ABSTRACT
Islam remained, for the most part, remarkably unified in its religious manifestations during the classical period. It is only the split between the legal and theological schools already discussed and what is known as the Sh•>a of >Al• that has produced any degree of cleavage and only the latter which has produced a true sense of an “alternative vision” of Islam. Of course, such nomenclature reflects only the statistical reality that there are (and have always been) more Muslims who, by virtue of their legal and theological school practices, would be defined as members of the ahl al-sunna than there are and have been Sh•>ite Muslims. Few Muslims would approach these differences as a “choice” to be made on the individual level; rather, in the existence of the Sh•>a and the Sunn•s, we are confronted with the outcome of inner Muslim debates which resulted in different enunciations of Islam and in variant claims over the legitimate (and thus from each group’s perspective, normative) nature of Islam in the world. It may be asserted, thus, that the Sh•>a represent an alternative vision of Islam in the sense that they do indeed hold to different tenets on some very significant points within Muslim theory, dogma and practice.
