Everything about Muslim World totally explained
The term
Muslim world (or
Islamic world) has several meanings. In a
cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of
Muslims, adherents of
Islam. This community
numbers about 1.3-1.5 billion people, roughly one-fifth of the
world population. This community is spread across many different
nations and
ethnic groups connected only by
religion. In a
historical or
geopolitical sense the term usually refers collectively to
majority Muslim countries or countries in which Islam dominates politically.
The worldwide Muslim community is also known collectively as the
ummah. Islam emphasizes unity and defense of fellow Muslims, although many
divisions of Islam (see the
Sunni-Shia relations) exist. In the past both
Pan-Islamism and
nationalist currents have influenced the status of the Muslim world.
History
Classical Islamic culture
Arts
The term "Islamic art and architecture" denotes the works of art and architecture produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by culturally Islamic populations.
Aniconism, Iconoclasm, and Arabesque
No Islamic visual images or depictions of God are meant to exist because such artistic depictions may lead to
idolatry. Moreover, Muslims believe that God is
incorporeal, making any two- or three- dimensional depictions impossible. Instead, Muslims describe God by the
names and attributes that he revealed to his creation. All but one sura of the Qur'an begins with the phrase "
In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful". Images of Mohammed are likewise prohibited. Such
aniconism and
iconoclasm can also be found in Jewish and some Christian theology.
Islamic art frequently adopts the use of geometrical floral or vegetal designs in a repetition known as
arabesque. Such designs are highly nonrepresentational, as Islam forbids representational depictions as found in pre-Islamic pagan religions. Despite this, there's a presence of depictional art in some Muslim societies, although this isn't widespread. Another reason why Islamic art is usually abstract is to symbolize the transcendence, indivisible and infinite nature of God, an objective achieved by arabesque.
Arabic calligraphy is an omnipresent decoration in Islamic art, and is usually expressed in the form of Qur'anic verses. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic
kufic and
naskh scripts, which can be found adorning the walls and domes of mosques, the sides of
minbars, and so on. The role of domes in Islamic architecture has been considerable. Its usage spans centuries, first appearing in 691 with the construction of the
Dome of the Rock mosque, and recurring even up until the
17th century with the
Taj Mahal. And as late as the 19th century, Islamic domes had been incorporated into Western architecture.
Ceramics
From between the eighth and eighteenth centuries, the use of
glazed ceramics was prevalent in Islamic art, usually assuming the form of elaborate
pottery.
Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in
Basra, dating to around the
8th century. Another significant contribution was the development of
stonepaste ceramics, originating from
9th century Iraq. Other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Islamic world included
Fustat (from
975 to
1075), Damascus (from
1100 to around
1600) and
Tabriz (from
1470 to
1550).
Architecture
Perhaps the most important expression of Islamic art is architecture, particularly that of the mosque. Through it the effect of varying cultures within Islamic civilization can be illustrated. The North African and Spanish Islamic architecture, for example, has Roman-Byzantine elements, as seen in the
Alhambra palace at Granada, or in the
Great Mosque of Cordoba. Persian-style mosques are characterized by their tapered brick pillars, large
arcades, and arches supported each by several pillars. In South Asia, elements of Hindu architecture were employed, but were later superseded by Persian designs. The most numerous and largest of mosques exist in
Turkey, which obtained influence from Byzantine, Persian and Syrian designs, although Turkish architects managed to implement their own style of
cupola domes. All Arabian
fantasy tales were often called "Arabian Nights" when translated into
English, regardless of whether they appeared in
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Many imitations were written, especially in France. Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as
Aladdin,
Sinbad and
Ali Baba.
A famous example of
Arabic poetry and
Persian poetry on
romance (love) is
Layla and Majnun, dating back to the
Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a a
tragic story of undying
love much like the later
Romeo and Juliet, which was itself said to have been inspired by a
Latin version of
Layli and Majnun to an extent.
Ferdowsi's
Shahnameh, the national epic of
Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of
Persian history.
Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story, which has influenced some modern works of fantasy fiction, such as
The Heroic Legend of Arslan.
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and
Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the
philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional Arabic
novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (
Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to
al-Ghazali's
The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional novel
Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's
Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had
protagonists (Hayy in
Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in
Theologus Autodidactus) who were
autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a
desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in
Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in
Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known
coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a
science fiction novel.
Theologus Autodidactus, written by the
Arabian polymath
Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288), is the first example of a
science fiction novel. It deals with various science fiction elements such as
spontaneous generation,
futurology, the
end of the world and doomsday,
resurrection, and the
afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explnations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the
scientific knowledge of
biology,
astronomy,
cosmology and
geology known in his time. His main purpose behind this science fiction work was to explain
Islamic religious teachings in terms of
science and
philosophy through the use of fiction.
