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Sunni Muslims are the of Islam Muhammad . Sunnis are also referred to as Ahl ul-Sunna wa-l-Jama'ah (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة) (people of tradition and congregation) which is meant to imply that the Sunnis are united. Sunni ( Arabic : سني ) means follower of the sunna of the Prophet, with some details. DEMOGRAPHICS See Also: Demographics of Islam Present calculations indicate that approximately 85% of the world's Muslims are Sunni and approximately 15% are Shi'a {Link without Title} . SUNNI SCHOOLS OF LAW ( MADHAB ) There are four Sunni schools of law:
A Madhab is a particular tradition of interpreting Islamic law, or Shari'a . The schools were started by eminent Muslim scholars in the first four centuries of Islam. Most Sunnis believe that there are no living jurists of the stature of the founders of the four madhabs. Contemporary scholars can comment on the traditions, but they cannot start new ones. This belief is called "the closing of the gate of Ijtihad ". A madhab is not to be confused with a religious sect. There may be scholars representing all four madhabs living in larger Muslim communities, and it is up to those who consult them to decide which school they prefer. Some Sunni Muslims say that one should choose a madhab and then follow all of its rulings. Other Sunnis say that it is acceptable to mix madhabs, to accept one madhab's ruling regarding one issue, and accept another madhab's ruling regarding a different issue. Some modern Sunni, such as liberals, reject some or all of the intricate structure of hadith and shari'a erected over the centuries. Some Salafi s reject strict adherence to traditional jurisprudence and others follow the Hanbali school of thought. SUNNI THEOLOGICAL TRADITIONS ( KALAM ) Some Islamic scholars faced questions that they felt were not specifically answered in the Qur'an , especially questions with regard to philosophical conundrums like the nature of God, the possibility of human Free Will , or the eternal existence of the Qur'an. Various schools of Theology and Philosophy developed to answer these questions, each claiming to be true to the Qur'an and the Muslim tradition ( Sunnah ). There were the following dominant traditions:
SUNNI VIEW OF HADITH The Qur'an as we have it today was written down in approximately 650 A.D, and is accepted by all Muslim denominations. However, there were many matters of belief and daily life that were not directly prescribed in the Qur'an, but simply the practice of the community. Later generations sought out oral traditions regarding the early history of Islam, and the practice of Muhammad and his first followers, and wrote them down so that they might be preserved. These recorded oral traditions are called '' Hadith ''. Muslim scholars sifted through the hadith and evaluated the chain of narration of each tradition, scrutinizing the trustworthiness of the narrators and judging the strength of each hadith accordingly. Most Sunni accept the hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim as the most authentic ( Sahih , or correct), and grant a lesser status to the collections of other recorders. There are however, six collections of Hadith that are held in particular reverence by Sunni Muslims: There are also other collections of hadith which, although less well-known, still contain many authentic hadith and are frequently used by specialists such as:
CURRENT TRENDS IN SUNNI THOUGHT AND PRACTICE SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS Islamic Multimedia Articles and instruction:
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