Shia Islam

Shia (/ˈʃiːə/; Arabic: شيعة‎ Shīʿah), an abbreviation of Shīʻatu ʻAlī (شيعة علي, "followers of Ali"), is a branch of Islam which holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad's proper successor as Caliph was his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib. Shia Islam primarily contrasts with Sunni Islam, whose adherents believe that Muhammad's father-in-law Abu Bakr was his proper successor.

Adherents of Shia Islam are called Shias or the Shi'a as a collective or Shi'i individually. Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam: in 2009, Shia Muslims constituted 10–13% of the world's Muslim population.Twelver Shia (Ithnā'ashariyyah) is the largest branch of Shia Islam. In 2012 it was estimated that perhaps 85 percent of Shias were Twelvers.

Shia Islam is based on the Quran and the message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad attested in hadith recorded by the Shia, and certain books deemed sacred to the Shia (Nahj al-Balagha). Shia consider Ali to have been divinely appointed as the successor to Muhammad, and as the first Imam. The Shia also extend this "Imami" doctrine to Muhammad's family, the Ahl al-Bayt ("the People of the House"), and certain individuals among his descendants, known as Imams, who they believe possess special spiritual and political authority over the community, infallibility, and other divinely-ordained traits. Although there are myriad Shia subsects, modern Shia Islam has been divided into three main groupings: Twelvers, Ismailis and Zaidis, with Twelver Shia being the largest and most influential group among Shia.

Shi'ite Islam (book)

Shi'ite Islam is an important text on the history and thought of Shi'a Islam.

Written by Muhammed H. Al-Tabataba'i, with the translation, editing, and introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, it was the first text to be written by a top Shi'a scholar and intended for western readership.

How it began

In 1962, Kenneth Morgan, university chaplain and professor of religious studies at Colgate University, initiated a project to produce a text specifically dealing with Shi'a Islam, introducing the Islamic sect to the non Muslim western reader, written from a true Shi'a perspective.

The aim of Professor Morgan to have a description of Shi'ism by one of the respected traditional scholars of the Shi'a, led him and collaborator Seyyed Hossein Nasr, to Allamah Tabataba'i in 1963.

Allameh Tabatabaei was particularly well suited for this task; he was a pillar of intellectual Shi'a thought who combined interest in jurisprudence and Quranic commentary with philosophy, theosophy, and Sufism, and represented a more universal interpretation of the Shi'a point of view.