Muhammad was the leader and founder of the religion Islam, which worships the
god named Allah. There are many different sects of this religion, one of which is Sunni
Islam. This sect gets its name from the word Sunnah, meaning example, referring to the
acts of the prophet Muhammad. The Sunni tradition is based on following the shari'a,
which is the Islamic law. Through many years, Islam has changed in many ways, greatly
effected by Sunni influence. These changes continue even today in our own century,
molding Islam into the religion that it has become.
The Shari'a, or Islamic law, is a complete legal system that governs every aspect
of individual and social life, and originates from the lessons in the Koran. The Madhhab,
or schools of thought, that set up the legal framework in Sunni Islam were the Hanafi,
Shafai'I, Maliki, and Hanibali. Some of the important principals which govern the Sunni
tradition speak of such teachings as; the following of what the Koran says, everything
occurs according to a divine plan, and, "The prophet and his revelation are of foremost
authority" (Philtar, 1). The hadith, which contains a collection of saying and acts of
Muhammad and the first Muslims, is also used as a reference of Islamic law. Also, Sunni
Islam demands, if able to, make the hajj, or, pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their
Mohammed's death in 632 a.d. led to a struggle for power in the religion. The
Muslim world was split into many different sects, mainly divided by a dispute over
leadership. Sunni, the "main group in Islam, making up ninety percent of the religion's
adherents"(Kjeilen, 2), believed that the leader, called the Caliph, should be appointed
through the consensus of the community. They now were the backbone of Islam. The
other major group, Shi'a, believe that Mohammed&apos
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