ABSTRACT
Islam remained, for the most part, remarkably unifi ed in its religious manifestations during the classical period. It is only the split between the legal and theological schools already discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 and what is known as the Shī aʿ of Aʿlī that have 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 refl ects only the statistical reality that there are (and have always been) more Muslims who, by virtual of their legal and theological school practices, would be defi ned as members of the ahl al-sunna than there are, and have been, Shī iʿte Muslims. Few Muslims would approach these diff erences as a “choice” to be made on the individual level; rather, in the existence of the Shī aʿ and the Sunnīs, we are confronted with the outcome of inner Muslim debates which resulted in diff erent 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 Shī aʿ represent an alternative vision of Islam in the sense that they do indeed hold to diff erent tenets on some very signifi cant points within Muslim theory, dogma, and practice.
