The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Sunni Islam S 433

designated his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, to be the leader of the Muslim community. Leadership of the community should then have passed down to descendants of Muhammad and Ali. Shi’ite Muslims know these descendants as their imams. Sunni Muslims took a very different approach. They maintain that the prophet Muhammad died without designating a successor. Instead, he indi cated that the community should itself come to a consensus on who would lead it. The commu nity chose in succession four leaders called the “rightly guided caliphs.” After them, several dynas ties claimed the caliphate (rule over the Islamic world), among them the Umayyads of Damascus (ruled, 661–750, in Spain until 1031), the Abbasids of Baghdad (ruled 750–1258), and the Fatimids of Egypt (ruled 909–1171). The caliphate was abol ished when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Shi’ites expected their imams to be both politi cal and religious leaders, but Sunnis assigned to the caliphs only the political role of preserving unity, law, and order. Caliphs protected the com munity against threats from abroad and disorder from within. Sunnis assigned to religious scholars the task of preserving and applying the revelation given through Muhammad. These scholars, known as the ulama or the “educated,” work in harmony with the political authorities. They serve as judges and legal consultants, teachers, prayer leaders, and in other positions as well. Members of the Sunni ulama belong to one of four different legal schools. The Hanafi school, founded by Abu Hanifah (699–797), is dominant in the Near East and in south Asia. The Maliki school, founded by Malik ibn Anas (715–795), is dominant in north and west Africa. The Shafi’i school of Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi’i (d. 820) is dominant in east Africa and southeast Asia. The Hanbali school of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780–855) is very small. Today it is mostly found in central Saudi Arabia. All of these schools use several sources to determine what Muslims should do: the Qur’an, the Hadith of the prophet, the consensus of legal scholars, and reasoning by analogy. According to

Sun and religion, the The religious role and sig nificance of the Sun. The source of the Earth’s light and heat, and the most prominent feature of the unclouded daytime sky, the Sun has had an impor tant role in religion. It is a natural as a god or sym bol of light, day, sovereignty, and consciousness. Many ancient sacred kings have claimed descent from the Sun, including those of Egypt, Japan, and the Incas. While the Moon is no less impor tant in ancient mythologies, it represents changing and cyclical things, together with rain and fertil ity, while the Sun is steadiness and power, like the Sol Invictus, the “Invincible Sun” of an ancient Roman cult. Often the Sun is masculine, though sometimes, as in the case of the Japanese Amat erasu, it is associated with a goddess. In the major historical religions, the Sun may continue to have a symbolic meaning. In C HRISTIANITY it has been associated with C HRIST , and C HRISTMAS , his birth day, was earlier the birthday of both Sol Invictus and the god M ITHRA . See also M OON AND RELIGION , THE . Sunni Islam The branch of I SLAM to which the vast majority of Muslims belong. Islam has two main branches. About 15 percent of all Muslims practice S HI ’ ITE I SLAM . They live throughout the Islamic world, but especially in Iran, Iraq, Leba non, and Yemen. Most of the remaining Muslims are Sunnis. The name “Sunni Islam” comes from the Ara bic word sunnah. It means “tradition” or “cus tom.” In Arabia before the time of the prophet M UHAMMAD , sunnah referred to the tradition and customs of each tribal group. Islam replaced those customs with a sunnah of its own. Actually, Sunni and Shi’ite Islam each have their sunnah or cus toms. Each also traces this sunnah back to the same two sources. One is the Q UR ’ AN . The other is the example of the prophet ( see H ADITH ) and, for Shi’ite Islam, of its IMAMS . Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims have much in com mon. They disagree, however, on how the commu nity of Islam should have been organized. Shi’ite Muslims maintain that the prophet Muhammad