Sunni Religious Hierarchy

Sunni community is the first largest Muslim sub sect in the world. Sunni religious hierarchy has their own religious beliefs; they are in many ways similar as well as different from that of Shiites. The general theological beliefs which both the Sunnis and Shiites share are

• Allah- the supreme power equal to God and the general belief that Prophet Muhammad as the direct messenger of Allah, the Muslim God
• Prophet- was considered a direct messenger of Allah .They obey the customs and revelations forwarded by the Prophet
• Quran-The revelations of the Prophet are from Quran and the Prophet should abide the rules of the Quran
• Basic Fundamental Concept- Belief in fundamental concepts like obliging goodness, justice and obedience to Allah.

However, in general all the Muslims have to abide by the Prophet’s revelations like

• Belief in Allah , not in God
• Salat- Five times to pray per day
• Zatak-helping the needy
• Swam- Strict fasting from morning to evening during the whole month of Ramadan
• Hajj- a compulsory pilgrimage to Mecca in a lifetime.

Based on the above five general obligations, Muslim community is classified. Sunni Muslims are the ones who believe in the first four revelations. Apart from that they also believed in Ali since he followed the Prophet. According to them an Imam is a person who should abide the communal harmony within the political frame and also possess all sorts of merits a leader should have.

Throughout the Muslim history one can identify clearly that the whole Sunni community obliges to the same beliefs and never shown any sort of distrust towards their norms and conditions. They strongly had faith in the status that the position of Prophet can be attained by personality who is qualified to the norms mentioned in Quran. Hence, their religious hierarchy does not have any sub divisions or branches like Shiites. They are more down to earth and allow even lay persons to take the opportunity of preaching them.

The Sunni religious hierarchy had four main schools which interpreted the legal decisions for the Muslims. They are

• Hanafi- Founded by Abu Hanifa in 767 AD and practiced in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, and Bngaladesh.
• Maliki- Founded by Malik Ibn Anas in 795 Ad and practiced in places like North Africa, Mauritanis , Kuwait and Bahrain
• Shafi- Founded by Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi in 819 AD widespread in places like Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, Malaysia, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
• Hanbali- founded by Ahmad Hanbal in 855 AD and widespread in places like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Parts of Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.
• Wahhabism is a remarkable movement in Islamic Puritanism of the present century. Abd al Wahhab who insisted on strict and orthodox practice of Islam as instructed in Quran. During 18^th century Muhammad ibn Saud made an alliance with Abd al-Wahhab and succeeded in uniting the minority tribes of Arabian Peninsula, This resulted in a close relationship between Saudi region and Wahhabi beliefs.