Islamic schools and branches

Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Sunnī Islam, there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, different schools of theology (Atharī, Ashʿarī, Māturīdī) and jurisprudence (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī). Groups in Islam may be numerous (Sunnīs make up 87-90% of all Muslims), or relatively small in size (Ibadis, Ismāʿīlīs, Zaydīs).

Differences between the groups may not be well known to Muslims outside of scholarly circles, or may have induced enough passion to have resulted in political and religious violence (Barelvism, Deobandism, Salafism, Wahhabism). There are informal movements driven by ideas (such as Islamic modernism and Islamism), as well as organized groups with governing bodies (such as Nation of Islam). Some of the Islamic sects and groups regard certain others as deviant or not being truly Muslim (for example, Sunnīs frequently discriminate against Ahmadiyya, Alawites, Quranists, and sometimes Shīʿas). From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims. to the extent that the term "Shīʿa" frequently refers to Twelvers by default. All mainstream Twelver and Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa Muslims follow the same school of thought, the Jaʽfari jurisprudence, named after Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth Shīʿīte Imam.

Zaydīs, also known as Fivers, follow the Zaydī school of thought (named after Zayd ibn ʿAlī). Ismāʿīlīsm is another offshoot of Shīʿa Islam that later split into Nizārī and Musta'lī, and the Musta'lī further divided into Ḥāfiẓi and Ṭayyibi. Ṭayyibi Ismāʿīlīs, also known as "Bohras", are split between Dawudi Bohras, Sulaymani Bohras, and Alavi Bohras.

Similarly, Kharijites were initially divided into five major branches: Sufris, Azariqa, Najdat, Adjarites, and Ibadis. Of these, Ibadi Muslims are the only surviving branch of Kharijites. In addition to the aforementioned groups, new schools of thought and movements like Ahmadi Muslims, Quranist Muslims, and African-American Muslims later emerged independently.

Muslims who do not belong to, do not self-identify with, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches are known as non-denominational Muslims.

Main branches or denominations

thumb|Geographical distribution of the main Islamic branches and their schools of jurisprudence

Sunnī Islam

Sunnī Islam, also known as Ahl as-Sunnah waʾl Jamāʾah or simply Ahl as-Sunnah, is by far the largest denomination of Islam, comprising around 87-90% of the Muslim population in the world. The term Sunnī comes from the word sunnah, which means the teachings, actions, and examples of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his companions (ṣaḥāba).

Sunnīs believe that Muhammad did not specifically appoint a successor to lead the Muslim community (Ummah) before his death in 632 CE, however they approve of the private election of the first companion, Abū Bakr. Sunnī Muslims regard the first four caliphs—Abū Bakr (632–634), ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Umar І, 634–644), ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (644–656), and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (656–661)—as al-Khulafāʾ ur-Rāshidūn ("the Rightly-Guided Caliphs"). Sunnīs also believe that the position of caliph may be attained democratically, on gaining a majority of the votes, but after the Rashidun, the position turned into a hereditary dynastic rule because of the divisions started by the Umayyads and others. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, there has never been another caliph as widely recognized in the Muslim world.

Followers of the classical Sunnī schools of jurisprudence and kalām (rationalistic theology) on one hand, and Islamists and Salafists such as Wahhabis and Ahle Hadith, who follow a literalist reading of early Islamic sources, on the other, have laid competing claims to represent the "orthodox" Sunnī Islam. Anglophone Islamic currents of the former type are sometimes referred to as "traditional Islam". Islamic modernism is an offshoot of the Salafi movement that tried to integrate modernism into Islam by being partially influenced by modern-day attempts to revive the ideas of the Muʿtazila school by Islamic scholars such as Muhammad Abduh.

Shīʿa Islam

Shīʿa Islam is the second-largest denomination of Islam, comprising around 10–13% of the total Muslim population. Although a minority in the Muslim world, Shīʿa Muslims constitute the majority of the Muslim populations in Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan, as well as significant minorities in Syria, Turkey, South Asia, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, as well as in other parts of the Persian Gulf.

