Sect

Sect is covered here in 6 connected parts: Sect, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam, Islamic schools and branches, 73 Sects (Hadith), Kharijites, Al-Ma'unah.

Sect

A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization. Originally, the term referred specifically to religious groups that had separated from a main body, but it can now apply to any group that diverges from a larger organization to follow a distinct set of beliefs and practices. Sects often form when there is a perception of heresy either within the subgroup or from the larger group.^[1]

Etymology

The word sect originates from the Latin noun secta (a feminine form of a variant past participle of the verb sequi, to follow) which translates to "a way, road". Figuratively, it signifies a (prescribed) way, mode, or manner. Metonymously, sect refers to a discipline or school of thought as defined by a set of methods and doctrines.^[1]

Sociological definitions and descriptions

Sociologists have developed various definitions and descriptions for the term "sect." Early scholars like Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch (1912) were among the first to define sects within the church-sect typology, viewing them as voluntary associations of individuals who meet specific religious qualifications. Unlike churches, membership in a sect is not inherited at birth; rather, it arises from a person's voluntary acceptance of the sect's doctrines and disciplines, which requires ongoing validation from both the follower and the sect itself.^[1]

In other languages

The corresponding words for "sect" in European languages other than English – Sekte (German), secte (French), secta (Spanish, Catalan), sectă (Romanian), setta (Italian), seita (Portuguese, Galician), sekta (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Latvian, Lithuanian), sekt (Danish, Estonian, Norwegian, Swedish), sekte (Dutch), sekti (Finnish), - szekda (Hungarian), секта (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian), σέχτα (Greek) – refer to a harmful religious sect and translate into English as "cult".^[1]

In Buddhism

The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion distinguishes three types of classification of Buddhism, separated into "Movements", "Nikāyas" and "Doctrinal schools":^[1]

In Christianity

While the historical usage of the term "sect" in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox, its primary meaning is to indicate a community which has separated itself from the larger body from which its members came.^[1]

In Hinduism

The Indologist Axel Michaels writes in his book about Hinduism that in an Indian context the word "sect does not denote a split or excluded community, but rather an organized tradition, usually established by founder with ascetic practices." According to Michaels, "Indian sects do not focus on heresy, since the lack of a center or a compulsory center makes this impossible – instead, the focus is on adherents and followers."^[1]

In Islam

Islam was classically divided into two major sects, known as Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. Kharijite and Murijite Islam were two early Islamic sects. Each sect developed several distinct jurisprudence systems reflecting their own understanding of the Islamic law during the course of the history of Islam.^[1]

Current sects

Sunnis are separated into five maddhabs; Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Ẓāhirī. The Shia, on the other hand, first developed Kaysanism, which in turn divided into three major groupings known as Fivers, Seveners and Twelvers. The Zaydis separated first.^[1]

Former sects

The Khawarij were initially divided into five major branches: Sufris, Azariqa, Najdat, Adjarites and Ibadis.^[1]

Related: The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam · Islamic schools and branches · 73 Sects (Hadith)

External references: ^[1][2][3]

The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam

The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam is a book, first published in 1967, written by Middle-East historian Bernard Lewis, and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. An updated edition was published by Oxford University Press in 1987, and another in 2002 by Basic Books.^[4]

Description

Lewis, a British-American professor of history at Princeton University, traces the history of the secret Islamic sect known as the Assassins, an order of the Nizari Ismailis that used assassinations throughout the Middle Ages to achieve political, military, and religious goals.^[4]

Related: Sect · Islamic schools and branches · 73 Sects (Hadith) · Sunni Islam · Sunni Islam

External references: ^[4][5][6]

Islamic schools and branches

Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Sunnī Islam, there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, different schools of theology (Atharī, Ashʿarī, Māturīdī) and jurisprudence (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī).^[7]

Overview

The original schism between Kharijites, Sunnīs, and Shīʿas among Muslims was disputed over the political and religious succession to the guidance of the Muslim community (Ummah) after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims. Shīʿas believe ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib is the true successor to Muhammad, while Sunnīs consider Abu Bakr to hold that position.^[7]

Sunnī Islam

Sunnī Islam, also known as Ahl as-Sunnah waʾl Jamāʾah or simply Ahl as-Sunnah, is by far the largest denomination of Islam, comprising around 87-90% of the Muslim population in the world. The term Sunnī comes from the word sunnah, which means the teachings, actions, and examples of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his companions (ṣaḥāba).^[7]

