After several years of independent inquiry as to who was...

After several years of independent inquiry as to who was right__Ali or his opponents__he gave up the beliefs of his ancestors and accepted the Twelve Imams of the Shi`as as his “rightly guided” leaders after the Prophet. The author of four previously published books (Pyam-e-Aman had published the English translation of his first book titled Then I was Guided ), Dr. Muhammad al-Samawi al-Tijani is a great scholar and Arabist.

As a student of comparative religion, he has tirelessly pursued his quest for the truth, and he continues to write what he calls, in the beginning of his first book, “a story of a journey..., a story of a new discovery... in the field of religious and philosophical schools.” The question of who Ahlul Sunnah are and who are not is critical to any believer, both in the context of history as well as in the practice of religion today.

It is also important because those who labelled themselves as the “traditionists” viewed all others as “heterodox” in contrast to their claiming themselves to be the “orthodox.” This resulted in violence and coercion as the rulers of the time used such accusations to oppress the masses as they demonstrated their power and ruthless control over their destiny.

Western Islamists picked up the jargon from the writers of the “majority sect” and divided the Muslim world in their writings into “Orthodox” and “Heretical,” referring to the Sunnis and the Shi`as respectively.[^3] This hypothetical dichotomy is misleading and completely baseless. It is also due to the lack of understanding about the world of Islam.

Western writers fail to observe that, other than the belief in the issue of Imamate, the Sunnis have far greater differences within their own four sects (or schools of thought) system compared to their differences with the Shi`as. The views of the Hanafis regarding theological questions, for example, may well coincide with those of the Shi`as while remaining in an uncompromising contradiction to many doctrines espoused by, say, the Hanbalis, the Shafi`is, or the Malikis.

In sharp contrast to the evidence of “irreconcilable differences” between the four Imams who had established the afore-mentioned Schools of Sunni Thought, even with regard to issues of minor as well as major importance, a total consensus exists among the Twelve Imams of Ahlul Bayt (People of the Prophet's House) on each and every doctrinal aspect of the faith.