In addition to believing in the supreme authority of the Quran and teachings of Muhammad, Shīʿa Muslims believe that Muhammad's family, the Ahl al-Bayt ("People of the Household"), including his descendants known as Imams, have distinguished spiritual and political authority over the community, and believe that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, was the first of these Imams and the rightful successor to Muhammad, and thus reject the legitimacy of the first three Rāshidūn caliphs.

Major sub-denominations

The Twelvers believe in the Twelve Shīʿīte Imams and are the only school to comply with the Hadith of the Twelve Successors, where Muhammad stated that he would have twelve successors. This sometimes includes the Alevi and Bektashi schools.
The Isma'ili are an esoteric Shīʿīte branch that accept Isma'il ibn Jafar as the sixth Imam. Their thought is heavily influenced by philosophy of Neoplatonism. Isma'ilism includes the Nizārī, Sevener, Musta‘lī, Dawudi Bohra, Hebtiahs Bohra, Sulaymani Bohra, and Alavi Bohra sub-denominations.
The Zaydīs historically derive from the followers of Zayd ibn ʿAlī. In the modern era, they "survive only in northern Yemen". Although they are a Shīʿa sect, "in modern times" they have "shown a strong tendency to move towards the Sunni mainstream".

The Alawites—a distinct Arab ethno-religious group—is the only ghulat sect still in existence today. Their movement was developed between the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Historically, Twelver Shīʿīte scholars such as Shaykh Tusi did not consider Alawites Shīʿa Muslims while condemning their beliefs, perceived as heretical. The medieval Sunnī Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyyah also pointed out that the Alawites were not Shīʿītes. However, the Sunni Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, issued a fatwa recognizing them as part of the Muslim community in the interest of Arab nationalism. During the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad and his son and successor Bashar al-Assad, Alawites have shown a tendency to move towards the regular Twelver Shīʿa Islam.

Offshoots of Shīʿa Islam

The Ali-Illahis are a distinct syncretic religious movement which has been practiced in parts of the Luristan region in Iran which combines elements of Shīʿa Islam with older religions. It centers on the belief that there have been successive incarnations of the Deity throughout history, and Ali-Illahis reserve particular reverence for ʿAlī who is considered one such incarnation.
The Druze are a distinct monotheistic Abrahamic religion and ethno-religious group that developed in the 11th century CE, originally as an offshoot of Ismāʿīlīsm. The Druze faith further split from Ismāʿīlīsm as it developed its own unique doctrines, and finally separated from both Ismāʿīlīsm and Islam altogether; Thus, the Druze do not identify themselves as Muslims, and are not considered as such by Muslims either (See: Islam and Druze). According to the medieval Sunnī Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, the Druze were not Muslims, neither ′Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), nor mushrikin (polytheists); rather, he labeled them as kuffār (infidels).
The Baháʼí Faith is a distinct monotheistic universal Abrahamic religion that developed in 19th-century Persia, originally derived as a splinter group from Bábism, another distinct monotheistic Abrahamic religion, itself derived from Twelver Shīʿīsm. Baháʼís believe in an utterly transcendent and inaccessible Supreme Creator of the universe, It is an extinct sect, except the Ibadis, whose roots go back to them. Similarly to another Muslim minority, the Zaydīs, "in modern times" they have "shown a strong tendency" to move towards the Sunnī branch of Islam.

In terms of religious creed (ʿaqīdah), Sunnism contains several schools of theology: named after Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth Shīʿīte Imam. The Jaʿfari jurisprudence is further divided into two branches: the Usuli school, which favors the exercise of ijtihad, and the Akhbari school, which holds the traditions (aḵbār) of the Shīʿīte Imams to be the main source of religious knowledge. Minor Shīʿa schools of jurisprudence include the Ismāʿīlī school (Mustaʿlī-Fāṭimid Ṭayyibi Ismāʿīlīs) and the Zaydī school, both of which have closer affinity to Sunnī jurisprudence. Shīʿīte clergymen and jurists usually carry the title of mujtahid (i.e., someone authorized to issue legal opinions in Shīʿa Islam).

Ibadism

The fiqh or jurisprudence of Ibadis is relatively simple. Absolute authority is given to the Quran and ḥadīth literature; new innovations accepted on the basis of qiyas (analogical reasoning) were rejected as bid'ah (heresy) by the Ibadis. That differs from the majority of Sunnīs, but agrees with most Shīʿa schools and with the Ẓāhirī and early Ḥanbalī schools of Sunnism.

