Sects and schools
Family: Unity, division and dissent · 17 entries
Entries on this theme
Person
Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib
c. 535 CEAn uncle of the Prophet who raised him, led Banu Hashim, and protected him from Quraysh until his own death — while whether he himself embraced Islam is contested between the traditions.Abu Bakr al-Siddiq
c. 573 CEClose companion of the Prophet and the first caliph (r. 632–634 CE); his succession is understood differently in Sunni and Shia tradition.Ali ibn Abi Talib
c. 600 CECousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth caliph (r. 656–661 CE); the first Imam in Shia tradition.Fatima bint Muhammad
c. 605 CEThe youngest daughter of the Prophet and Khadija and wife of Ali ibn Abi Talib; mother of Hasan and Husayn and a central figure of Ahl al-Bayt in both Sunni and Shia tradition.Hasan ibn Ali
c. March 625 CE · c. Ramadan 3 AHElder grandson of the Prophet through Fatima and Ali; briefly caliph in 661 CE before abdicating in favor of Muawiya, an act understood differently across the traditions.Husayn ibn Ali
c. January 626 CE · c. Rabi' I 4 AHYounger grandson of the Prophet through Fatima and Ali; killed at Karbala in 680 CE after refusing allegiance to Yazid I, an event of lasting significance especially in Shia tradition.Zaynab bint Ali
c. 626 CE · c. 5 AH†Granddaughter of the Prophet through Fatima and Ali; a survivor of Karbala whose accounts and defiance made her a central voice of her family in tradition.Ahmad ibn Hanbal
An imam and hadith scholar who compiled the Musnad; eponym of the Hanbali school, which gives precedence to the revealed text and transmitted reports. He wrote only one treatise on jurisprudence, on prayer, while his students wrote more than thirty volumes of his words and fatwas.Abd al-Qadir ibn Badran
A Damascene Hanbali scholar, author of al-Madkhal ila Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal; he died in Damascus in 1346 AH.
Event
Ghadir Khumm
March 632 CE · Dhu al-Hijja 10 AHA halt at the pool of Khumm on the return from the Farewell Pilgrimage, at which the Prophet spoke about Ali.The pen-and-paper incident
c. 26 May 632 CE · 8 Rabi' I 11 AHOn the Thursday four days before his death the Prophet said 'bring me [something] to write for you a document after which you will never go astray'; Umar said pain had overcome him and the Qur'an sufficed, the people of the house disputed, and the Prophet sent them away — an episode the traditions read differently.The meeting at Saqifa
June 632 CE · Rabi' I 11 AHAfter the Prophet's death, leaders of the Ansar and Muhajirun met in the hall of the Banu Sa'ida and chose Abu Bakr as leader of the community.
Concept
Group
Ahl al-Bayt
'The People of the House' — the Prophet's household: the family around whom the deepest loyalties and the deepest split in Islamic history would form.The Hanbali school (madhhab)
One of the four Sunni schools of law, named after Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal; it gives precedence to the revealed text, transmitted reports and the fatwas of the Companions, and was preserved and written down by his students after him, foremost among them al-Khallal and al-Kharaqi.
Work
al-Madkhal ila Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Ibn Badran's book in an introduction and eight chapters introducing the Hanbali school: the Imam's creed, the reason the school was chosen, its principles, the path of his companions, its legal theory, its terminology, its famous books, and the divisions of jurisprudence among the Hanbalis.Maqalat al-Islamiyyin wa-Ikhtilaf al-Musallin
A book by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari setting out the positions of the Muslim sects and the theologians, whose first volume closes with a report of the position of the hadith scholars and Ahl al-Sunna that he then says he holds.
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