Shīʿa Islam

Shīʿa Islam is the second-largest denomination of Islam, comprising around 10–13% of the total Muslim population. Although a minority in the Muslim world, Shīʿa Muslims constitute the majority of the Muslim populations in Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan, as well as significant minorities in Syria, Turkey, South Asia, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, as well as in other parts of the Persian Gulf.^[7]

Kharijites

The Kharijites (literally, "those who seceded") are a branch who originated during the First Fitna, the struggle for political leadership over the Muslim community, following the assassination in 656 of the third caliph Uthman. It is an extinct sect, except the Ibadis, whose roots go back to them. Kharijites originally supported the caliphate of Ali, but then later on fought against him and eventually succeeded in his martyrdom while he was praying in the mosque of Kufa.^[7]

Schools of Islamic jurisprudence

Islamic schools of jurisprudence, known as madhhab, differ in the methodology they use to derive their rulings from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, the sunnah (accounts of the sayings and living habits attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad during his lifetime), and the tafsīr literature (exegetical commentaries on the Quran).^[7]

Sunnī

Sunnī Islam contains numerous schools of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and schools of Islamic theology (ʿaqīdah). In terms of religious jurisprudence (fiqh), Sunnism contains several schools of thought (madhhab):^[7]

Shīʿa

In Shīʿa Islam, the major Shīʿīte school of jurisprudence is the Jaʿfari or Imāmī school, named after Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth Shīʿīte Imam. The Jaʿfari jurisprudence is further divided into two branches: the Usuli school, which favors the exercise of ijtihad, and the Akhbari school, which holds the traditions (aḵbār) of the Shīʿīte Imams to be the main source of religious knowledge. Minor Shīʿa schools of jurisprudence include the Ismāʿīlī school (Mustaʿlī-Fāṭimid Ṭayyibi Ismāʿīlīs) and the Zaydī school, both of which have closer affinity to Sunnī jurisprudence.^[7]

Ibadism

The fiqh or jurisprudence of Ibadis is relatively simple. Absolute authority is given to the Quran and ḥadīth literature; new innovations accepted on the basis of qiyas (analogical reasoning) were rejected as bid'ah (heresy) by the Ibadis. That differs from the majority of Sunnīs, but agrees with most Shīʿa schools and with the Ẓāhirī and early Ḥanbalī schools of Sunnism.^[7]

Schools of Islamic theology

Aqidah is an Islamic term meaning "creed", doctrine, or article of faith. There have existed many schools of Islamic theology, not all of which survive to the present day. Major themes of theological controversies in Islam have included predestination and free will, the nature of the Quran, the nature of the divine attributes, apparent and esoteric meaning of scripture, and the role of dialectical reasoning in the Islamic doctrine.^[7]

Related: Sect · The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam · 73 Sects (Hadith) · Moro Islamic Liberation Front

External references: ^[7][8][9]

73 Sects (Hadith)

The hadith attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and known as the hadith of 73 sects states that there will be 73 different sects and groups within Islam, and that only one of these groups will reach salvation or heaven, while the others will be destined for hell.^[10]

The text

There are many variations of hadith. According to the famous version of it Jews will be divided into seventy-one groups and Christians will be divided into seventy-two groups, and one of these groups of members of both religions will enter heaven. Muslims will be divided into seventy-three sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy-two in Hell.(Sunan Ibn Majah 3992, Book 36, Hadith 67)^[10]

Discussions

Islamic scholar Ibn Hazm did not see this hadith as authentic when viewed from the perspective of the sects that emerged in the history of Islamic thought. Another important hadith critic, Ibn al-Wazīr al-Yamānī (d. 840/1436), attributed the non-acceptance of this hadith by Bukhari and Muslim to the contradictions regarding the hadith text and did not consider the hadith as authentic.^[10]

Related: Sect · The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam · Islamic schools and branches

External references: ^[10][11][12]

Kharijites

The Kharijites (Arabic: الخوارج, romanized: al-Khawārij, singular Arabic: خارجي, romanized: khārijī) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challenger, Mu'awiya, at the Battle of Siffin in 657. They asserted that "judgment belongs to God alone", which became their motto, and that rebels such as Mu'awiya had to be fought and overcome according to Qur'anic injunctions.^[13]

Etymology

The term al-Khariji was used as an exonym by their opponents for leaving the army of Caliph Ali during the First Fitna. The term comes from the Arabic root خ ر ج, which has the primary meaning "to leave" or "to get out", as in the basic word خرج, ḵẖaraja, "to go out". The term Khawarij is anglicized to 'Kharijites' from the singular Khariji.^[13]

Primary and classical sources

Almost no primary Kharijite sources survive, except for works by authors from the sole surviving Kharijite sect of Ibadiyya, and excerpts in non-Kharijite works. As the latter are the main sources of information and date to later periods, the Kharijite material has suffered alterations and distortions during transmission, collection, and classification.^[13]

