Sunni Islam

SUNNI ISLAM

The largest branch in Islam, sometimes referred to as "orthodox Islam"; its full name is ahl al-Sunna wa aljamaʿa (the people of Sunna and consensus), and it represents about 90 percent of the world Muslim population.

The Sunni movement can be identified in terms of its differences with the second largest division of Islam, the Shiʿite, with whom it shares the fundamental creed of Islam. After the death of the Prophet, the political issue of how leadership was to be chosen split the new community. The Shiʿa of Ali (literally, the party of Ali) insisted that the Prophet had intended for his cousin Ali to succeed him, while the majority of Muslims maintained that the caliph should be elected and did not have to belong to the Prophet's family. The Sunnis maintained that since the Prophet had not clearly designated a successor, his Sunna (example, custom), by which they were to abide (hence their name), mandated elections. Of course, the Shiʿa also consider the Sunna of the Prophet as binding and second only to the Qurʾan in authority, but they differ on the actual content of the Sunna in regard to the matter of the divinely appointed leaders from the Prophet's family (imams), who in their view are the legitimate rulers. In addition to the concept of divinely appointed leadership, the Sunnis also reject the notion of a mahdi (messiah) as an integral part of the creed, and they emphasize exoteric interpretation of the Qurʾan over the esoteric approach followed by the Shiʿa.

The Sunni Schools of Law

In addition to the Qurʾan and the Sunna as primary sources of Islamic law, Sunni jurists also admit ijma (consensus) and qiyas (personal parallel reasoning) as legitimate sources for legal judgment. Qiyas, the fourth source of law, is a form of ijtihad (exercising personal judgment in legal interpretation). All schools of law generally admit ijtihad, but with different definitions and restrictions. At first, raʾy (personal opinion issued without justification) was exercised, but its unrestricted use was deemed too arbitrary and it was eliminated in favor of qiyas, a form of reasoning that identifies an illah (ratio legis) parallel or similar to another already established by the Qurʾan or the Sunna.

Ijma, or consensus, constitutes the third source of law and it takes precedence over qiyas. There was disagreement among the Sunni schools of law as to the nature of consensus. While all jurists accept the consensus of the companions of the Prophet, the more liberal schools will also admit of the consensus of the schools of law at any given time. The more conservative schools will only accept a global community consensus, which cannot be easily achieved, so in effect the Sunni schools of law did build the legal system on the basis of juristic consensus. However, the right to dissent (ikhtilaf) was scrupulously maintained by all schools. In contrast, the Shiʿa eschew ijma in favor of the ijtihad of the imam or his representative. That the Sunnis consider the law to be a matter of consensus (whether juristic or communal) is underscored in their name, ahl al-Sunna wa al-jamaʿa.

Over time, the various Sunni schools of law coalesced into four major schools: the Hanafi (founded by Abu Hanifa, d. 767), the Maliki (founded by Malik ibn Anas, d. 795), the Shafiʿi (founded by Shafiʿi, d. 820) and the Hanbali school (founded by ibn Hanbal, d. 855). The most widespread is the Hanafi, which was favored by various Muslim governments, most notably by the Ottomans, since it was not as strict as the other schools in its acceptance and use of less rigorous tools of legal interpretation. The Hanafis can be found throughout the Muslim world, while the Malikis are mostly found in Egypt and North Africa, the Shafiʿis in Southeast Asia, and the Hanbalis in the Arabian Peninsula.

Historical and Modern Developments

Tensions between Sunnis and Shiʿa (especially with the sectarian movements derived from the Shiʿa, such as the Ismaʿilis) were very high in early Muslim history as Shiʿite groups tried to destabilize the Sunni caliphate and ensure leadership to the followers of the imams. The problems subsided after the decisive victory of the Ayyubids over the Shiʿite regimes of Egypt and the Near East in the late twelfth century and the subsequent coming to power of the Ottoman Turks, who had always been staunch Sunnis. Tension still exists between local Sunni and Shiʿite groups, although most of it is due more to ethnic and tribal strife than to religious divisions, as can be seen in Lebanon and Pakistan. However, the rise among the Sunnis of strict reform movements (such as the Wahhabi movement), which came to oppose any deviation from their interpretation of the Islamic creed, has exacerbated existing tensions with the Shiʿa in the Persian Gulf area and wherever Wahhabism has spread.

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, however, 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.

see also islam; muwahhidun; sanusi order; shiʿism.

Bibliography

Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 1991.

Makdisi, George. Religion, Law, and Learning in Classical Islam. Aldershot, U.K.; Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1991.

Rahman, Fazlur. Islam, 2d edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

tayeb el-hibri
updated by maysam j. al faruqi