Muslim mysticism.Huh? So are Sunnis and Shiites also Sufi or what do you mean? Otherwise, it would seem that Sufis are a sect of Muslims that practice tasawuf (Whatever that is?)
So, essentially, you really don’t count them as Muslims. Therefore to say that Sunni and Shi’a comprise 99.8% of Muslims is really misleading since that would not be an indicator of what percent of people get their religion from the Quran, would it? Nor what percent of people call themselves Muslims?
It’s about right, percentage wise. But you’re going to have to count the Druze with the Shi’ites, the Wahhabis with the Sunnis, etc.Just asking.
Question, are these groups considered sects? Or ideologies? Or what?
atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_sunni.htm
Sunni
• Twelver Shi’ite
• Sufi
• Kahrijites
• Wahhabis
• Ismailis
• Zaidis
• Alawis
• Nizari
• Druze
• Bahai
Sincerely,
To be fair, we shouldn’t be getting our info on muslims from atheist websites that I am sure we would question as a source for Christianity.De Maria
The Latin orders (Dominicans, Jesuits, etc.) are a perfect comparison, except the Sufis stem from mysticism.Sufi isn’t a sect, it is a practice within Islam. People of either group can be Sufi. I’m trying to think up something in the way of a Christian equivalent but I’m stumped.
The Druze are different from the Sikh, as they directly grew out of the Ismailis: their god al-Hakim was the spiritual guide of almost all Ismalis from his time to the present. Sort of like Mormonism in Christianity (or better, out of Christianity. Hosemonkey, that’s especially for you).Also Kadaveri is right, the Druze are a distinct religion. Just because they seem to have some Islamic practices it doesn’t make them Muslim. The Sikhs were also influenced by Islam, but calling a Sikh a Muslim could land you in a spot of trouble.
Yes but just as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are no longer Christians, the same can be said of the Druze with regard to Islam.The Latin orders (Dominicans, Jesuits, etc.) are a perfect comparison, except the Sufis stem from mysticism.
I was going to use monasticism actually, but I didn’t know if anyone would get it, because Islam has no monasticism so I didn’t want to seem as though I was suggesting that
The Druze are different from the Sikh, as they directly grew out of the Ismailis: their god al-Hakim was the spiritual guide of almost all Ismalis from his time to the present. Sort of like Mormonism in Christianity (or better, out of Christianity. Hosemonkey, that’s especially for you).
The difference, we have the Truth of Christianity against which to measure the JW and Mormon claims. As far as the muslims go, I don’t have a dog in that fight.Yes but just as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are no longer Christians, the same can be said of the Druze with regard to Islam.
It’s not a misreading of any Biblical text, it has nothing to do with that.First, the muslims have their own tradition that they have 73 sects (a misreading of the 72 nations of Genesis, the 72 languages of the world, the 72/70 disciples of Christ, etc.).
And hopefully a question…Just responding to a few comments here.
I wouldn’t think those examples are comparable. It sounds more like they’re bible-only.They’re usually called Qur’anites.
Again, not a group that can really be called Muslims, seeing as they don’t even accept the very most basic fundamental of faith (the Shahada). I guess it’s comparable to calling someone who didn’t believe that Jesus died for the sins of a mankind a Christian.
Both spam as well?I noticed also Zerinus is to Mormon, as Paarassey is to Ahmadiyya, both seem to be advertizing.
Not really, because the Bible isn’t really the Christian equivalent of the Qur’an. A more accurate way to think of is it is that the Qur’an in Islam is what the words of Jesus are in Christianity, and the Hadith collections in Islam are what the Bible is in Christianity.I wouldn’t think those examples are comparable. It sounds more like they’re bible-only.
They meet the five pillars* criteria don’t they?
*-
1 Shahadah
2 Salah
3 Zakah
4 Sawm
5 Hajj
They still follow the pillarsNot really, because the Bible isn’t really the Christian equivalent of the Qur’an. A more accurate way to think of is it is that the Qur’an in Islam is what the words of Jesus are in Christianity, and the Hadith collections in Islam are what the Bible is in Christianity.
Yours? You bet.Did you actually read past the first paragraph…?
Actually, thinking of Christ and the Eucharist is what the Quran is in Islam.Not really, because the Bible isn’t really the Christian equivalent of the Qur’an. A more accurate way to think of is it is that the Qur’an in Islam is what the words of Jesus are in Christianity, and the Hadith collections in Islam are what the Bible is in Christianity.
