Does the Islamic faith have splintered groups like the so-called Christians?

Sure does.

"so-called Christians". Man, that sounds kind of weak compared to "Islamic faith".

The major split in Islam came rather early between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites. Sunni derives from sunna, an ancient Arabic word which can be roughly translated as modus vivendi. The Sunnis were those who considered that Muslims could live among people who weren't pagans (i.e., among Jews and Christians), although those people would suffer penalties, such as taxes not levied on Muslims and a prohibition on holding public office.

The Shi'ites are followers of the second largest loosely described group of Muslims. The term comes from Shīʻatu ʻAlī , which means the followers of Ali, or the party of Ali. Ali was the cousin and the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, having married his daughter Fatima. Ali was also the great Holy Warrior of Islam in the early years after the death of the Prophet, and lead the conquest of Persia. Shi'ites consider Ali to have been the rightful successor to Mohammed, and the first divinely inspired imam.

But neither Sunnis nor Shi'ites are unitary groups. For Sunnis, an imam is a religious leader, one who leads prayer services and who delivers a sermon at Friday services. While a Sunni imam may be influential in his community, being an imam does not necessarily make him a community leader.

Imam has an entirely different meaning among Shi'ites. To them, an imam is not simply a spiritual leader, but a community leader as well. An imam will only have authority to the extent that the ulama accept that authority. (An alim is a righteous man, ulama is the plural of alim; the ulama are the non-clerical moral authority in a Muslim community.)

For Shi'ites, the imam has an even more important meaning. Ali is considered to have been the first "true" imam, meaning that he was free of sin, and spoke with divinely inspired authority. The major sect of Shi'ites are the "Twelver" Shi'ites, who claim that there will be twelve perfect imams, who are ismah, that is, infallible when speaking of religious matters, as being divinely inspired. Even among the Twelvers, there is a split. The Ismaili Shi'ites disagree with "orthodox" Twelvers about the succession of imams. Seen by outsiders as a sect of the Twelvers, the "orthodox" Twelvers see the Ismaili as being somewhat heretical. Some Twelvers (not many, fortunately for peace among Muslims) don't even consider them Muslims because of their disagreements.

Persia (Iran) is the home of the Shia, and the overwhelming majorityof Persian Shi'ites are Twelvers, of the "orthodox" variety--that is, those who agree on the succession of imams, disagreeing with the Ismailis. But it's more complicated than that. The second largest group of Shi'ites, larger than the Ismaili are the Sevener Shi'ites. The Twelvers believe that when there have been twelve perfect, ismah imams, Ali will return to earth to lead the faithful to Paradise. The seveners believe that this will happen when there will have been seven ismah imams. As one can imagine, there is a good deal of room for dispute over who the perfect, divinely appointed, ismah imams have been.

Outside Iran, the largest Shi'ite community is in Iraq, and they are overwhelmingly Twelver Shi'ites, as well as the guardians of many holy places revered by Shi'ites. In the Lebanon, the largest single religious group are the Muslims (the Lebanon has has a welter of Christian and Muslim sects). Of them, about 90% are Shi'ites. Of those Shi'ites, about 70% are Twelver, and the rest are mostly Seveners. Hezbollah ("the party of God") was set up by Persians of the Revolutionary Guard; it is a Twelver organization and it receives literally hundreds of millions of dollars in support from Iran.

There was once another Shi'ite group, the Fatamids, named after Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet and the wife of Ali. At one time, they ruled most of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic ocean. However, they were deposed by the Ayyubid dynasty, basically by Saladin, and fell into decline. Most Muslims in North Africa are Sunni. The Fatamids survive mostly in Yemen. The other Fatamid Shi'ites became the Ismaili Shi'ites, and the Aga Khan is their spiritual leader and temporal leader. The Aga Khans have become incredibly rich, and the current Aga Khan (who has held his position since 1957) controls one of the largest private development coporations in the world.

Another group who emerged from the Ismailis are the Druze. They are like the Unitarians of the Muslim world. They are found primarily in the Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. They were allies of the Israelis in the 1947-48 war, and are despised by many other Muslims. Because they blend Jewish, Christian and Neoplatonic ideas into their religion, most Muslim don't consier the Druze to be Muslims at all.

