Shi'a Islam

Origins

The historical origins of the Shi'ite movement are difficult to reconstruct with certainty because of the unfair presentation of its beginnings by the Sunnī historians. Modern Western scholars, depending solely on Sunnī sources, have generally dismissed Shi'ism as a heterodoxy, having deviated from the majority Sunnī orthodoxy. Accordingly, the Shi'i appear as followers of a political claimant, who, having failed to establish an ideal rule, was gradually transformed into a religious figurehead. An objective reading of these tendentious sources in light of the Shi'ite accounts of their origins provide a different estimation of the Shi'ite minority, oppositional movement.

Muhammad's message, as embodied in the Qur'an, provided immense spiritual as well as sociopolitical impetus for the establishment of the ideal community of Islam. Muhammad himself was not only the founder of a new religion but also the custodian of a new social order. Consequently, the question of leadership was the crucial issue, which divided Muslims into various factions in the years following his death. The early years of Islamic history were characterized by a constant succession of victories of the Muslim army under the first three caliphs. But as this period reached its end and the civil wars broke out under ‘Uthman, the third caliph, contention arose over the necessity of a qualified leadership to assume the office of imam. Most of these early discussions on the leadership took, at first sight, political form, but eventually, the debates encompassed the religious connection between the divine guidance and the creation of the Islamic world order. These debates also marked the inevitable interdependence between the religious and the political in Islam. The rise of some prominent descendants of ‘Ali as messianic savior (al-mahdi) and the sympathetic, even enthusiastic, following that they attracted shows the tension that was felt in the awareness that the Islamic ideal lacked actualization in the external [Page 1164]world and that it was the divinely guided Mahdi who could and would establish an ideal, just society. Such expectations put the legitimacy of the Sunnī caliphate in question, and the conflict between the ‘Alids and their opponents assumed a religious-theological dimension apart from the political one.

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