They’re called Protestants, but actually the extreme ones tend to push everything through Paul’s epistles.So basically try and imagine what Christianity would be like if a group rejected all Church Tradition and everything in the Bible except the Gospels.
Many groups (esp. Shi’ites) have a different shahada, many sects do prayer 3x (ex. the Twelvers do the 5 prayers combined in 3x), since you don’t have a caliph (at least widely recognized) who are you giving zaka to? There are many differences on the dating of Ramadan (I’ve been to and heard enough discussion among muslims in the US on this), Ahmadis are not allowed to do hajj by the Saudis, so that gets them off the hook, and other sects differ in their hajj rituals, so the Ahl al-Quran would fit in.They have a different Shahada, they remove the ‘and Muhammad is the Messenger of God’ part. They don’t do Salat like normal Muslims do (3 times a day, for one thing), they give Zakat directly (instead of together) and give it to anyone when that’s besides the point, Ramadan is mostly the same except they date it differently, and the way they do Hajj (not that any of them have ever do it anyway) is completely different.
Actually they’re mentioned in the Quran.So Sawm is the only pillar they really practice. Although I’d also note that since the Five Pillars come from a Hadith anyway and not the Qur’an, they don’t mean much to them.
That’s what I thought!Actually they’re mentioned in the Quran.
There’s plenty of writing by fellow muslims that they are kuffar “infidels.” The Saudi wahhabi’s are very much againsts them, as are many modernists, etc. At times, like the Jesuits, they have been suressed.Just responding to a few comments here.
For Sufis, I think the person who compared them with the Jesuits in Catholicism gave an excellent example in showing how they’re not a separate sect, but the practitioners of a perfectly authentic part of Islam.
They run Yemen. Zaid is NOT their last imam, in fact up until the sixties the imam was the ruler of Yemen. A branch of imams in Mecca converted to sunnism sometime under the Turks, and eventually became the present royal family of Jordan (that of Morroco has a similar origin).The Zaidis are a small sect of the Shi’a who believe a man named Zaid ibn Ali was the last Imam.
Through their imam the agh khan, very conspicious, and a conspicious example of what most muslims claim to be (tolerant, etc.).The Nizari are another small sect of the Shi’a.
Not as irrelevant in history as this might portray, they had several states, of which Oman and the Mzab in Algeria are remnants, and they played a role in the Islamitization of various areas.The Kharijites were a group of people who a few decades after Muhammad’s death made their own theology revolving around sinning cutting someone off from God completely, they’re the people who killed Ali ibn Abi Talib. But apart from that they’re not really important, and they pretty much died out within a century.
So I can tell the MANY muslims who say they are Christians because they believe in Jesus ('azza wa-ta’aalaa) that they aren’t?Alawis claim to be a sect of the Shi’a, but are one of those (very very small) groups whom it’s impossible to really call ‘Muslims’, or you might as well call the Baha’i Christians because they believe in Jesus (as). They have lots of strange and completely heretical beliefs, and reject almost everything that makes Islam what it is (like the Shahada, five times daily prayers, fasting in Ramadan). They’re not Muslims, and their numbers are very few.
Protestants, Evangelicals started out the same way. As they are not shy about calling other muslim belief “kufr” infidelity, they are definitely a sect. Not all salafis, btw, are wahhabi, a name, btw from Saudi Arabia, not the West.But concerning Sunni Muslims (who comprise about 90% of Muslims worldwide) then there aren’t any sects between them. As explained earlier the Sufis are not a sect, and neither are the Salafis (or Wahabis as they’re sometimes known in the West), they’re a *movement *within Sunni Islam to remove from it innovative practises that have creeped in over the centuries.
The problem is that the Law is the genius of Islam: theology and devotion all go through it. Things in one school that invalidate prayers do not in other schools.And the main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali) are just that, schools of jurisprudence. They’re not different sects at all.
Peace.It’s not a misreading of any Biblical text, it has nothing to do with that.
What Muhammad (pbuh) is saying in this Hadith (the full version is that the Jews will split into 71 sects, the Christians into 72, and the Muslims into 73) is that the Muslims will follow the path of the Christians before them and the Jews before them by breaking their faith up into divisions. The numbers are symbolic, not literal. The numbers 70 and 72 are used to mean ‘many’ in Semitic culture; which is why you’ll find the scriptures of all Abrahamic faiths (or at least those written from a Semitic background) will use those numbers frequently to symbolise things.