Sects in Islam- Pixie's Perspective & Experiences

What you must know about me before you accuse me of any bias is that I first encountered Islam in the Sultanate of Oman, where I now happily reside. It is a Gulf country unlike its neighbors, having an Ibadhi majority (you’ve probably never heard of them as they call themselves, but the Sunni and Shia call them the Khawarij after events in Islamic history), and a Sunni population in the Balushi Al Batinah, Arab Sur and African and Arab Salalah [sometimes sufi here] areas of the country, and a Shia minority, mainly located in the capital Mutrah area. Here in Oman, we also have churches for Christians and Hindus. The Ibadhi rule our Shariah law, and the Islamic ministry is filled with their scholars giving their fatwas, and yet the religious freedom here and tolerance for all other schools of knowledge is quite unique in the Muslim world. Ibadhism is rigidly fundamental in how fiqh is deriven but as a practice as it exists in Oman, lacks the extremism which is to suppress other voices. Ibadhi Mosques and Bookshops have both Sunni and Shia books available. The same is NOT TRUE for Shia and Sunni bookshops and Mosques in the Sultanate. For one, if you have not been to Zanzibar or Oman, it is doubtful that you have ever heard of the Khawarij as they call themselves.
That is where I first saw Islam. Now, who I first knew as a Muslim:
You must know that the first Muslim who answered my questions about Islam was a Shia sister of the Jaffari school named Samia from the Shia quarter in Mutrah, Muscat, Oman. An Ibadhi sister named Intizar purchased my first Quran for me. An Sunni Omani man from Buhraimi on Oman’s border with the UAE, told me about women’s basic rights in Islam, and dispelled my Western brainwashed stereotypes of suppression of Muslim women.
Samia and Intisar both agreed on the basics of what one is required to understand in order to become a Muslim, and the rights of the Muslim woman, regardless of their highly differentiated vantages of history, and practice, at least, to someone who then knew nothing. Both said Allah is the only God, Mohammed was His messenger, as were many before him, the Qu’ran is perfect, Islam is the true messeage in its purest form.
I obviously agreed, because I converted.
I married a Saudi man from the South of the Arab peninsula who was Sunni, and as a Saudi, obviously studied on the writings of Abdul-Wahab on Tauhid (the Oneness of Allah). As I am also, and I agree 100% with what he wrote about Tauhid. People will label me a Wahabi for that. I am not, nor was Abdul-Wahab, the scholar. Do I agree with his politics and those who use his writings, and other writing besides those he had on Tauhid? Not in majority, no.
As I mistakenly said to one sister on blogger when I was too naïve on the subject of sects to know any better “you just became Shia because your husband is Shia!” so others will say to me, that is why I became a Sunni.
This is not so. But to that sister, forgive me my ignorance, and I ask Allah to forgive me.
My husband did not care what I became and never told me who I was, that I was praying Sunnah ect, so long as I stayed close to what the Prophet Mohamed followed and used my brain. That’s how I got to Islam in the first place wasn’t it? So that had to be the right way.
He has friends who are Shia and talks easily with all people and I followed his example in this in life [if not on blogger :Ooo]. I had never heard of Ibadhi anything then, or Sufis, or Ahmedis, and I knew the Qu’ran warned us against dividing ourselves into sects, so when a non-muslim or Muslim would ask me, “are you Sunni or Shia?” I would say, “We are not supposed to split ourselves up. I am just a Muslim.”
That was a more correct answer in its innocence and naivety, than my later ones in their ignorance and error, believe me. Alhamdulilah Allah has guided me to a straighter path than one of a parrot who repeats only what they have overheard.
