Suzette Beaudoin
Professor J Latta
HUM 1024
February 25, 2014
Transcendental Religion
The Shia seems to be the most transcendental religion. It is one of two major denominations of Islam. About ten to twenty percent of the world’s Muslims are Shia’s. Majority of the Shia lives in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and a politically significant minority in Lebanon. Shia comes from the Arabic word meaning a supportive party of people, also known as followers of Ahl-al-Bayt.("Shia and Sunni Muslims ")
During the prayer, the Shias places their forehead onto a piece of natural occurring material, something like a clay tablet, soil from Karbala; this was where Hussein ibn Ali was martyred. They pray with their hands open at their sides. They don’t use a prayer rug. Most of the Shia’s belong to the Twelver tradition, also known as the Ithna `Ashariya.("Who are the Shia? ~ Shia Sects ) This tradition seems to recognize a sequence of 12 imams. Imams are believed to have superhuman powers and were the descendants of Muhammad, and they were the sole interpreter of the Quran and Islamic faith. These descendants started with Ali and went to his sons and ended with Muhammad al-Mahdi. These imams can speak all languages, and they had knowledge of the future. Shia’s believe that Mahdi will return as the apocalyptic savor.(Halm 216) The Shia’s believe that the Imam is sinless by nature and that his authority is reliable since it comes directly from God. They think that Imams as saints so they perform pilgrimages to the Imams tombs and shrines in hopes of divine intercession. The Day of Judgment to the Shia's is believed to be when humans are resurrected, judged, and condemned or rewarded in Hell or Paradise.("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ") They believe that God has already sent a number of prophets and has already revealed this happening. They believe in a Satan-like character named Iblis. They believe in angels and demons, which are also called jinns.
The Shiite believed that the pre-modern era had Neoplatonic features. They have ideas that seem to help with the gap between their transcendent God and the contingently created world.(Halm 216) They believe in the Shiite esoteric exegesis, which starts with the manifestation of the divine light. This light includes the essences of the protagonists of the Shiite salvation history.
Many minority branches of the Shiism have found a relationship between God and the world. They saw in the prophets the outer truth of the revelation, when the inner truth was restricted to the initiated. The historical principle had seven cycles that had one thousand years in each one. This is when the seven Imams followed the prophet and his deputy, with the seventh taking the role of Mahdi. He abolished all the religions and restored Adam’s original.("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ")
During this time Neoplatonic time, there was a philosopher named Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani who started the negative theology that God was beyond description. This negative theology means that God’s first creation was the intellect, which included all being and is the governing principle for it. The negative theology is imperfect because it is constantly striving for knowledge and its.("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ") The only way to get redemption is through the prophets and the Imams, which are the disclosed messengers from the intellect.
Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani is another person of the Neoplatonic time which was well-known for ten intellects with parallels in the Ismaili hierarchy. This hierarchy is very interesting to Ismaili authors. One of the authors is Kirmani. He wrote Rahat al-aql, Comfort of the Intellect. ("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ") He uses the image of the city that has seven walls and fifty-six highways. When exploring this city, a rational human becomes familiar with different spheres of reality. Another would be a group of unknown authors from Baghdad. They were known for the Ikwan al-safa, Brethren of Purity.("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ") They seem to use an all-encompassing systematic, hierarchical, and interconnected account of reality. They put together an encyclopedia that is made up of epistles, which cover a wide variety of areas of information. This encyclopedia became a highly influential book during the Middle Ages. This book is known for being obsessed with categorizing and counting anything in fact.("Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings ")
The next most transcendental religion would be the Sunnis. This is another religion of Islam. The Sunnis population is about seventy-five percent of the Muslim worlds. The majority of the Sunnis reside in Southeast Asia, China, South Asia, Africa, and some in Arabia. The Sunnis is the largest of the Islamic denominations. Sunni came from the word Sunnah, means the teachings and actions of the Islamic prophet of Muhammad. Sunni refers to those that follow and maintain the Sunnah of Muhammad. In Sunni's eyes, the belief was that Muhammad died without appointing a successor in which to lead the Muslim community.
The Shia and the Sunnis split after Muhammad died because they disagreed on the successor to the Prophet Muhammad.("Sunni Islam Origins, Sunni Islam History, Sunni Islam Beliefs ") The Sunni’s felt that the Muslim community should elect a successor, called caliph, to lead. They felt that there was no basis in Islam for a hereditary privilege class leaders and still to this day feel the same about this. They think that having leadership of their community is not a birthright, but should be a trust that is earned and this position is chosen by the people of the community and may be taken away from by the people of the community. They felt that this caliph should be elected from those that were capable of holding the position. The Shia’s believed that the Prophet Muhammad had chosen his son-in-law, Ali, to be his successor. They felt that the successor should stay within the Prophet’s family, among the appointed by him, or among the Imams that was hand-picked by God himself. The differences between the Sunni’s and the Shia’s sums up as being political differences, not spiritual or religion differences. These political differences have caused a number of different practices and positions which carry spiritual significance. The Prophet Muhammad predicted that there would be seventy-three different denominations. Shia’s to this day do not recognize the authority of electing a Muslim leader. Instead, they seem to follow the Imams, which they believe that have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God himself.
Even though the Sunni’s and the Shia’s have split they still study the same book, the Qur’an, and they have the same common goal of faith in God, and accept Muhammad as the prophet of Allah. The Sunni’s are known for putting their emphasis on the power of God and his determination of human fate.("Sunni Islam Origins, Sunni Islam History, Sunni Islam Beliefs ") The Sunni’s have traditionally placed an emphasis on their religion in public and the political life. The Sunni's are thorough in what it means to them to be a Muslim. They believe that Islam has Six Pillars of Faith and Five Pillars of Islam. Some of these beliefs of the Six Pillars of Faith start with believing in Allaah. The second belief is in Allaah’s angels. They believe in the Allaah’s books. The fourth of the Six Pillars of Faith is that they believe in the messengers of Allaah. The fifth is to believe in the last day (they believe that everybody that is on earth will perish, and only the Lord will remain). Last they believe in predestination. Some of the Five Pillars of Islam start with that they believe in the shahada (that Muhammad is the Prophet). They have daily prayer to purify the heart and to control any thoughts of wrong doing. The Sunni’s pray with their hands folded over their chest. Another of the many Five Pillars of Islam is that they fast once a year during Ramadan. They do almsgiving (this is when they spend annually, two and half percent of their net savings on the poor. They must visit the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is in Saudi Arabia, at least once in their lifetime.("How to Learn to Tell the Difference Between Sunni and Shiite Beliefs ")

Works Cited
Halm, Heinz. Shi'Ism . New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Books. Web.
"How to Learn to Tell the Difference Between Sunni and Shiite Beliefs "Web. 2/26/2014 <http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-to-Tell-the-Difference-Between-Sunni-and-Shiite-Beliefs>.
"Shia and Sunni Muslims "Web. 2/25/2014 <http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm>.
"Sunni Islam Origins, Sunni Islam History, Sunni Islam Beliefs "Web. 2/25/2014 <http://www.patheos.com/Library/Sunni-Islam.html>.
"Ultimate Reality and Divine Beings "Web. 2/25/2014 <http://www.patheos.com/Library/Shia-Islam/Beliefs/Ultimate-Reality-and-Divine-Beings?offset=1&max=1>.
"Who are the Shia? ~ Shia Sects | Wide Angle | PBS "Web. 2/24/2014 <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/pilgrimage-to-karbala/who-are-the-shia/shia-sects/1733/>.