ABSTRACT
From the fact that the so-called Orthodox Mohammedans have taken the name of Sunnites (Traditionists), “followers of the Sunnah,” to distinguish themselves from the Schiites, the impression prevails in some quarters that the latter entirely reject tradition. But with all the veneration of the Schiites for the Koran as the Word of God, and the repository of all the dogmas, doctrines, laws, and ordinances of the faith of Islam, they believe also in the value of oral traditions. They reject, indeed, says Wortabet, 1 “many traditions which the Moslems believe to have been handed down by the earliest successors of Mohammed, because these mediums are detested by the Schiites, and their report of traditions is considered as untruthful. But while they deny the genuineness of many of the traditions preserved by the Moslems, they have a set of their own, which again are regarded as spurious by the Sunnites.