Schools of Islamic theology

Aqidah is an Islamic term meaning "creed", doctrine, or article of faith. There have existed many schools of Islamic theology, not all of which survive to the present day. Major themes of theological controversies in Islam have included predestination and free will, the nature of the Quran, the nature of the divine attributes, apparent and esoteric meaning of scripture, and the role of dialectical reasoning in the Islamic doctrine.

Sunnism

Classical

Kalām is the Islamic philosophy of seeking theological principles through dialectic. In Arabic, the word literally means "speech/words". A scholar of kalām is referred to as a mutakallim (Muslim theologian; plural mutakallimūn). There are many schools of Kalam, the main ones being the Ashʿarī and Māturīdī schools in Sunni Islam.

Ashʿarī

Ashʿarīsm is a school of theology founded by Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the 10th century. The Ashʿarīte view was that comprehension of God's unique nature and characteristics was beyond human capability. Ashʿarī theology is considered one of the orthodox creeds of Sunni Islam alongside the Māturīdī theology. The modern Salafi movement associates itself with the Atharī creed.

Muʿtazilism

Muʿtazilite theology originated in the 8th century in Basra when Wasil ibn Ata left the teaching lessons of Hasan al-Basri after a theological dispute. He and his followers expanded on the logic and rationalism of Greek philosophy, seeking to combine them with Islamic doctrines and show that the two were inherently compatible. The Mu'tazilite resolved many theological and philosophical discourse issues, such as whether the Qur'an was created or eternal with God, whether evil was created by God or existed by itself, the problem of destiny versus free will, and whether the Qur'an should be interpreted allegorically or literally. In this regard, Mu'tazila places more emphasis on rationality in answering Islamic theological and philosophical questions.

Murji'ah

Murji'ah was a name for an early politico-religious movement that referred to all those who identified faith (iman) with belief to the exclusion of acts. Originating during the caliphates of Uthman and Ali, Murijites opposed the Kharijites, holding that only God has the authority to judge who is a true Muslim and who is not, and that Muslims should consider all other Muslims as part of the community. Two major Murijite sub-sects were the Karamiya and Sawbaniyya.

Qadariyyah

Qadariyya is an originally derogatory term designating early Islamic theologians who asserted that humans possess free will, whose exercise makes them responsible for their actions, justifying divine punishment and absolving God of responsibility for evil in the world. Some of their doctrines were later adopted by the Mu'tazilis and rejected by the Ash'aris. The term is derived from the Arabic root j-b-r, in the sense which gives the meaning of someone who is forced or coerced by destiny. The Ash'ariyah used the term Jabriyah in the first place to describe the followers of Jahm ibn Safwan, who died in 746, in that they regarded their faith as a middle position between Qadariyah and Jabriya. On the other hand, the Mu'tazilah considered the Ash'ariyah as Jabriyah because, in their opinion, they rejected the orthodox doctrine of free will. The Shiites used the term Jabriyah to describe the Ash'ariyah and Hanbalis.

Jahmiyya

Jahmis were the alleged followers of the early Islamic theologian Jahm bin Safwan who associated himself with Al-Harith ibn Surayj. He was an exponent of extreme determinism according to which a man acts only metaphorically in the same way in which the sun acts or does something when it sets.

Batiniyyah

Bāṭiniyyah is a name given to an allegoristic type of scriptural interpretation developed among some Shia groups, stressing the bāṭin (inward, esoteric) meaning of texts. It has been retained by all branches of Isma'ilism and its Druze offshoot. Alevism, Bektashism and folk religion, Hurufis and Alawites practice a similar system of interpretation.

Sufism

Sufism is Islam's mystical-ascetic dimension and is represented by schools or orders known as Tasawwufī-Ṭarīqah. It is seen as that aspect of Islamic teaching that deals with the purification of the inner self. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use.