A
Latin translation of Ibn Tufail's work,
Philosophus Autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by
Edward Pococke the Younger, followed by an English translation by
Simon Ockley in 1708, as well as
German and
Dutch translations. These translations later inspired
Daniel Defoe to write
Robinson Crusoe, regarded as the
first novel in English.
Philosophus Autodidactus also inspired
Robert Boyle to write his own philosophical novel set on an island,
The Aspiring Naturalist.
Dante Alighieri's
Divine Comedy, considered the greatest epic of
Italian literature, derived many features of and episodes about the hereafter directly or indirectly from Arabic works on
Islamic eschatology: the
Hadith and the
Kitab al-Miraj (translated into Latin in 1264 or shortly before as
Liber Scale Machometi, "The Book of Muhammad's Ladder") concerning
Muhammad's ascension to Heaven, and the spiritual writings of
Ibn Arabi. The
Moors also had a noticeable influence on the works of
George Peele and
William Shakespeare. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele's
The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice,
Titus Andronicus and
Othello, which featured a Moorish
Othello as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish
delegations from
Morocco to
Elizabethan England at the beginning of the 17th century.
Philosophy
existence precedes essence".
Avicenna also founded his own
Avicennism school of philosophy, which was influential in both Islamic and Christian lands. He was also a critic of
Aristotelian logic and founder of
Avicennian logic, and he developed the concepts of
empiricism and
tabula rasa, and distinguished between
essence and
existence.
Another infuential philosopher who had a significant influence on
modern philosophy was
Ibn Tufail. His
philosophical novel,
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, translated into Latin as
Philosophus Autodidactus in 1671, developed the themes of empiricism, tabula rasa,
nature versus nurture,
condition of possibility,
materialism, and
Molyneux's Problem. European scholars and writers influenced by this novel include
John Locke,
Gottfried Leibniz,
George Keith,
Robert Barclay, the
Quakers, and
Samuel Hartlib.
Islamic philosophers continued making advances in philosophy through to the 17th century, when
Mulla Sadra founded his school of
Transcendent Theosophy and developed the concept of
existentialism.
Other influential Muslim philosophers include
al-Jahiz, a pioneer in
evolutionary thought;
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), a pioneer of
phenomenology and the
philosophy of science and a critic of
Aristotelian natural philosophy and
Aristotle's concept of
place (
topos);
Biruni, a critic of Aristotelian natural philosophy;
Ibn Tufail and
Ibn al-Nafis, pioneers of the
philosophical novel;
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, founder of
Illuminationist philosophy;
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, a critic of Aristotelian logic and a pioneer of
inductive logic; and
Ibn Khaldun, a pioneer in the
philosophy of history Recent studies show that it's very likely that the Medieval Muslim artists were aware of advanced decagonal quasicrystal geometry (discovered half a millennium later in 1970s and 1980s in West) and used it in intricate decorative tilework in the architecture. Muslim mathematicians also made several refinements to the
Arabic numerals (which originally came from India), such as the introduction of
decimal point notation.
Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on
experiment than had the
Greeks. This led to an early
scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on
optics from
circa 1000, in his
Book of Optics. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally
empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of light. Some have also described Ibn al-Haytham as the "first scientist" for his development of the modern scientific method.
Muslim
physicians contributed significantly to the field of
medicine, including the subjects of
anatomy and
physiology: such as in the 15th century Persian work by
Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn al-Faqih Ilyas entitled
Tashrih al-badan (
Anatomy of the body) which contained comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural,
nervous and
circulatory systems; or in the work of the Egyptian physician
Ibn al-Nafis, who proposed the theory of
pulmonary circulation.
Avicenna's
The Canon of Medicine remained an authoritive medical textbook in Europe until the 18th century.
Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (also known as
Abulcasis) contributed to the discipline of medical
surgery with his
Kitab al-Tasrif ("Book of Concessions"), a medical encyclopedia which was later translated to
Latin and used in European and Muslim medical schools for centuries. Other medical advancements came in the fields of
pharmacology and
pharmacy.
In
astronomy,
al-Battani improved the precision of the measurement of the
precession of the earth's axis. The corrections made to the
geocentric model by al-Battani,
Averroes,
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,
Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi and
Ibn al-Shatir were later incorporated into the
Copernican heliocentric model.
Heliocentric theories were also discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as
Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said Sinjari,
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and 'Umar al-Katibi al-
Qazwini. The
astrolabe, though originally developed by the Greeks, was perfected by Islamic astronomers and engineers, and was subsequently brought to Europe.
