Kharijites (Ibadis, Azraqites, Najdis, etc.)
Adherents and distribution.
Today, the Kharijites are found mainly in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. In the Sultanate of Oman, the Ibadis, one of the Kharijite movements, are predominant among local Muslims.
Name.
In Arabic, “Kharijite” (خوارج) is translated as “left, gone out.” This is due to the fact that it was the Kharijites who became the first religious group to openly dissociate themselves from traditional Islam.
History of origin.
All Kharijites trace their origins to the soldiers of Caliph Ali, who rebelled after he concluded a truce with the Umayyad caliphs. As a result, Caliph Ali ibn Talib was killed, and the rebels created their own state in the south of modern Iraq. Subsequently, the Kharijites divided into several movements - Ibadis, Muhakkimits, Azraqites, Najdis, etc.
Ideology and customs.
In general, the religious ideology of the Kharijites does not contradict the Sunni one. The difference is that they recognize only the first two caliphs as righteous. They generally consider the cousin of the prophet Ali ibn Talib, revered by both Sunnis and Shiites, to be an apostate. The most militant directions of Kharijism (Azraqites and Najdis) practice methods of killing political and spiritual opponents, which, in their opinion, goes back to the murder of Caliph Ali by the first Kharijites.
Salafis
It is one of the most radical movements in Sunnism. His followers actively advocate “pure Islam” and the fight against “infidels,” to whom they traditionally classify their opponents and within the Muslim community. The concept of Salafism is very vague: in the broadest sense, it is a general name for all fundamentalist directions of Sunnism.
Adherents and distribution.
Salafism in its pure form is most widespread in the Middle East - in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Gaza and Syria. In Russia, the peak of intensification of the Salafi movement occurred during the years of the conflict in Chechnya (1994 – 2009). The number of its supporters in the world increased significantly at the beginning of the third millennium, which is manifested in the activation of a number of radical religious and political organizations ideologically closely associated with Salafism: Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, Hamas, etc.
Name.
Salafiya (سلفية) is translated from Arabic as “ancestors,” which refers to their struggle to return to the “faith of their righteous ancestors.”
History of origin.
The ideas of Salafism, as calls for the return of “pure Islam,” can be seen back at the end of the 7th century, during a time of great split in the Muslim ummah (community). In the 18th and 19th centuries, the ideas of Salafism were adopted by fighters for the national liberation of Arabs from European and Turkish expansion. The original, “uncorrupted” faith of the ancestors was propagated by the Salafis as the basis for the victories of the armies of the “righteous caliphs” over their enemies.
But in general, Salafis were quite lenient towards the religious characteristics of various movements of Islam. During the persecution by the authorities, many Salafist preachers were forced to flee to the homeland of the prophet - Saudi Arabia. As a result, Salafia became closely intertwined with the prevailing Wahhabism there, absorbing many of its radical positions, turning into a rather extremist and irreconcilable movement.
Ideology and customs.
The main principle on which Salafia is based is tahiud - belief in one God. Tahiud is briefly expressed by the saying “There is no God but Allah.” The main area of activity of Salafis is the struggle to cleanse the faith from various innovations. True Islam for them is the faith that existed during the time of Muhammad and the four “righteous caliphs.” However, Salafis call all other layers and traditions “bidah” - heresy.
Thus, Salafia prohibits pilgrimages to the graves of Muslim saints, including the mausoleum of Muhammad, justifying this as a revival of the cult of the dead. In Salafia, it is forbidden to make prayers or requests for intercession to the prophet or other saints, since “everything on earth is the will of Allah,” and only he is given the power to control a person’s destiny. Salafis have a negative attitude towards any Muslim philosophical or legal schools, considering them attempts to rethink and distort the provisions of the Koran.
For example, Salafis have an extremely negative attitude towards the attempts of Sufis to comprehend the Koran and Sunnah philosophically. Meanwhile, Salafia is not a homogeneous movement. Within it there are both fundamentalist organizations operating using terror methods, and peace-loving movements that deny any violence. Among the followers of the peaceful struggle for the purity of Islam, through preaching and persuasion, are Salafist purists.
Shiites
Adherents and distribution.
Shiism is the second most important and numerous branch of Islam. The number of followers of Shiism is about 150 million people (10% of all Muslims). This trend is followed by the majority of believers in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain. A third of the residents of Lebanon and Kuwait, Yemen and 1/5 of the residents of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia profess Shiism. Among Shiite organizations, the most famous in the world is Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group actively involved in conflicts in the Middle East (Arab-Israeli conflicts, civil war in Lebanon and Syria).
Name.
Translated from Arabic, “shi-a” ( ) means “follower, adherent.” This means the Shiites’ conviction that their path of following the faith is the only correct one. Another version says that the Shiites received this name for the support they provided to the prophet’s cousin, Caliph Ali, in his war with the Umayyad caliphs (supporters of Sunnism).
History of appearance.
The emergence of Shiism is attributed to the period of the “great schism” of the united Muslim ummah (community) at the end of the 7th century. As a result, Islam split into several movements, one of which was Shiism. During the internal strife, part of the ummah, the future Shiites, sided with Ali, the last of the “righteous caliphs.”
Ideology and customs.
Unlike the Sunnis, the Shiites recognize Ali abu Talib, the cousin and companion of the prophet, as the only righteous caliph. His descendants, the imams, are considered his only legitimate spiritual heirs. This is another difference between Shiites and Sunnis: Sunnis believe that the position of caliph is elected from the most righteous followers of the faith, while in Shiism, the rank of imam can only be inherited by a man from the clan of Ali.
Imams in this tradition are considered intermediaries between Allah and believers. The ideology of Shiism is based on five main tenets of faith: tawhid (monotheism), adl (belief in divine justice), nabuwwat (belief in Islamic prophets), imamat (belief in the righteousness of the 12 imams) and maad (belief in the afterlife).
A feature of Shiism is the belief in the twelfth imam from the Ali family - the prophet Mahdi, who left our world at the age of five and must appear again before the end of the world in the form of the messiah. Otherwise, like Sunnis, they revere the Koran and the common Muslim shrines in Mecca and Medina. But along with this, places associated with 12 righteous imams (Karbala, Najaf, Mashhad, etc.) are revered as shrines. From the time of persecution of Shiism, the principle of “hiding the faith” has been preserved, according to which a believer, in order to save his life, can outwardly renounce his beliefs, while remaining a Shiite in his soul.
Shiism, in turn, splits into several movements, the main of which are the Isna'Sharites (Twelvers). Other smaller communities include Alawites, Druze, Ismailis, and Zaydis.
