What is the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims?

Question

Can you provide a link or literature that led to this separation? Also, are these the only two branches of Islam?

Answer 1

EDIT: Azure Z is absolutely incorrect. Shia Muslims believe that Ali was the first Imam, or divinely-appointed leader, to succeed after Prophet Muhammad. Ali was not a Prophet and was less in status than Prophet Muhammad. He died as the result of an attack on him that took place while he was worshipping.

DISCLAIMER
I am a Shia Muslim. The following is indeed very long. However, I have done my best to ensure that the information is of the best quality from sources pertinent to each sect of Islam.

INTRODUCTION
Shia and Sunni Islam are very close in terms of belief and practise. There are some fine points that distinguish us, but the casual observer often cannot tell us apart without further study. Which one is superior is basically reduced to the opinion of an individual. After all evidences are offered, it is up to the individual to decide whoch set of evidences he believes.

HISTORY OF ISLAMIC SECTS: SUNNI
The history of the divide began most visibly after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims wanted to establish Prophet Muhammad's successor by an election of the elders of the early Muslim commmunity. The elders themselves were not elected by the general populace; and some were left out who felt that they should have been a part of the process. They elected Abu Bakr; and the sect that agrees with this process is today the Sunni sect of Islam.

As evidence for their position, Sunni Musims point to certain narrations attributed to Prophet Muhammad in which he is quoted as delegating successorship to Abu Bakr and to other individuals after him. They also have other narrations specifying certain qualities about Abu Bakr and the succeeding Caliphs that distinguish them as deserving leaders.

HISTORY OF ISLAMIC SECTS: SHIA
There was immediate opposition to this election by those who felt that Prophet Muhammad had already deligated his successor in response to the command of God. These believed that Prophet Muhammad had established Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his successor. These were almost immediately known as the Shi`at `Ali, or the partisans of `Ali. Today, we are most easily known as Shia Muslims.

As evidence fo their position, Shia Muslims point to an event wherein Prophet Muhammad is quoted to have said, "For those over whom I am the leader, Ali is the leader." We believe that this event occurred several times. There are also other narrations from Prophet Muhammad that indicate 11 other leaders, or Imams, who would succeed after Ali. Some of those narrations named the individuals. We also point out several qualities of Ali that distinguish him as most qualified to lead the early Muslim ummah.

SECTARIAN DISTINCTIONS
Shia Islam has a set of basic texts that is, for the most part, held in common with Sunni Islam. Part of it is unique from Sunni Islam, and that is how we have a sect.

For the average lay-Muslim, one has to be aware of Islamic beliefs and Islamic practises. Islamic beliefs are derived from the Islamic sciences of Qur'anic interpretation and the narration and interpretation of Prophetic Narrations. Islamic practises are also derived from these two, along with the Islamic sciences of Scholarly Consensus and Analaytical Reasoning/Logic.

SHIA ISLAMIC BELIEFS
Shia Islam has five fundamental beliefs. These are called "usul ad-din," or "fundamentals of the religion." They are Tawhid, Nubuwwah, Imamah, Qiyyamah, and `Adalah. Respectively, these translate to Unity of God, Prophethood, Divine Leadership, Resurrection, and Divine Justice. Divine Justice and Imamah are the points of distinction with Sunni Islam.

The description of Shia Islamic beliefs is from something that I compiled for my family. It is a combination of Saduq's Risala and Tusi's Tenets, watered-down and paraphrased by me.

Tawhid
Shia Muslims believe in one God, called Allah in the Arabic language. We believe that Allah is self-existing, eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient. Allah is self-existing in the sense that he does not depend on anyone for His existence. is eternal and has always existed in the sense that there was no time when He did not exist. He will always be existing in the sense that there will be no time when He will not exist. Allah the Almighty can do all that can be done and knows all that can be known, for all things are on the same level in relation to His Holy and Absolute Being. Allah is All-Knowing in the sense that everything is clear and manifest to Him and there is not anything hidden from Him. We believe that Allah is non-composite, immaterial, invisible, unchangeable, non-incarnate, uncombined, independent, and absolute. Allah is not a body, nor a quality nor an essence. cannot be seen by the sense of sight. Allah is not subject to any eventualities. Allah does not combine with anything else. Allah does not have any additional concepts or attributes in the sense that He is not knowing with knowledge and He is not Able with ability. Allah is Independent in the sense that He is not in need of anyone or anything else. We believe that Allah and His attributes are one and the same. He, exalted is He, transcends all the attributes of His creatures; He is beyond both the limitations of transcendence and of immanence.