Muslim
chemists and
alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern
chemistry. Scholars such as
Will Durant and
Alexander von Humboldt regard Muslim chemists to be the founders of chemistry. In particular,
Geber is regarded as the "father of chemistry". The works of Arab chemists influenced
Roger Bacon (who introduced the empirical method to Europe, strongly influenced by his reading of Arabic writers), and later
Isaac Newton. A number of
chemical processes (particularly in
alchemy) and
distillation techniques (such as the production of
alcohol) were developed in the Muslim world and then spread to Europe.
Some of the most famous scientists from the Islamic world include
Geber (
polymath, father of
chemistry),
al-Farabi (polymath),
Abu al-Qasim (father of modern
surgery),
Ibn al-Haytham (
universal genius, father of
optics, founder of
psychophysics and
experimental psychology, pioneer of
scientific method, "first scientist"),
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (universal genius, father of
Indology and
geodesy, "first
anthropologist"),
Avicenna (universal genius, father of
momentum and modern
medicine),
Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (polymath), and
Ibn Khaldun (father of
demography,
cultural history,
historiography, the
philosophy of history,
sociology, and the
social sciences), among many others.
Technology
In technology, the Muslim world adopted
papermaking from China and further advanced the technology with their invention of
papermills many centuries before
paper was known in the West.
Advances were made in
irrigation and farming, using new technology such as the
windmill. Crops such as
almonds and
citrus fruit were brought to Europe through
al-Andalus, and
sugar cultivation was gradually adopted by the Europeans. Arab merchants dominated trade in the
Indian Ocean until the arrival of the
Portuguese in the
16th century.
Hormuz was an important center for this trade. There was also a dense network of trade routes in the
Mediterranean, along which Muslim countries traded with each other and with European powers such as
Venice,
Genoa and
Catalonia. The
Silk Road crossing
Central Asia passed through Muslim states between China and Europe.
Muslim engineers in the Islamic world made a number of innovative
industrial uses of
hydropower, and early industrial uses of
tidal power,
wind power,
steam power,
fossil fuels such as
petroleum, and early large
factory complexes (
tiraz in Arabic). The industrial uses of
watermills in the Islamic world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-
wheeled and vertical-wheeled water mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century. A variety of industrial
mills were being employed in the Islamic world, including early
fulling mills,
gristmills,
hullers,
paper mills,
sawmills, shipmills,
stamp mills,
steel mills,
sugar mills,
tide mills and
windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from
al-Andalus and
North Africa to the
Middle East and
Central Asia. Muslim engineers also invented
crankshafts and
water turbines, employed
gears in mills and water-raising
machines, and pioneered the use of
dams as a source of water power, used to provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines. Such advances made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by
manual labour in
ancient times to be
mechanized and driven by
machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe had an influence on the
Industrial Revolution.
A number of industries were generated due to the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, including early industries for
agribusiness,
astronomical instruments,
ceramics,
chemicals,
distillation technologies,
clocks,
glass, mechanical
hydropowered and
wind powered
machinery,
matting,
mosaics,
pulp and paper,
perfumery,
petroleum,
pharmaceuticals,
rope-making,
shipping,
shipbuilding,
silk,
sugar,
textiles,
water,
weapons, and the
mining of
minerals such as
sulfur,
ammonia,
lead and
iron. Early large
factory complexes (
tiraz) were built for many of these industries, and knowledge of these industries were later transmitted to
medieval Europe, especially during the
Latin translations of the 12th century, as well as before and after. For example, the first glass factories in Europe were founded in the 11th century by
Egyptian craftsmen in
Greece. The
agricultural and
handicraft industries also experienced high levels of growth during this period.
Modern Muslim world
Economy and trade
In circa 1800, the gross domestic product of the Muslim world was estimated at about 12 per cent of the world total. By the end of the 19th century, this share had plunged to about 5 per cent of the world total. This share had since then stagnated throughout the 20th century due to half-hearted economic reforms.
As of 2006, the
Arab World accounts for two-fifth of the gross domestic product and three-fifth of the trade of the wider Muslim World. It should be noted that oil industry and related services account for almost two-fifth of the gross domestic product of the Muslim world.
Geographic spread
Many Muslims not only live in, but also have an official status in the following regions:
- Southwest Asia: Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman,Kuwait and several non-Arab nations, for example Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran
- Africa: North African countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt; Northeast African countries like Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Sudan; and West African countries like Mali, Senegal and Nigeria.
- Southern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina,Kosovo and Albania.