The following list contains some notable Sufi orders:

The Azeemiyya order was founded in 1960 by Qalandar Baba Auliya, also known as Syed Muhammad Azeem Barkhia.
The Bektashi order was founded in the 13th century by the Islamic saint Haji Bektash Veli, and greatly influenced during its formative period by the Hurufi Ali al-'Ala in the 15th century and reorganized by Balım Sultan in the 16th century. Because of its adherence to the Twelve Imams, it is classified under Twelver Shia Islam.
The Chishti order () was founded by (Khawaja) Abu Ishaq Shami ("the Syrian"; died 941) who brought Sufism to the town of Chisht, some 95 miles east of Herat in present-day Afghanistan. Before returning to the Levant, Shami initiated, trained, and deputized the son of the local Emir (Khwaja) Abu Ahmad Abdal (died 966). Under the leadership of Abu Ahmad's descendants, the Chishtiyya as they are also known, flourished as a regional mystical order. The founder of the Chishti Order in South Asia was Moinuddin Chishti. The founder of the Chishti Order in South Africa was Hajee Shah Goolam Mohamed Soofie Siddique Chishti Al-Qadiri Habibi or commonly known has Hazrat Soofie Saheb.
The Kubrawiya order was founded in the 13th century by Najmuddin Kubra in Bukhara in modern-day Uzbekistan.
The Mevlevi order is better known in the West as the "whirling dervishes".
Mouride is most prominent in Senegal and The Gambia, with headquarters in the holy city of Touba, Senegal.
The Naqshbandi order was founded in 1380 by Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari. It is considered by some to be a "sober" order known for its silent dhikr (remembrance of God) rather than the vocalized forms of dhikr common in other orders. The Süleymani and Khalidiyya orders are offshoots of the Naqshbandi order.
The Ni'matullahi order is the most widespread Sufi order of Persia today. It was founded by Shah Ni'matullah Wali (d. 1367), established and transformed from his inheritance of the Ma'rufiyyah circle. There are several suborders in existence today, the most known and influential in the West following the lineage of Javad Nurbakhsh, who brought the order to the West following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The Noorbakshia order, also called Nurbakshia, claims to trace its direct spiritual lineage and chain (silsilah) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, through Ali, by way of Ali Al-Ridha. This order became known as Nurbakshi after Shah Syed Muhammad Nurbakhsh Qahistani, who was aligned to the Kubrawiya order.
The Oveysi (or Uwaiysi) order claims to have been founded 1,400 years ago by Uwais al-Qarni from Yemen.
The Qadiri order is among the oldest Sufi Orders. It derives its name from Abdul-Qadir Gilani (1077–1166), a native of the Iranian province of Gīlān. The order is one of the most widespread Sufi orders in the Islamic world, and can be found in Central Asia, Turkey, Balkans, and much of East and West Africa. The Qadiriyyah have not developed any distinctive doctrines or teachings outside mainstream Islam. They believe in the fundamental principles of Islam, but interpret them through mystical experience. The Ba'Alawi order is an offshoot of Qadiriyyah.
Senussi is a religious-political Sufi order established by Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi. As-Senussi founded this movement due to his criticism of the Egyptian ulema.
The Shadhili order was founded by Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili. Followers (murids Arabic: seekers) of the Shadhiliyya are often known as Shadhilis.
The Suhrawardiyya order () is a Sufi order founded by Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi (1097–1168).
The Tijaniyyah order attaches a large importance to culture and education, and emphasizes the individual adhesion of the disciple (murid).

Later movements

African-American movements

Many slaves brought from Africa to the Western Hemisphere were Muslims, and the early 20th century saw the rise of distinct Islamic religious and political movements within the African-American community in the United States, such as Darul Islam, and the Ansaaru Allah Community. They sought to ascribe Islamic heritage to African Americans, thereby giving much emphasis on racial and ethnic aspects (see black nationalism and black separatism). These black Muslim movements often differ greatly in matters of doctrine from mainstream Islam.

Moorish Orthodox Church of America
Nation of Islam, founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad in Detroit in 1930, with a declared aim of "resurrecting" the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of the black man and woman of America and the world. The Nation of Islam doesn't consider the Arabian Muhammad as the final prophet and instead regards Elijah Muhammad, successor of Wallace Fard Muhammad, as the true Messenger of Allah.
Five-Percent Nation Ahmadis claim to practice the pristine form of Islam as followed by Muhammad and his earliest followers. They believe that it was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's task to restore the original sharia given to Muhammad by guiding the Ummah back to the "true" Islam and defeat the attacks on Islam by other religions.

