After the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, a rift occurred within the Islamic community. There was a vacancy for leadership and a question of who was qualified to fill it. At that time the companions of the Prophet were elected to be central leaders and were known as Caliphs. The way in which Caliphs were elected, and who succeeded them, is where the difference between Sunni and Shia begins. The third Caliph to rule was ‘Uthman, who “provoked bitter opposition, conspiracies and eventually civil war” (Lapidus, page 46). He was murdered for the initiatives he took during his reign including the reversal of the previous Caliph’s policies and redistribution of power to those of his own choosing and “the promulgation of a standard edition of the Quran, which was resented” (Lapidus, page 46). ‘Uthman was assassinated due to …show more content…
They accepted all four previous Caliphs before Mu’awiya. And while later Caliphs “might not always have acted justly”, their appointments should be viewed as legitimate, as long as they followed the basic teachings of God (Hourani, page 61). Sunnism, “regarded the caliph neither as a prophet nor as an infallible interpreter of the faith, but as a leader whose task, it was to uphold peace” (Hourani, page 61).
The Shi’a desired the family of Ali to rule the Muslim world. They believed that the true Caliphate belonged to those of Ali’s family (Lapidus, page 53). Albert Hourani discusses that “Shi’a movements did not accept the claims of the first three caliphs, but believed that Ali had been the sole legitimate and appointed successor of the Prophet as Imam” (Hourani, page 61). Shi’ism, was a “profound opposition to the Caliphate”, who had “supported the Abbasid movement before it came to power expecting that one of the heirs of Ali would succeed the Umayyads” (Lapidus, page