The Mosaic of Islam by Suleiman Mourad

Author:Suleiman Mourad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

Glossary

Abbasids: a dynasty of caliphs who ruled the Muslim world starting in 750. They traced their genealogy to ʿAbbas, the uncle of Prophet Muhammad. They championed Sunnism, and their power dwindled from the tenth century, becoming more symbolic than actual. Their rule ended when the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258. Between 1258 and 1517, descendants of the last Abbasid caliph moved to Cairo and became puppet caliphs for the Mamluk sultans.

ʿAbd-el-Malik: one of the most important Umayyad caliphs. He ruled between 685 and 705, and left a huge religious legacy, including the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Abu Hanifa (d. 767): see Hanafis.

Afghani, Jamal al-Din (d. 1897): Muslim reformer who originally came from Iran, and lived some of his life in France and Egypt. He was a very popular figure among Muslim modernists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855): see Hanbalis.

Ahmadiyya: a sect that originated in India in the nineteenth century with a Sunni scholar named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), who declared himself a prophet and the Messiah. They were persecuted by other Sunnis, which pushed them to develop as an ecumenical movement with hope to reconcile Sunnism and Shiʿism. Today, they exist as an independent sect, and are officially persecuted in Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

ʿAlawis: a Shiʿi sect, also known as Nusayris, that originated from Twelver Shiʿism in the ninth century, and only acknowledges the first eleven imams. Its theology blends elements from different religions, and holds excessive views of ʿAli as a deity. Today, it has adherents in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.

Alevis: a Twelver Shiʿi ethnic group who live in Turkey today and historically inhabited the region bordering Turkey and Iran. Also known as the Qizilbash or redheaded people (for the red turbans they used to wear), the Alevis were occasionally persecuted by the Sunni Ottomans on suspicion of collaboration with the Shiʿi Safavids in Iran.

Almohads: a dynasty of militant Berber caliphs in North Africa who toppled the Almoravids and took over their empire. Their rule was effectively reduced to Marrakesh and eliminated in 1269. The Almohads were Sunnis, following the Zahiri school.

Almoravids: a dynasty of militant Berber rulers who rose to power in Morocco in 1062 and controlled western Algeria and parts of Spain until 1147. They were Sunnis, following the Maliki school.

Ashʿari (d. 936): a Sunni theologian whose disciples established a school of theology named after him (Ashʿarism), which is very widespread among Sunnis.

Ayyubids: a dynasty of Sunni sultans who ruled Syria, Egypt, western Arabia and parts of south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq between 1171 and 1250. The dynasty’s founder was Saladin.

Azhar: a college to teach and train religious scholars and propagandists originally established in Cairo by the Shiʿi Fatimids, and converted by Saladin in 1171 into a Sunni seminary. It is one of the most prestigious and influential religious seminaries in the Muslim world.

Baath Party: a pan-Arab socialist movement started by Michel Aflaq (an Arab Christian) and others in 1947; it swept to power in Syria in 1963 and in Iraq in 1968.

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