It doesn't stop there, though. The Sunnis are no more unitary than the Shi'ites. Probably the most prominent Sunni group in our world are the Wahhabis. Although they prefer to be known as Salafis, the most well-known is the ultra-conservative sect known to the world as the Wahhabis. Osama bin Laden was a Wahhabi. They believe that they have returned Islam to it's original, pure form--although many of their ideas, especially their social ideas, derive from the non-religious, ethnic tradition of the Bedu of Arabia, and result in various interpretations in the relegation of women to a second class role, the sexual mutilation of girls and the imposition of the burqa. The majority of the people of Saudi Arabia are Salafi Sunnis of one sort or the other, and those whom the rest of the world calls Wahhabis have the moral authority. Wahhabis or Salafis are also an important group in Yemen and Oman.

It is harder to identify sects among the Sunnis because of the very nature of Sunni Islam. It is called Sunni becuase the Companions of the Prophet who pomoted Sunni Islam in the first Caliphate were, within the limits of their religious understanding, tolerant. They did not tolerate pagans, but they tolerated Jews and Chrisitians, and were willing to tolerate a good deal of variation in the practice of Sunni Islam.

I don't know where you came up with your 30,000 number for Christian sects, but i consider the number suspect. However, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that as with all major religions, there are many different flavors of Muslims.

A Moslem friend of mine described the split as the difference between a system and a male heir. When Mohammad died he left no male heir, so a series of religious leaders took over. When Mohammad's daughter gave birth to a son, the Shia thought he should be the leader, and the Sunni wanted to stick with the old system.

He was drunk when he told me this, not all Moslems are teetotal.

My aunt was in Afhanistan in the early 1960s, when they still had a King and before their 50 year long civil and foreign war began. She said nobody liked flying the national airline because you could see the pilots in the VIP lounge getting drunk before they took off.

My friend was Somali, he didn't come to the UK until he was 30. He had never had a drink before he came here. When he was sober he was a really nice guy. He was quite good company after a pint. After two pints he went crazy, honestly, like something out of the old cowboy films when the Indians got drunk. I have never known anyone get so drunk so quickly.

In the end the pub refused to serve him any alcohol at all, and this was a rough old boozer as well.

A couple of Somali girls who got drunk and started fighting with other girls in the street in Leicester recently got let off lightly by the judge because he said they weren't used to the booze.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d04_1323228347

Hey, it's almost St. Patrick's Day. Let's not be talking negative about a little refreshment.

You've just missed St. David's day.

Never heard of it?

We were talking about Britain. You mentioned the patron Saint of Ireland which is not part of Britain. St David is the patron saint of Wales which is part of Britain. 1st March btw.

He was promoting the Irishmen as drunkards stereotype, too. Foofie is a racist bigot, in case you hadn't yet figured that out. It appears that St. David and St. Andrew had their bailiwicks longer than the others. The hooplah associated with St. Patrick is relatively recent. St. George as patron saint of the English only dates back to about the beginning of the Hundred Years War. It helped to have a battle cry to compete with the French St. Denis, Montjoie!. It was also useful because the archers and men at arms could wear a white jupon with a red cross on it, which lessened confusion in battle, and was also the symbol of the crusader. Arrogant bastards, those Angle-ish.

Wasn't St. Patrick born in Bononia/ Bonauen (aka Boulogne-sur-mer) in Armouric Gaul (aka France)?

No, it was because he killed a dragon.

I figured that out a long time ago which is why RL's question was so funny.

Could be--i do not consider myself an expert on the boy. It's a lead pipe cinch, though, that he wasn't an Irishman.

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Izzy, "St." George was, allegedly, a Roman soldier martyred for being a christian. The killing the dragon schtick was from the iconography of the Orthodox church, and is representative of Satan and the Roman Empire. It all gets a little out of hand because of the literal minded among us.

No, he killed a dragon. Dragon Hill Berkshire to be specific, from Thomas Hughes Scouring of the White Horse 1859





Early photograph taken with pinhole camera.

The alleged "St." George was one of the members of the bodyguard of Diocletian. I feel that i can state with confidence that Diocletian was never in Berkshire--and likely never in England at all.

How do you explain the hill?