A question from one of our friends in the channel. Please answer.
Hello, Doctor. Please list all the sects and schools that have emerged within Islam. For example, Sunni and Shia: how many sub-branches did the Sunnis divide into, and how many sects did the Shia divide into—for instance, the Twelvers and the Seveners?
Are the Ismailis, all the spiritual lineages, and the Sufis also considered Shia? What about the Murjiʾa and the Naqliyya?
Do the school of Tafkik and the philosophers also count as Shia? And which of the four Sunni schools is closest to the Shia and their way of thinking: the Malikis, Hanafis, Hanbalis, or Shafiʿis? Why don’t these schools—some of whose founders were contemporaries of Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq or his students—accept our six Imams? I mean figures such as Abu Hanifa. What is the difference between “compassionate Islam,” Twelver Islam, and Sunni Islam?
Today we also have “British Shia Islam,” Wahhabi Sunni Islam, Qadiani Islam, the Ahmadiyya sect, the Yemeni sect, the Basri sect (Ahmad al-Hasan al-Basri), the Shirazi sect, and the clerical faction represented by Yasir al-Habib—the Afghan one—as well as Khayrallahi. What are their ways of thinking, how do their outlooks differ, and what are their intellectual sources?
Finally, how many sects and schools have branched off from Islam so far, among both Sunnis and Shia? Please give a detailed account, naming them and offering examples of their ideas and identifying their leaders.
And finally, what kind of Islam do the dervishes accept—the Niʿmatullahi, Gonabadi, Dehlavi, and other dervish orders? And what sect does Aga Khan, the 57th Imam, belong to? What connections does he have with America, Israel, and Britain?
َّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