Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
Before we begin. ask yourself, are you being romantic of a mythological Islamic past, or are you willing to discuss history without sentimental baggage. I am willing to discuss figures, dates, facts, armies, dynasties.This is a very minisformed view, I'm afraid. Might I ask , where'd you get that from, that After the death Of the Porphet (pbuh), his Companions waged war against each other? Which war was this and when did it happen?
The Sunni Shia History developed much later, and it has no roots around the time of several decades after his death. It started around the time of Hazrat Ali (RA) the fourth Caliph, who was the married to the daughter of the Prophet, and When he had heard of it, he strongly opposed to the Idea of sects based on Glorification of either of the companions of the Prophet, as if each practised Islam in a different version, which is strongly discouraged in Islam, and is called Bidah"(meaning astrayed, far away from the real deen)
And it is said to have all started (according to historians) when a Jew convert to Islam, moved away from the Caliphate and proselytized Islam with additions and distortions of his own, incorporating his own touch, which surprisingly is evident all over the Shia textual references (the books of their Imams,) impregnated with Jewish symbolism and traditions.
Hence, people who were influenced by the good teachings of Islam, accepted the message entirely while not knowing the actual truth. As soon as their version of Islam was heard by the Right Guided 4th Caliph, it was totally refuted, and there were missions sent to identify such people, but they were said to have fled away into self imposed exile, hence you will find the Shia sect further from the centre of Islam, The Arab.
The 4 Caliphs of Islam after the Prophet (pbuh SAWW )were the Right guided ones and Inspite of differences of opinion among them (only 'on the modus operandi) to carry out certain things, (rather than the Ideology of Islam,) they always stood united upon ONE version of Islam, i.e The one taught by the Prophet(pbuh) Himself.
There is lot of history to the groups, but the main point being that there were no groupings of sects at the time of and Right AFTER the Prophet, It is discouraged for Muslims to be divided into groups, as has been said in the Quran and the Hadith, I myself don't associate myself with groupings, The Law of Allah and the practice of the Prophet is what a Muslim is defined by.
So, the political struggles that took place decades after the death of the Prophet, were not motivated by sects but by Huge conspiracies to PREVENT the Imams of the Muslim world to gain any control over the Muslim affairs and make it look like a solely political effort, which it was not.
As for the political struggles of Modern Muslim world, and the commotion that there was/is between some of the muslim nations, Arabs, turks, kurds, is not out of an ISLAMIC perspective which makes those efforts entirely 'imperialist, dictatorial, capitalist, political etc'.
An islamic system is FORMED out of a great Credence given to the Caliph by the muslim population themselves so there is no chance of being divided on the sides by either sect or conspiracy, unless ofcorse certain elements design a fierce conspiracy to topple such a system.
In a modern democratic state, politicians first sell themselves with all the gloss to their un-suspecting voters and when once in power, they do what their agenda is, the wishes of the voters are conveniently ignored. In Islamic system , a person is CHOSEN on the basis of his character and he doesn't go around beggging for votes, People go to him themselves assigining him their trust. The Islamic ideology which is the correct one is the one based on The Quran and authentic hadees, sans any personal touch or vendetta entwined with it under cover.
I just want to make sure that my experience in the university, in the field and in travelling the middle east is not going to be wasted on a sentimental believer.
