Just as with Christianity, there are many denominations in Islam, with two major ones – Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims are Sunni, about 87–90 per cent, while Shias make up the remaining 10–13 per cent.
Of the world’s 8.3 billion people, about 2.1 billion (just over 25 per cent) are Muslim. Christianity is the largest religion, with 2.65 billion adherents (about 32 per cent), of whom 1.3 billion are Catholic, the largest Christian denomination.
Twenty to 23 per cent of the world’s Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa, the great majority Sunni. Iran has the largest Shia population of any country in the world, at 90 to 95 per cent of its 92 million people.
Religion sets it apart, though this can be exaggerated. Iran and Iraq fought a prolonged and bitter war between 1980 and 1988, despite Iraq’s large Shia population. But that was the problem.
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Saddam Hussein, who started that war when he invaded Iran, feared that Iran – a theocratic state vastly Shia in complexion – would unite Iraq’s Shia majority against his Sunni-controlled Baathist regime. He also wished to replace Iran as the major power in the region.
Today, Shia Muslims make up a majority (about 55 per cent) of Iraq’s 46 million people with Sunnis at about 40 per cent.
Another country in the region with a substantial Shia population is Lebanon, where 31 per cent of its total population of 5.8 million are Shia. This is a significant factor in the strength of the Shia Islamist Hizbullah paramilitary/political party there, set up by Lebanese clerics in 1982, inspired by the 1979 Islamist revolution in Iran, with which it has maintained strong ties since.
It would be wrong to exaggerate a sectarian element in relations between the Sunni and Shia Muslim states of the Middle East, but the tendency these days to minimise them is also in error.
In those countries, as on this island, differences between denominations can soon wander beyond religion into the political, as we saw with the Iran-Iraq war. Differences between people always matter in such volatile situations, not least where religious affiliation can become central to political identity.
From a Christian perspective, the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam seem remarkably slight. They centre on the succession to Muhammed, at least initially, rather than on matters of faith or doctrine over which European Christians gleefully slaughtered one another in the 16th and 17th centuries.
As Ramadan continues, it is no harm to be reminded that Islam is an Abrahamic religion, the younger sibling of Christianity with their oldest brother being Judaism.
Muslims believe in one God, that the prophet Muhammad completes the tradition of Abrahamic monotheism, and that the divine word revealed to him is set out in the Koran.
They also agree on the “five pillars” of Islam: a duty to proclaim one’s allegiance to the one God and Muhammad as his messenger; to pray five times a day; to give to the poor; fasting and exercising restraint during this holy month of Ramadan (ends March 18th).
Muslims must also undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime (the hajj). People relieved from undertaking any of these tasks include the young, the elderly, the sick and those physically unable to undertake them.
On these matters, Muslims agree. However, a split evolved on the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 over who should lead from then, and on what grounds. Following a process of consultation, Muhammad’s companion Abu Bakr was selected as the first caliph.
There was the question of which lineage in Muhammad’s family the leader should come from, whether the leadership in general should be hereditary and whether it was to be considered infallible
This was contested by a view that Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad’s son-in-law, had been appointed by Muhammad himself as leader (imam) of the Muslim community. Supporters maintained that the prophet’s successor should come from his family.
However, this did not gain much support within the Muslim community – at least initially. There was the question of which lineage in Muhammad’s family the leader should come from, whether the leadership in general should be hereditary and whether it was to be considered infallible.
Over time, such differences in opinion evolved and were consolidated into theological and legal teachings, leading to distinctive group identities within Islam.
No account of these different communities and traditions can claim to be definitive and, generally, tend towards simplification.
However, Sunni Islam, from the term ahl al-sunna wa-l-jama’a (“people of the tradition of Muhammad and the community”) originated among those Muslims who denied that son-in-law Ali had been designated as Muhammad’s only legitimate successor and his claims to represent the Muslim consensus concerning the teachings and habit of Muhammad.
Shia Muslims (from “shiat Ali” – “the party of Ali”) denotes their belief in Ali ibn Abi Talib and his descendants as the only legitimate successors of the prophet Muhammad and Twelver Shia believe their leaders/imams are infallible.
Sunnis do not believe leaders of the Muslim community can be infallible. Additionally, while Sunni institutions and individuals are influential, there is no centralised religious authority and only a vague hierarchy, in contrast to the Shia.
Patsy McGarry is former religious affairs correspondent of The Irish Times
