Wensinck's The Muslim Creed (Cambridge...

Wensinck's The Muslim Creed (Cambridge, 1932) marked an epoch, and after its appearance it was generally felt that having performed the task in a masterly fashion, he had clearly indicated a new approach to the problem, and indeed pointed the way to another aspect of study -the examination of the Shi'ite creed.

Professor Wensinck had restricted himself to the early Sunnite authorities, and while studying his lucid and methodical presentation of the subject, we see that the picture is incomplete and can only be completed by editing and translating a number of Shi'ite creeds, thus paving the way for a historical and systematic study of the subject. The creed of Islam cannot be understood by the study of the “Sunnite” element only; to this must also be added the inquiry into the Shi'ite counterpart.

The uses of such a study are many, but three different aspects may here be stressed: such a study would clarify many historical questions; it would give us an insight into theological controversies - as these are not always barren, fanatical and personal, but indicative of general trends of thought; and finally, it would tend to the solution of the problem of legal distinctions that puzzle some of the foremost jurists.[^8] Our knowledge regarding the Shi'ite faith is generally derived from three well-known heresiologists whose published work is easily accessible.

These in chronological order are: Baghdadi (died 429/1038),[^9] Ibn Hazm (died 456/1054)[^10] and Shahrastani (died 548/1153**) [^11] .** Of these, Shahrastani is the best known, for it was published early; later, Ibn Hazm in the rendering of Friedlaender, came also to be fairly well known; the earliest authority, Baghdadi, is for various reasons the least known. All of these are devout Sunnis, convinced of the pernicious errors of the rawafid, the Shi'a.

With such an attitude, it is impossible for them to be just or fair to the Shi'ite point of view. One may as well expect a sober account of the Church of England from a Catholic priest. The result is that the earlier orientalists believed that Shi'ism was a pernicious corruption of Islam, concocted mainly, if not solely, for political reasons[^12]; also that the Sunni faith is the “orthodox” faith and the Shi'ite, the “heterodox” one.

Whether Shi'ism was a deliberate corruption of Islam or whether it was one of its early forms is now hardly a debatable question.