I met sister Aalia from her blog Chasing Jannah, a Sunni who takes the Malaki school of thought in the majority of her fiqh but is not ruled by one school of Islamic jurisprudence. Her husband was Emirati and quite learned on the subject of jurisprudence and he introduced me to important things for Muslims just starting to go beyond the basics of the religion to know. For example, how a fatwa (religious ruling) cannot be derived from one piece of Islamic evidence, but the whole body of evidence and history in its entirety. He also educated Aalia, others, and myself on terms misused by Muslims, and the West, such as “fundamentalism”, “extremist”, “Wahabi”, “Qu’ran-only Muslim”, “Salafi”…
Our Sunni-majority Mosque had a South African Imam [Sheikh Younas Kathrada] of the Hanbali way of deriving fiqh, but he’d tell you all the others too, if you asked. The majority of the Saudi women I knew were strictly Hanbali-Sunnis, and they didn’t know how look for daleel, they just wanted fatwas from KSA, regardless of the evidence. A lot of Shaffi and Hanafi sistas from Egypt and Syria were the same within their school of jurisprudence. Alhamdulilah for my Sheikh there having an email. He may have been strict, but he was one of the best Sunni Sheikhs I have ever met if you asked him beyond what he’d stated not always so pleasantly in the Khutbah. BTW, if you google Sheikh Younas, you’ll find all this nasty stuff about him sending some revert to make a bomb in Chechnya and hating the Jews, and really, that man HATED anyone who murdered innocent women and children and civilians going about their lives whether Muslim or Jewish, so never ever allowed violence in Islam against innocents. And he embodied the Islamic message that races and nations had no priority or status beyond their faith and good works.
I admit, I gravitate toward the Hanbali manner of jurisprudence, though I often disagree with the Saudi jurists. I find that the more literal, and more stricter interpretation, is safer. But I do not believe whatsoever in being ruled by one way of looking at Islamic evidence, and find the Saudi Hanbali tend to take one piece of daleel literally, disregarding the rest, and make a fatwa from that. I cannot. It strips Islam of its soul, its spirituality. And no, I am not a sufi. Islam has only one correct path, the path handed down to the prophets and exampled by Mohamed S.A.W.
I have a Shia friend named C whose husband is Afghani-Pakistani. The way she practices her Shiism, with no stone with the name of Hussain in her salat and no visiting of graves, and mainly just a political belief that Ali should have been Caliph before Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, does not make me bat an eyelash. I always felt she was my sister, and I know my Masjid through one Shia brother out forcibly on the men’s side, but I would have physically fought anyone who’d try to out or touch my girl C. She’s on a straighter path than many so-called righteous Muslims at that Mosque.
I also met a group of highly educated Bahraini and Iranian sisters who were more strictly Shiite. They were Jaffari. Because I did not hate them and call them Kufar from Islam like many in my Mosque would, they gave me books on their Islamic histories. Unfortunately, I found that the life and actions of the Prophet Mohamed was not as emphasized in importance, as later historical events, which are lesser in importance in jurisprudence to me, and only important in a political historical sense. I did not become Shia because a great deal of literature is from the period of the Persian empire and influenced by its culture, such as the Imam Madhi birth story (pure fiction and wholly inaccurate). Yet I did find a lot of their {EARLY} history to have some bearing of truth to it, where Sunni history glossed over some corruption and bad decision making of those it supports. And yet, I could never ever adhere to the sect of Ahlu Al-Beit School [Shia] because I do not believe the Prophet Mohamed’s bloodline is superior to the knowledge and faith and good works of others on that merit alone, also I have found historically accurate documents that Ali made mistakes and things that the Prophet Mohamed told us not to do such as burn anyone to death regardless of their actions in life as an enemy of Islam. Additionally, and I DO believe these are bidas introduced to the followers of Ali’s house, not bidas Ali himself would ever have supported, may Allah reward him, such as asking for intercession from the dead, visiting graves with any purpose other than to pray for forgiveness Muslims buried in them, praying on a stone with Hussain’s named on it, hit one’s self or grieve on Ashura for Hussain… Also, I met one Iranian Shia lady who said to my face that Aisha, the Prophet’s wife, was a whore, astighfurallah.
I know not all Shia curse the Sahaba, not all Shia hit themselves or even grieve Ashura, or pray with stones with the name of Hussain on them. So I am deeply, deeply sorry if I have ever generalized. I have used the term wrong, and also understand, Shia themselves reject the Ahmadi sect from Islam for their acts of kufar. Just like I insist that my Sunni brothers and sisters who do mass duas together after salat in congregation are performing a bida, one you even see in the Masjid Al Haraam. Did Rasoolulah ever do that people? Other than for rain? Think, before you do.
