A Study in the Sociology of Islam

Description

Any religion initially emerges as a rejection or reaction against a specific phenomenon in society. It evolves in theory and practice according to changes in its worldly development, its successes and failures, the nature of the people who govern it, and other similar factors.

The central focus of this study is what Al-Wardi calls the “dilemma of Islam,” which he describes as the conflict between the ideal and the real within Islam, a conflict that evolved into the Sunni-Shia conflict—noting that he uses the terms “ideal” and “real” in their common, everyday sense, not their philosophical meaning. He argues that Sunnis represent the realist side, while Shi’ism was an idealist school of thought. This idea is similar to that presented by Ahmed Abbas Saleh in his book “Right and Left in Islam,” albeit with differences in methodology.