Opposition under Uthman

The later years of Uthman's reign were marked by growing discontent from multiple groups within the Muslim community. His favoritism and enrichment of his Umayyad relatives was disdained by the Muslim elite in Medina. The early Muslim settlers of the garrison towns of Kufa and Fustat, in the conquered regions of Iraq and Egypt, felt their status threatened by several factors during this period.^[13]

Emergence during the First Fitna

The Kharijites were the first sect to arise within Islam. They originated during the First Fitna, the struggle for political leadership over the Muslim community (umma), following the assassination in 656 of the third caliph Uthman (r. 644–656).^[13]

Under Mu'awiya

The accession of Mu'awiya, the original enemy of the Kharijites, to the caliphate in August 661 provided the new impetus for Kharijite rebellion. Those Kharijites at Nahrawan who had been unwilling to fight Ali and had left the battlefield, rebelled against Mu'awiya. Under the leadership of Farwa ibn Nawfal al-Ashja'i of the Banu Murra, some 500 of them attacked Mu'awiya's camp at Nukhayla (a place outside Kufa) where he was taking the Kufans' oath of allegiance.^[13]

Second Fitna

After the death of Mu'awiya in 680, civil war ensued over leadership of the Muslim community. The people of the Hejaz (where Mecca and Medina are located) rebelled against Mu'awiya's son and successor, Yazid. The Mecca-based Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, a son of Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, was the most prominent Hejazi opponent of Yazid.^[13]

Moderate Kharijites and their fragmentation

According to the heresiographers' accounts, the original Kharijites split into four principal groups (usul al-Khawarij; the mother sects of all the later Kharijite sects), during the Second Fitna. A moderate group, headed by Abd Allah ibn Saffar (or Asfar) and Abd Allah ibn Ibad, disagreed with the radical Azariqa and Najdat on the question of rebellion and separation from the non-Kharijites. Ibn Saffar and Ibn Ibad then disagreed amongst themselves as to the faith of the non-Kharijites, and thus came the two other sects: the Sufriyya and Ibadiyya.^[13]

Beliefs and practices

The Kharijites did not have a uniform and coherent set of doctrines. Different sects and individuals held different views. Based on these divergences, heresiographers have listed more than a dozen minor Kharijite sects, in addition to the four main sects discussed above.^[13]

Governance

In addition to their insistence on rule according to the Qur'an, the view common to all Kharijite groups was that any Muslim was qualified to become caliph, regardless of origin, if he had the credentials of belief and piety. They rejected Qurayshite descent or close kinship with Muhammad as a prerequisite for the office, a view espoused by most Muslims at the time. This differs from the position of both Sunnis, who accepted the leadership of those in power provided that they were Qurayshite, and Shi'a, who asserted that the leadership belonged to Ali and his descendants.^[13]

Related: Sect · The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam · Islamic schools and branches

External references: ^[13][14][15]

Al-Ma'unah

Al-Ma'unah is an Islamic sect and spiritual militant group based in Malaysia. The group was made famous by their audacious raid on 2 July 2000 on a camp of Malaysian Army Reserve mobilised in the early hours of the morning and stealing weapons from the armory. The group was later cornered in the village of Sauk, Kuala Kangsar, Perak and was involved in a stand-off against the Malaysian Army and Royal Malaysian Police forces.^[16]

Description

The group's full name was Persaudaraan Ilmu Dalam Al-Ma’unah (Brotherhood of Inner Power) or Al-Ma'unah in short. The group had a website which explained that Al-Ma'unah was an organisation "involved in the teaching of martial arts particularly the development of one’s inner power and the practice of Islamic traditional medicine". The term "Ma’unah" supposedly means something extraordinary (paranormal) that happens to an ordinary Muslim individual.^[16]

Social impact

Al-Ma'unah is characterised as a sect by the Malaysian authorities and not as a rebel or terrorist group like Jemaah Islamiah. But for all the slickness of the two arms heists, the group's previous actions amounted to taking a few potshots at a Hindu temple at Batu Caves, breweries on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, and a power company's electric tower. The Al-Ma'unah case is regarded as an isolated episode in Malaysia.^[16]

Political impact

Some people believed that the Sauk incident was stage managed by the Government of Malaysia under then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. This belief was because of the apparent ease that the Al Ma'unah Group talked their way through the army guards into allowing them into the camp and seizing the arms and ammunition.^[16]

Related: Sect · The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam · Islamic schools and branches

External references: ^[16][17][18]