I find myself now defending the acts of some of my shia sisters that may be expressed as mere sunnahs (and would only be made haraam if were stated as fards or necessary acts in Islam) because so many other Muslims are ignorant of WHY, when they themselves might not even know why what they do is right, astighfuraAllah.
On discussing why we had not converted to Shiaism, although we knew our shia friends in many ways to be better examples of Muslims than our Sunni and Ibadhi friends, a Sunni friend from Sur, Oman remarked: “While I did not agree with almost anything I read they gave me to read and to study, I will give the Shia one thing. At prayer time, their Mosques are full, while ours are empty.”
I told people I was “Ahlu Al-Sunna wa al-Jama’a” because to me, Sunni clearly means to follow the sunnah. But of course, Sunni, shia, and Ibadhi all claim to do that. But regardless of what you call me, I have decided to no longer call myself that, I will let my actions and faith define my doctrine, and will endeavor that those actions always go back to the Prophet Mohamed, what he enjoined, and what he forbid, and nothing, nothing else.
Which has ALSO made me question some things which I am told all those who are Sunni must believe. So because I live in Oman now, I must have gone all “Khawarij” and “out from Islam, i.e Ibadhi”.
Nope;D, I drive the Ibadhi Islamic Ministy in Oman insane with my request for Islamic translations to english, and proof of sahih chains of narrations, too.
As I study Islamic history more and more (I had always had a pretty good background on the Seerah and the benefit of pre-Islamic times due to studying early Christian politics and influences in pre-Islamic times) I question more and more these terminologies that divide and cage us.
Through-out ideo-political history, negative and positive terminologies have been used to hide and disguise the truth. In the world where I come from, the West, democracy and its pillars of- freedom of speech, human rights, pluralism, ect- have always been the pretexts for a Capitalistic agenda to justify exploitation of the poor and oppression of the weak minorities, even the exploitation of the female sex. The Western/European ideo-politico-cultural war against Islam has arrived with new terminologies, “terrorist” supplanting “defending his own land” and “fundamentalism” for “those actually trying to practice their religion by more than lip service” serving well to legitimize Western policies towards Muslim lands, while the term “democracy” legalizes this Alien’s political supremacy.
The same is so sadly true in the history of Islam. When the early divisions occurred: Ahlu Al-Sunna wa Al-Jama’a, Ahlu Al-haqqi Wal Istiqama, Ahlu Al-Bait, and Al-Khwarij, many titles were created and used with the object of stigmatizing others as heretics. As a result, the Muslim Ummah has only these names as criteria by which to distinguish the orthodox sects from the ones that take one away from Islam. VEEERRRRRRRRY confusing, to both born AND new Muslims, I assure you, since many people tend to just follow what they initially taught or hear, good and bad names have played important roles and have had very far-reaching effects in the overall history of Islam.
To be honest, as someone who has been labeled “Extremist”, “Wahabi”, “Shia-lover”, “Salafi terrorist”, “Feminist”, “Islamist”, and “Khawarij” all within a stint of five short years, and I guarantee you, I am not that big of a flopper, labels alone are no good at all to define someone’s doctrine, the core of their faith, and the method of their actions.
Islamic sects must be studied in terms of their own logics and entities intellectually.
To prove my point, just about anyone who knows what extremists are, will know that I am not one since I think the use of cosmetics around non-Maharam is halal, and that Wahabi is an incorrect term, that I love some of my Shia friends but that that sect isn’t my home, that to be a salafi is to use just the daleel from the Islamic historical period of the Salaf and anyone one doing so won’t blow themselves or civilians up, feminists believe in having all the same things as men and I believe in only having my Islamic rights as a woman, I guess Islamist means one wants an Islamic government but I would settle for an educated Muslim majority population before I’d be so naïve as to cry for that, and Khawarij means one who goes against the rightly guided Caliphs which I wasn’t around to have done so. So, as you can see, a label simply being good or bad isn’t enough to understand whether or not a doctrine is correct or not.
So… my endeavor into studying the sects begins.