There are a wide variety of distinct beliefs and teachings of Ahmadis compared to those of most other Muslims, interpretation of the Messiah's Second Coming, complete rejection of the abrogation/cancellation of Quranic verses, belief that Jesus survived the crucifixion and died of old age in India, conditions of the "Jihad of the Sword" are no longer met, belief that divine revelation (as long as no new sharia is given) will never end, belief in cyclical nature of history until Muhammad, where they have been branded as Non-Muslims and their Islamic religious practices are punishable by the Ahmadi-Specific laws in the penal code.

The followers of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam are divided into two groups: the first being the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, currently the dominant group, and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam. Muslims from more Orthodox sects of Islam have adopted many Ahmadi polemics and understandings of other religions, along with the Ahmadi approach to reconcile Islamic and Western education as well as to establish Islamic school systems, particularly in Africa.

Barelvi/Deobandi split

Sunni Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, comprising present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are overwhelmingly Hanafi by fiqh and have split into two schools or movements—the Barelvi and the Deobandi. While the Deobandi is revivalist in nature, the Barelvi are more traditional and inclined towards Sufism.

Gülen / Hizmet movement

The Gülen movement, usually referred to as the Hizmet movement, established in the 1970s as an offshoot of the Nur Movement and led by the Turkish Islamic scholar and preacher Fethullah Gülen in Turkey, Central Asia, and in other parts of the world, is active in education, with private schools and universities in over 180 countries as well as with many American charter schools operated by followers. It has initiated forums for interfaith dialogue. The Cemaat movement's structure has been described as a flexible organizational network. Movement schools and businesses organize locally and link themselves into informal networks. Estimates of the number of schools and educational institutions vary widely; it appears there are about 300 Gülen movement schools in Turkey and over 1,000 schools worldwide.

Islamic modernism

Islamic modernism, also sometimes referred to as "modernist Salafism", is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response" attempting to reconcile Islamic faith with modern Western values such as nationalism, democracy, and science.

Islamism

Islamism is a set of political ideologies, derived from various fundamentalist views, which hold that Islam is not only a religion but a political system that should govern the legal, economic, and social imperatives of the state. Many Islamists do not refer to themselves as such; it is not a single particular movement. Religious views and ideologies of its adherents vary, and they may be Sunni Islamists or Shia Islamists depending upon their beliefs. Islamist groups include groups such as Al-Qaeda, the organizer of the September 11, 2001 attacks and perhaps the most prominent; and the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and perhaps the oldest. Although violence is often employed by some organizations, most Islamist movements are nonviolent.

Muslim Brotherhood

The Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun (with Ikhwan brethren) or Muslim Brotherhood, is an organisation that was founded by Egyptian scholar Hassan al-Banna, a graduate of Dar al-Ulum. With its various branches, it is the largest Sunni movement in the Arab world, and an affiliate is often the largest opposition party in many Arab nations. The Muslim Brotherhood is not concerned with theological differences, accepting both Muslims of any of the four Sunni schools of thought and Shi'a Muslims. It is the world's oldest and largest Islamist group. It aims to re-establish the Caliphate and, in the meantime, push for more Islamisation of society. The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and sunnah as the "sole reference point for... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community... and state".

Jamaat-e-Islami

The Jamaat-e-Islami (or JI) is an Islamist political party in the Indian subcontinent. It was founded in Lahore, British India, by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (with alternative spellings of last name Maudoodi) in 1941 and is the oldest religious party in Pakistan. Today, sister organizations with similar objectives and ideological approaches exist in India (Jamaat-e-Islami Hind), Bangladesh (Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh), Kashmir (Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir), and Sri Lanka, and there are "close brotherly relations" with the Islamist movements and missions "working in different continents and countries", particularly those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (Akhwan-al-Muslimeen). The JI envisions an Islamic government in Pakistan and Bangladesh governs by Islamic law. It opposes Westernization—including secularization, capitalism, socialism, or such practices as interest-based banking, and favours an Islamic economic order and Caliphate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir () (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, pan-Islamist political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Islamic ways of life in the Muslim world. The caliphate would unite the Muslim community (Ummah) upon their Islamic creed and implement the Shariah, so as to then carry the proselytizing of Islam to the rest of the world.