- Eastern Europe: parts of Russia (North Caucasus and Idel-Ural) and Ukraine (especially in the Crimea)
- Central Asia: Afghanistan, formerly Soviet states like Uzbekistan
- South Asia: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives
- East Asia: parts of China (Xinjiang, Ningxia and Qinghai)
- Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia
The countries of Southwest Asia, and many in Northern and Northeastern Africa are considered part of the
Greater Middle East.
Also worthy of mention are provinces of
Kosovo in the former
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In
Chechnya,
Dagestan,
Kabardino-Balkaria,
Karachay-Cherkessia,
Ingushetia,
Tatarstan,
Bashkiria in
Russia, Muslims are in the majority.
The
Indian state of
Jammu and Kashmir has a Muslim majority population, particularly concentrated in the Kashmir valley.
Some definitions would also include the sizable Muslim minorities in:
several countries of Europe (Of which the Muslim population in Cyprus, Russia, Bulgaria, France, The Netherlands and Denmark make up at least 5% of the total population of that country, and with more than one million Muslims living in Russia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Italy)
several regions of Russia, other than ethnic republics above (Adyghea, North Ossetia etc.)
India and Sri Lanka
Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines
The United States, Guyana, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Brazil, Argentina and Canada
Congo-Kinshasa, Burundi, Malawi, Republic of South Africa, Zambia, Cameron, CAR, Uganda, Ethiopia
Crimea in Ukraine
Demographics
One fifth of the world population share Islam as an ethical tradition. Muslims are the majority in 57 nations.
They speak about 60 languages and come from diverse ethnic backgrounds. There are over 1.5 billion Muslims in total. See Islam by country and Demographics of Islam for more information.
Important organizations
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is an inter-governmental organization grouping fifty-seven States. These States decided to pool their resources together, combine their efforts and speak with one voice to safeguard the interest and ensure the progress and well-being of their peoples and those of other Muslims in the world over.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries includes many nations that are also in the Arab League.
A politically motivated oil embargo in 1974 (to support Egypt and Syria in the 1973 Yom Kippur War against Israel after the US re-equipped Israel with armaments) had drastic economic and political consequences in the United States and Europe. Recently Danish products faced a boycott by Muslim world after the 2005 Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy, although that move wasn't supported by the Muslim governments, it demonstrates the power of the Muslim World acting in concert, and the key role of religion and ethnicity in the politics of oil regions, with which the Muslim world intersects.
Religion and state
Islamic law doesn't distinguish between "matters of church" and "matters of state"; the ulema function as both jurists and theologians. In practice, Islamic rulers frequently bypassed the Sharia courts with a parallel system of so-called "Grievance courts" over which they'd sole control. As the Muslim world came into contact with Western secular ideals, Muslim societies responded in different ways. Turkey has been governed as a secular state ever since the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In contrast, the 1979 Iranian Revolution replaced a mostly secular regime with an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini.
Many Muslim countries still have a strong belief in the religion of Islam, many have used Sharia law in the state where the law runs from the interpretations from the Quran and the Hadith in the society of politics, law, schools and others. Most countries in the Muslim world according to their constitution declare Islam as the state religion or Sharia law, but a very few who are Secular states compared with the western world.
Islam in law and ethics
In some nations, Muslim ethnic groups enjoy considerable .
In some places, Muslims implement a form of Islamic law, called shariah in Arabic. The Islamic law exists in many variations, but the main forms are the five (four Sunni and one Shia) schools of jurisprudence (fiqh):
Hanafi school in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Turkey, Egypt and West Africa
Maliki in North Africa and West Africa
Shafi'i in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Northeastern Africa
Hanbali in Arabia
Jaferi in Iran, Iraq, Yemen and India - where the majority is Shia
All five are centuries old and many Muslim feel a new fiqh must be created for modern society. Islam has a method for doing this, al-urf and ijtihad are the words to describe this method, but they've not been used in a long time by Sunni Muslims, and few people are trusted enough to use them to make new laws. The Shi'i Jaferi school of fiqh never ended the tradition of ijtihad.
Muslim women often dress extremely modestly, mostly by choice. Thus, in some countries an interpretation of the Islamic law requires women to cover either just legs, shoulders and head or the whole body apart from the face. In strictest forms, the face as well must be covered leaving just a mesh to see through. These rules for dressing are one of the things the cause tension between the Western World and the Muslim, concerning particularly Muslim living in western countries, since many in the Western World consider these restrictions both sexist and oppressive. Most Muslims oppose this charge, and instead declare that the media-fuelled world of the West is itself sexist and oppressive in that women are forced to reveal irrational amounts of flesh to be considered attractive.
Islamic economics bans interest or Riba (Usury) but in most Muslim countries Western banking is allowed.