Nubuwwah
Shia Muslims believe that in all, there have been one hundred and twenty-four thousand Prophets. We believe that they spoke not except on behalf of Allah, and on being inspired by Him. We believe that they brought the truth from Allah, that their word is the word of Allah, that their command is the command of Allah, that obedience to them is obedience to Allah and that disobedience to them is disobedience to Allah. We believe that the leaders of the Prophets are five in number, namely, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, on all of whom be peace. We believe that Muhammad is their leader and the most excellent of them. We believe thay he brought the truth and confirmed (the message of) the apostles. He claimed Prophethood and wrought miracles, which proved that he was a true Messenger of Allah. We believe that Muhammad (may God's blessing and peace be on him and his descendants) was a Prophet to himself before he was formally raised. We believe that afterwards he was a Prophet for the whole mankind. It is necessary to believe that Allah the Mighty and Glorious did not create any created thing more excellent than Muhammad and the Imams, peace on them. They are infallible; purified from all defilement, and that they do not commit any sin, whether it be minor or major. They are infallible and possess the attributes of perfection, completeness and knowledge, from the beginning to the end of their careers. Defects cannot be attributed to them, nor disobedience, nor ignorance, in any of their actions.

Qiyyamah
Shia Muslims believe that God will physically resurrect the dead as they were in this world in order to restore the rights to all those to whom they were due. We believe that Paradise is a permanent abode and an abode of safety. There is in it neither death, nor old age, nor disease, nor calamity, nor decline, nor palsy, nor care, nor sorrow, nor need, nor poverty. We believe that it is an abode of plenty, of happiness, of quiet and of nobility. Affliction shall not touch its inmates, nor weariness. We believe that in it there will be things for which the souls of men yearn and which give delight to their eyes, and they shall reside therein forever. We believe that it is an abode the inmates whereof are the neighbours of God, and His friends and loved ones and the recipients of His generosity. We believe that all of them will be able to enjoy what they like and desire, in accordance with their own aspirations, which shall be granted to them by God. We believe that Hell is a place of degradation or that of revenge on unbelievers and sinners. And the residents of Hell will be miserable indeed: it is not decreed for them that they shall die, nor shall the torment of Hell abate for them. We believe that none but the polytheists will reside therein permanently. As for those monotheists who are sinners, we believe that they will be taken out of it by the mercy of Allah and the intercession which they obtain. And our belief concerning Heaven and Hell is that they are both created things.

Imamah
Shia Muslims believe that after His Prophet, the proofs of God for the people are the Twelve Imams (divinely appointed leaders). They are all rightful Imams, one after another, for each one of them designated the next one as his successor. We believe that God has ordained obedience to them. We believe that they are immune from sins and errors. We believe that they are possessed of (the power of) miracles. We believe that that their command is the command of Allah, their prohibition is the prohibition of Allah; obedience to them is obedience to Allah, and disobedience to them is disobedience to Allah; their friend is the friend of Allah, and their enemy the enemy of Allah.

Adalah
Shia Muslims believe that God is perfectly just. We believe that God has commanded us to be just, while He Himself treats us with something even better, namely, grace. We believe that is a matter of common sense that certain things like justice, truth, honesty and faithfulness are right and certain things like tyranny, oppression, and transgression are wrong. We believe that God requites a good act with a good act and an evil act with an evil act.

SUNNI ISLAMIC BELIEFS
Sunni Islam has six articles of faith. They are Allah, mala'ika, kutub, rusul, akhira, and qadr. Respectively, these translate to God, angels, scriptures, hereafter, and destiny.

Allah
God is One, not in a numerical sense, but in the sense that He has no partner. He resembles nothing among His creation, nor does anything among His creation resemble Him. Nothing happens except what He wills. He has been, unceasing, and He is, unceasing, with His names and attributes, both those relating to His Essence and those relating to His acts. He has always existed together with His attributes since before creation. Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes that was not already there. As He was, together with His attributes, in pre-eternity, so He will remain throughout endless time. As for those relating to His Essence, they are life, power, knowledge, speech, hearing, sight, and will. As for those relating to His acts, they are creativity, sustenance, originating and fashioning ex nihilo, making, and other active attributes. 'The Seeing of Allah by the People of the Garden' is true, without their vision being all-encompassing and without the manner of their vision being known.

Kutub
The Qur'an is the Word of God Almighty, written on collections of leaves (masahif), preserved in men's hearts, recited on men's tongues, and sent down to the Prophet, upon whom be God's peace and blessings. He sent it down on His Messenger as revelation. It came from Him as speech without it being possible to say how. The believers accept it, as absolute truth. They are certain that it is, in truth, the word of Allah. Our uttering of the Qur'an is created, and our recitation of the Qur'an is created, but the Qur'an itself is uncreated.