Quranism

Quranism or Quraniyya (; al-Qur'āniyya) is a quran only branch of Islam. It holds the belief that Islamic guidance and law should only be based on the Quran, thus opposing the religious authority and authenticity of the hadith literature. Quranists believe that God's message is already clear and complete in the Quran and it can therefore be fully understood without referencing outside texts. Quranists claim that the vast majority of hadith literature are forged lies and believe that the Quran itself criticizes the hadith both in the technical sense and the general sense.

Liberal and progressive Islam

Liberal Islam originally emerged from the Islamic revivalist movement of the 18th–19th centuries. Liberal and progressive Islamic organizations and movements are primarily based in the Western world, and have in common a religious outlook which depends mainly on ijtihad or re-interpretation of the sacred scriptures of Islam. freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion; They follow many aspects of the Sunni doctrine. Zikri Mahdavis, or Zikris, are an offshoot of the Mahdavi movement.

Non-denominational Muslims

"Non-denominational Muslims" () is an umbrella term that has been used for and by Muslims who do not belong to a specific Islamic denomination, do not self-identify with any specific Islamic denomination, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches. A quarter of the world's Muslim population see themselves as "just a Muslim".

Non-denominational Muslims constitute the majority of the Muslim population in seven countries, and a plurality in three others: Albania (65%), Kyrgyzstan (64%), Kosovo (58%), Indonesia (56%), Mali (55%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (54%), Uzbekistan (54%), Azerbaijan (45%), Russia (45%), and Nigeria (42%). Southeastern Europe also has a large number of non-denominational Muslims.

In 1947, the non-sectarian movement was founded in Cairo, Egypt. Several of its supporters were high-ranking scholars of Al-Ahzar University. The movement sought to bridge the gap between Sunnis and Shi'is.

Salafiyya movement

The Salafiyya movement is a conservative, Islahi (reform) movement within Sunni Islam that emerged in the second half of the 19th century and advocate a return to the traditions of the "devout ancestors" (Salaf al-Salih). It has been described as the "fastest-growing Islamic movement"; with each scholar expressing diverse views across social, theological, and political spectrum. Salafis follow a doctrine that can be summed up as taking "a fundamentalist approach to Islam, emulating the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers—al-salaf al-salih, the 'pious forefathers'....They reject religious innovation, or bidʻah, and support the implementation of Sharia (Islamic law)." Most of the violent Islamist groups come from the Salafi-Jihadist movement and their subgroups. In recent years, Jihadi-Salafist doctrines have often been associated with the armed insurgencies of Islamic extremist movements and terrorist organizations targeting innocent civilians, both Muslims and Non-Muslims, such as al-Qaeda, ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh, Boko Haram, etc. a religious preacher from the Najd region in central Arabia, and was instrumental in the rise of the House of Saud to power in the Arabian peninsula. with puritan views, and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf has achieved what the French political scientist Gilles Kepel defined as a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam."

22 months after the September 11 attacks, when the FBI considered al-Qaeda as "the number one terrorist threat to the United States", journalist Stephen Schwartz and U.S. Senator Jon Kyl have explicitly stated during a hearing that occurred in June 2003 before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security of the U.S. Senate that "Wahhabism is the source of the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities in today's world". As part of the global "War on terror", Wahhabism has been accused by the European Parliament, various Western security analysts, and think tanks like the RAND Corporation, as being "a source of global terrorism". Furthermore, Wahhabism has been accused of causing disunity in the Muslim community (Ummah) and criticized for its followers' destruction of many Islamic, cultural, and historical sites associated with the early history of Islam and the first generation of Muslims (Muhammad's family and his companions) in Saudi Arabia.

Population of the branches

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left;"

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left valign=top|Denomination

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Population

| Sunni

| Varies: 87% – 90%

| Non-denominational Muslim

| 25%

| Shia

| Varies: 10% – 13%

| Ibadi

| 2.7 million

| Quranism

| n/a

References

External links

The Four Sunni Schools of Thought