Shiite Religious Hierarchy

Islam is one of the major religions in the globe. As every religion has its own subsections, the religion of Islam is not an exceptional from forming its sub sects. Sunnis and Shiites are the major sub divisions in Islamic religion, among them Sunnis occupy more than 80% of the Islamic population, and Shiites are not more than 20%. Shiite is the second major division of Islam religion. The origin of began from the influence of a political movement where Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali gained support to become the next leader of the Islamic country. It was due to Muhammad’s suspected tendency towards Ali. Those who followed Ali were called as Shi at Ali, which means supporters of Ali, this later came to be known as Shiites. However, there existed many differences between the religious beliefs of Sunnis and Shiites.

Ali, the Prime head of Shiite’s Hierarchy

Ali, then was considered as Imam, which indicates the leadership of the community.

Imam

As far as religious beliefs of the Shiites are concerned, an Imam is one who has blood relations to the Prophet Muhammad. After Ali, his sons took hold of the leadership.

Descendants in the Shiites’ religious hierarchy

In the Shiite religious Hierarchy the Imams remained the supreme authorities who in turn took care of the political as well as spiritual concerns of Islam. Ali’s second son Hussein was sacrificed by Sunni followers in 680 and the tenth day of Muharram during every year is marked as a remembrance of Hussein.

Some of the various forms of Shiism or Shiite’s religion which continued with Shiite’s religious hierarchy are

Twelver Shiism- Those who follow this train believed the successive imams from Ali to have been divinely appointed by God. This trait is commonly found in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain. They also believed that the twelfth Imam will come back and lead the community.

Sevener or Ismaili Sevener- Those who believed Ali as the first and foremost righteous Imam, and did not had faith on his successors. This community then accepted only five of the seven descendents as Imams.

Zaydis are the group of Shiites who accepted only first five descendents of Ali as Imams. Though they are not majority community, there still remain people following Zaydis in Yemen.

Alawites and Druzes are other forms of Shiites and followed very secret religious practices. They believed in Islam as symbolic representation of faith and not as celebrations.

Druze is another form of Shiite religious community who believed all the customs of the mainstream Shiites.

Historical revelations say that those who followed Ali and believed him to the direct descendent of the Prophet. While majority of the Muslims believe in the existence of Allah as the prime God, who implements the revelations through Prophet. At present the major terrorist groups like Al Qaida, is believed to be a descendent of Shiites.