Sectarianism in Sunnī Islam

Abstract

Any attempt to understand sectarianism within the Sunnī tradition of Islam will require acknowledging the perceptions of those among the majority of Muslims that have formed Islamic political and religious reality over the centuries into the present time, recognising the tensions between the real and the ideal, and the overriding conflict between the actual (schismatic division) and the perception (an undivided umma). Some may feel that the term ‘sectarian’ does not accurately reflect the reality of Sunnī Islamic divisions.1 Yet an alternative term, such as the Arabic madhhab, poses similar problems as it is generally used to describe the four orthodox schools of law or jurisprudence ( fīqh) in Sunnī Islam. The four Sunnī schools are Ḥanafī, Ḥanbalī, Shāfiʿī, and Mālikī. They are joined by two Shīʿa schools, Jaʿfarī and Zaydī. These schools are predominantly regional and rule over questions of religious law and as such they cannot be described as ‘sects’. The same reasoning applies to the early historical theological schools (kalām). They were more a scholarly exercise in theological questions, undertaken to correct or reassure those that doubted. Majid Fakhry defines kalām as an attempt to grapple with complex issues arising out of the Qurʾān’s understanding of God and creation; for example, free will, predestination, the eternal as opposed to the temporal reality of the Qurʾān as Word of God (Fakhry 1983: xvii–xviii). It is true that although Ilm al-Kalām is not so much a sectarian activity, various divisions within both Sunnī and Shīʿa Islam may favour one interpretation over another.2 Most difficult perhaps is the notion that ‘sectarianness’ problematises the ideal of an undivided umma which remains a key element in the Islamic imagined community (Anderson 1991). A vision of non-sectarianism has often been used as a