqallidin (against imitation) and underscoring the need for new thought in Islamic law. Today... and after most Muslim countries have adopted the secular constitutions imposed on them by colonial powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the major concern of the various contemporary Sunni Muslim movements is how to restore Islamic law and make it compatible with the demands of modern life.
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