MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. As Islam con stitutes more than a religion and is in reality a combination of religion, politics and jurispru dence — elements which entered into the prob lem in the early centuries and have continued ever since —it is natural that schisms should occur and sects rise and decline from age to age with the varying national and historical conditions. The rise and development of doc trine among the Mohammedans cannot be sepa rated from the rise and development of his torical and national traditions. Many influ ences contributed to the consequent growth of sects and their distinguishing factors. The culture of neighboring lands, their literary and theological atmosphere, was an undeniable fac tor. Both Jewish and Roman law exercised a profound influence and led in time to much con troversy. Just as the Koran illustrates three lines of influence — Christian, Jewish and what we term heathen, the prevalent customs or modes of thought of the peoples among whom they lived were reflected largely in the conceptions of the Mohammedans. Perhaps, too, it was necessary for the faith to assume such charac teristics, to facilitate its diffusion and make its proselytes feel more at home. Here was a fruitful field for the growth of sects. Then must he considered the effect of extended geo graphical divisions. Islam embraced Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, the coast of North Africa, central Asia to China, with Spain in Europe, India and the islands of Malay. What active sources for antagonism and division, what favorable soil for mystic, ascetic, pantheist, rationalist with their ever-varying phases! Then, further, the Semitic races with their tendency to segregation have an innate mili tant spirit that leads if not otherwise checked to fanaticism and the formation of sects. The fact, too, that Islam grew so rapidly and wielded for so many centuries a remarkable sway in science and knowledge intensified the conflict of opinion, often to be decided by the sword within the fold.
The sects at the first glance seem endless from our point of view. An old tradition ascribes to Mohammed the saying that Islam would be divided in time into 73 parties. Arabian writers, with their different classes and divisions, multiply that number several times, the discrepancy being due to the want of system and the lack of a common basis of classification. Sharastani (d. 1153), whose ac count of religious sects and philosophical schools is chief source-book, arranges the sects under six headings: Mu'tazalites, Jabarites, Sifatites, Kharijites, Murpiites and Shiites, upon which a list of a hundred names and more has been founded. Many of these have dis
appeared; four, however, continue to our day over large portions of the world of Islam and stand on the common basis of the sunna or orthodox traditions. These are the Hanafites, the Shafi'tes, the Malikites and the Han falites.
Before discussing more closely the names and history of these sects one must refer to the vital point in Arab law, philosophy and theol ogy — the historical basis of creed and dogma in their widest sense. It was religion trot politics that produced the first schism, which still remains unhealed. The point at dispute is the successor to the prophet and ruler of Islam (Imam). Here we have a sharp division be tween legitimist and illegitimist, orthodox and heterodox, with their endless disputes and antagonisms, more or less clearly enunciated. On the one side are the Sunnites, those who follow the Sunna or tradition to which belong the overwhelming majority; on the other the Shi'ites, from Shia, a party or sect, who con stitute the largest numbers of dissenters. After the battle of Siffin (657) when Ali and Moawiya were rival claimants to the caliphate, and the former lost in the arbitration, the breach was made. The Shi'ites broke away and became the protestants or dissenters, holding that the succession belongs to the house of Mohammed and to Ali as his son-in-law, and ever after to the direct blood relations and descendants in the line of the prophet's daughter Fatima, the wife of Ali. The Shi'ites themselves are divided according to which branch of the descendants they recognize. Its high church or sect of the °Twelvers,)) called also Imamites (they prefer the term Imam to Khalifah) traces its claim to All and transmits from father to son until the 12th Imam, Mo hammed b. Hasan ttul Askari.)) In his eighth year he is said to have vanished and it is held by this sect of “Twelvers" that he has lived since then in secret, to appear at the last day as Imam Mandi! The Fatimites, another branch of the Shi'ites, founded a dynasty of some strength for a time in North Africa and Egypt (909-1171). It can readily he imagined how theories of incarnation have arisen among the Shi'ites in their extravagant reverence for Ali and his wife, who have become almost tutelar deities and endowed with superhuman dignities. It was only a short step to Gnos ticism, which also developed in Islam, due largely to Babylonian and Persian ideas. The present day Druses constitute one of the sects that show the survival of these tendencies.