Qadr
Good and evil have both been decreed for people. People's actions are created by Allah but earned by people. He it is Who determined and predestined all things. He appointed destinies for those He created. He allotted to them fixed life spans. Nothing exists in this world or hereafter except by His will, His knowledge, His determining and predestining, and except it be written on the Preserved Tablet (al-Lauh al-Mahfuz). He inscribed everything there in the sense of description, not that of foreordaining. Everything happens according to His decree and will, and His will is accomplished. The only will that people have is what He wills for them. What He wills for them occurs and what He does not will, does not occur. Everything happens according to Allah's will, knowledge, predestination and decree. His will overpowers all other wills and His decree overpowers all stratagems. He does whatever He wills and He is never unjust. He is exalted in His purity above any evil or perdition and He is perfect far beyond any fault or flaw. Determining, predestining and will are pre-eternal attributes of unknowable modality.

Rusul
The Prophets, peace and blessings be upon them, are free of all sins, major and minor, of unbelief, and of all that is repugnant. It may be, however, that they commit insignificant lapses and errors. Muhammad the Messenger of God – may God's peace and blessings be upon him! – is His Prophet, His Bondsman, His Messenger and His Chosen One. He never worshipped idols, he never assigned partner to God, even for an instant, and he never committed a sin, major or minor. And that he is the seal of the prophets and the Imam of the godfearing and the most honoured of all the messengers and the beloved of the Lord of all the Worlds. Every claim to prophethood after Him is falsehood and deceit. He is the one who has been sent to all the jinn and all mankind with truth and guidance and with light and illumination. Al-Mi'raj (the Ascent through the heavens) is true. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was taken by night and ascended in his bodily form, while awake, through the heavens, to whatever heights Allah willed for him. The most virtuous of all men after the Messenger of God, -- may God's peace and blessings be upon him! – are Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, may God be pleased with him; then 'Umar ibn al-Khattab; then 'Uthman ibn 'Affan; then 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, may they all enjoy the pleasure of God Most High.

Akhirah
Paradise and Hell are created and existing today, and shall never vanish. We believe in being brought back to life after death and in being recompensed for our actions on the Day of Judgement. The Garden and the Fire are created things that never come to an end and we believe that Allah created them before the rest of creation and then created people to inhabit each of them. The grave is either one of the meadows of the Garden or one of the pits of the Fire. Whoever He wills goes to the Garden out of His Bounty and whoever He wills goes to the Fire through His justice. Everybody acts in accordance with what is destined for him and goes towards what he has been created for. [All] the other signs of the Day of Resurrection, as contained in authentic traditions, are also established reality.

ISLAMIC SOURCE-TEXTS
There is only one Qur'an. Sunni Islam and Shia Islam each have unique interpretations of parts of it, though. The science of Qur'an' interpretation is a scholarly science: one is not considered capable of delivering an interpretation of the Qur'an until he or she has been trained by a qualified scholar and has been approved to issue interpretations of the Qur'an.

As far as Prophetic Narrations, many of them are common between us. Those that are not define us into two different sects. There are also those that are common to us that have been interpreted differently or have been valued differently between us. As with the Qur'an, narrating and interpreting Prophetic Narrations is an Islamic science that is passed on through qualified intructors and certified through their approval.

Islamic scholarship, in terms of the practise of the laity, is determined by training in the Islamic sciences by a reliable instructor whose chain of training and knowledge is unbroken until the very early days of Islam. One is considered to be a reliable scholar after one has been approved by a reliable instructor or scholarly committee. Scholarly consensus is determined by an examination of the rulings that have been issued by qualified Islamic scholars. Since the sources of Islamic scholarship are different between Shia and Sunni Islam, various rulings will also differ.

There has been a movement of Muslims in recent centuries, but especially within the past few decades, that consider the Islamic sciences to be a resource accessible by the laity for their own use in determining their own beliefs and practises. These are usually considered to be deviants. There is a movement of these away from Sunni Islam and another away from Shia Islam.

Analytical Reasoning or Logic is a thing studied by those in the process of scholarly training and is resorted to when there is no apparent source-text or scholarly precident for an issue. I have no idea whether instructional techniques are different between Shia and Sunni Islam, but I do know that there is a claim of differences in the methods of using this Islamic science.

ISLAMIC PRACTISES
Practises that are considered obligatory in Sunni Islam are listed in the "Five Pillars": shahadah (creed), salah (worship/prayer), sawm (fasting during the month of Ramadan), zawkah (charity), and hajj (pilgrimage to Macca).

Practises that are considered to be obligatory in Shia Islam are listed under ten Furu ad-Din, or Branches of Religion: salah, sawm, hajj, zakah, khums (20% luxury tax), jihad (struggle - Jihad al Akbar is Greater Jihad or struggle within oneself to do good; Jihad al Asghar or Lesser Jihad is struggle in battlefield under direction of proper ISlamic leader, especially messianic figure), amr bil ma`ruf (enjoining good), nahi al munkar (forbidding evil), tawalla (loving Prophetic Family), and tabarra (disassociating from their enemies).