Islam in modern politics
Many people in Islamic countries also see Islam manifested politically as Islamism. Political Islam is powerful in all Muslim-majority countries. Islamic parties in Turkey, Pakistan and Algeria have taken power at the provincial level. Many in these movements call themselves Islamists, which also sometimes describes more militant Islamic groups. The relationships between these groups (in democratic countries there's usually at least one Islamic party) and their views of democracy are complex.
Some of these groups are accused of practicing terrorism.
Conflicts with Israel
Israel is subject to varying levels of hostility in the Muslim world due to the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority state to recognize Israel, just one year after its founding, and they've the long shared close military and economic ties. Prior to the Iranian Revolution, Iran and Israel maintained a strong political friendship, however the current Iranian government is strongly anti-Israeli and has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. Once at war, both Egypt and Jordan have established diplomatic relations and signed peace treaties with Israel, and attempts to resolve the conflict with Palestinians have produced a number of interim agreements. Nine non-Arab Muslim states maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, and since 1994, the Gulf states have lessened their enforcement of the Arab boycott, with Saudi Arabia even declaring its end in 2005, though it has yet to cancel its sanctions. States like Morocco that have large Jewish populations have generally been less hostile relations with Israel.
Nuclear capabilities
Pakistan is only declared nuclear nation in Muslim World. The nuclear program of Pakistan was carried out in response to India's nuclear test in 1971. Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests in May 1998 to India's nuclear tests of May 1998.
See also: Gulf War
See also: Nuclear program of Iran
Recent history
1979 was a critical year in the Muslim world's relationship with the rest of the world. In that year, Egypt made peace with Israel, the government of Iran was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began.
Some of the events pivotal in the Muslim world's relationship with the outside world in the post-Soviet era were:
The Iran-Iraq War
The 1991 Persian Gulf War
The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
The 2003 invasion of Iraq
The Humanitarian response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2005 Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy
The 2006 controversy over remarks quoted by Pope Benedict XVI
The ongoing Darfur conflict
The ongoing standoff with Iran over its Nuclear program
The Kashmir Issue
The ongoing Second Chechen War
The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence
The U.S.-led War on Terrorism has been criticized as a War on Islam by Hizb ut-Tahrir and other Islamist organizations.
Political currents
In Pakistan, a prominent U.S. ally, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal - an Islamic political party - won local elections in two out of four of the country's provinces and became in mid-2003 the third largest party in the national parliament, their strongest showing up to that point. They had support from urban areas for the first time. See also: Politics of Pakistan
In Kuwait elections in July 2003 returned Islamic traditionalists and supporters of the royal family, while liberals suffered a severe defeat. See also: Elections in Kuwait
In Indonesia, the growth of various groups allied to those considered responsible for the Bali Bombing most of which have previously been invisible, has been marked.
In Iran in 1979, a popular revolution saw the exile of the Shah and the rule going to Ayatollah Khomeini, a cleric from the Shia school of thought. The country has what it claims is a theocratic democracy, and has kept the "revolution" as part of the state's survival and growth.
In Kosovo in 2008, it declared independence from Serbia.
Major Muslim denominations
The two main denominations of Islam are the Sunni and Shia sects. The difference between them is primarily in terms of how the life of the ummah ("faithful") should be governed, and the role of the imam. These two main differences stem from the understanding of which hadith are to interpret the Quran. The Shia minority believes that the Family of the Prophet's traditions are exclusively to be followed, whereas the Sunni majority believes in traditions from the Companions of the Prophet and other common people to be followed.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world, approximately 85%, are Sunni.
Shias and others (Ibadiyyas, Ahmadis, Druze) make up the rest, about 15% of overall Muslim population. Among the countries with Shi'a majority of Muslim population are Iran (90%), Iraq (65%), Azerbaijan (75%), Bahrain (60%), and Lebanon (35%).
The Kharijite Muslims, who are less known, have their own stronghold in the country of Oman holding about 75% of the population. The rest of the population being 10% Sunni and the rest Shi'a.
Muslim-majority countries
Countries in the Muslim world sorted by state religion:
Islamic states
Afghanistan
Bahrain
Iran
Mauritania
Oman
Pakistan
Yemen
Saudi Arabia
Islam as state religion
Algeria
Bangladesh
Egypt
Iraq
Kuwait
Libya
Malaysia
Maldives
Morocco
Qatar
Tunisia
United Arab Emirates
Secular states
Africa
Burkina Faso
Gambia
Guinea
Mali
Senegal
Chad
Djibouti
Somalia
Asia
Kyrgystan
Tajikstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Europe
Albania
Kosovo
TurkeyFurther Information
Get more info on 'Muslim World'.
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