ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the political dimension of sectarian trends in the Islamic community. It argues that communal disputes over such political questions as qualifications of leaders, their modes of succession to power and their relationship with their followers were the main sources of sectarianism. The chapter provides the necessary flexibility for expansion of the Islamic ideology to various lands and its fusion with other belief systems. Islamic monolithicism is theoretically the consequence of the doctrine of oneness. Despite frequent calls for unity, disunity in the Islamic community grew out of sectarian and ethno-national tendencies after Muhammad al-Ghazali’s demise. The Islamic message was originally brought to the Arabs and in its initial evolution was influenced by pre-Islamic Arab and non-Arab traditions. The Shaoobi movement stood for a unified Islamic community based upon the equality of Arab and non-Arab believers. Sunnism and Shi’ism have often inaccurately been portrayed as monolithic Islamic sects.