SUFI ISLAM
Some people consider Sufism to be another sect of Islam. Most properly, however, Sufi Islam is an extension of Sunni Islam in whcih the study of self-purification is the focus os Islamic studies. There is quite a bit of misunderstanding about Sufism, both within and outside of Islam. The Sunni Path website should have some information about it.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
My two favourite resources for comparing the sects are the Ahlul Bayt Digital Library Project and Sunni Path. Both are websites. There are, however, texts that are located on websites other than these two that, when compared, would show more of the differences bwteeen Shia and Sunni Islam. I will list some of them below.

Answer 2

They both live by Islam, but Iran is Shiite. The only way I can explain this they supposedly live from the Qur'an (koran). But they are sects, similar too some of our religion would be like the Baptist and Methodist, we may believe a little different but under the same God. They shiite and sunni Muslims are battling for who are the correct sect to rule Islam. Islam is not a peaceful religion it is chaotic and misery. In essences they kill one another, their own people, because basically they are confused.

Answer 3

Mohammed's son-in-law Ali. The Shias believe that Ali was a prophet and should have been in charge of all the Muslims after Mohammed died. The Sunnis disagree.

Unfortunately, the disagreement ended up resulting in a war. Ali got killed. The Shias now consider him to be a martyr.

So the Shiites basically believe that the Sunnis murdered a prophet from Allah. Meanwhile, the Sunnis believe that the Shiites are being heretics because the Sunnis believe that Mohammed was the last prophet that Allah would send.

...and thus, you tend to get some bad feelings between the two groups.

Answer 4

There's a basic discussion of it on Wikipedia.

Very basically it had to do with an argument over the succession of power, and some political manuevering.

It's fair to say those are the two main branches. However, some Muslims (like any faith) are more motivated by tribal and national factors, traditions, etc. than they are by what Islam as a whole is doing.

Answer 5

Ok, I'm a Muslim!

Well, I wrote this for another question....I copy it for you:

Sunni and Shi'a use one book. Everything is same, But Sunni doesnt believe in Emams. It believes in Muhammad, Omar, َAbubakr , Osman, Ali. (Omar, Abubakr, Osman and ali are Muslim Prelates. Ali is a Emam too, He is the first one. )

But Shi'a belives in Muhammad And 12 Emams. Emams are named as : Ali, Hasan, Hossein, Sajjad, Muhammad Bagher, Jaafer Sadegh, Musa Kazem, Reza, Muhammad Taghi, Ali-ol-Naghi, Askari, Mahdi.

Sunni's prayers are different too. The varieties are very little. Sunni do the same prayers as Shi'a, but do some little things beside that. The other diferrence is that, Sunni does not use anything to put his head on. But Shi'a uses a stone, solid, tissue, or.... usually uses something stone like that's made of solid. We call it Mohr...I don't know what's that in English!
Some little varieties exist between Sunni and Shi'a, But The whole thing is same.

Qur'an is only one, it's not been changed through the ages.

When Sunni and Shi'a go to mecca, they have some varieties in what they have to do. I don't know much about those varieties...

I've not heard of any other branches of Islam. There are just these two....I think.

Answer 6

In short, Sunnis and Shiites differ in their idea of who should be a religious leader. Sunnis believe that anyone can be called to be an imam (Muslim religious leader, i think the direct translation is "teacher") but Shiites believe that the imam must be a descendent of Muhammad traced through his cousin Ali.

Check out the wikipedia article for a much more in depth answer. It's been a few years since world religions in college for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiite

Answer 7

http://www.ask.com/web?q=sects+in+islam&search=&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir

sunni follow the sunnah of the prophet (his sayings, habits, ways, advice) and believe anyone can become imam (leader, preacher, teacher)
shia believe the caliphate (leadership, Imams) follows the bloodline descendants of the prophet.

there are more than 2 sects, there's wahabis, whirling dervishes, and others.
What they all fail to realize is, that by dividing themselves into sects, they are disobeying the very book they 'claim' to base their faith on
Qur'an 6:159 "As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects, have no part in them in the least, their affair is with God, and He will tell them the truth in the end of all that they did"

Answer 8

in fact there is nothing like sunni and shia.
Islam is Islam and Shia is not a branch of it.because it is not in Holy Qur`an .

Answer 9

About Five miles

Answer 10

u can try www.islamway.com n ucould google ur question too but i am afraid some sites give false info about these stuff so don rely too much on google but am sure about islamway.com

Answer 11

It would help if a muslim answerd this question!

non-muslims, dont give your "personal" opinion.
if you dont know, then just dont answer >_>