the Sunna (ahl al-sunna), or People of the Sunna
and Community (ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamaa). They
eventually became known simply as the Sunnis.
Since the 18th century many Islamic reneWal
and reForm movements have called for a rejection
of “innovation” and a return to the Quran and
sunna. Although found in several of the Sufi orders,
such as that of the Naqshbandis, it is expressed
most clearly in the revivalism of the Wahhabis,
the mUslim brotherhood, the Jamaat-i islami, the
tablighi Jamaat, and groups inspired by them. On
the other hand, Muslim modernist reformers have
questioned the reliability of the hadith and sunna,
arguing that they be either rejected or carefully
circumscribed. Instead, many propose following
general ethical principles based on the Quran, in
harmony with reason, modern science, hUman
rights, religious pluralism, democracy, and gen-
der equality. This trend is represented by figures
such as sayyid ahmad khan (d. 1898), mUhammad
abdUh (d. 1905), and ali abd al-raziq (d. 1966),
and more recently by thinkers such as FazlUr rah-
man (d. 1988), Muhammad Shahrur (b. 1938), and
Fatima mernissi (b. 1940).
See also companions oF the prophet; ethics
and morality; sharia; shiism.
Further reading: Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in
Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1996); Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic
Law: The Quran, the Muwatta, and the Madinan Amal
(London: Routledge Curzon, 2002); Wael B. Hallaq, The
Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005); G. H. A. Juynboll, “Some
New Ideas on the Development of Sunna as a Technical
Term in Early Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 10 (1987): 97–118; Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2d ed.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 43–84.
Sunnism
Sunnism was the last of the major traditions of
Islam to be clearly articulated. In fact, it is possible
to think of Sunnism as comprising the broad swath
of Muslims who did not incline toward the other
two early traditions, shiism and Kharijism. The
khaWariJ broke with the rest of Muslims over the
question of whether the sinner could be considered
a Muslim. They defined the community narrowly,
and they were initially disposed to fight those with
whom they disagreed; the consensus among Mus-
lims grew that this position was too extreme and
the Khawarij eventually became a tiny sect with few
adherents. Shii identity formed around a dispute
over the leadership of the community, but it fairly
quickly culminated in a belief that the leadership of
the community was no mere matter of human pref-
erence, but rather formed part of a divinely inspired
plan for the salvation of the community.
The Sunnis, then, are those Muslims who
eventually united in a belief that only God knows
the hearts, and so judgment should be left to
God—thus rejecting Khariji extremism—and that
the leadership of the community as it emerged his-
torically was part of God’s plan, thus rejecting the
heart of Shii claims about legitimate leadership;
subsequent leadership would not be considered
very significant theologically because the Sunni
orthodoxy that eventually emerged held that the
caliph, while theoretically necessary for the exis-
tence of an Islamic state, was less important than
the caliphate as an institution. Finally, it was held
that the scholars (Ulama) were the keepers of the
community’s morals, not the caliphs.
The term sunni is an abridgement of ahl al-
sunna wa’al-jamaa, meaning the people of the
prophetic tradition and community. This refers to
the focus, especially dating from the ninth cen-
tury, on the collection of accounts of the prophet
Muhammad, the sUnna, and following in the path
of that sunna. All Muslims accept the primacy of
the qUran, but the Sunnis place a unique empha-
sis on the sunna of Muhammad.
Today, Sunnis make up some 85 percent of
Muslims worldwide. The sunni legal schools have
traditionally been the means by which Sunni Mus-
lims actually learned the specifics of their Islam.
The importance of these schools has broken down
in the 20th century, causing contemporary Sunn-
ism to break with its traditional educational and
intellectual roots in a way that has not happenedK 646 Sunnism