Sunni [Arab. Sunna,=tradition], from ahl al-sunnah wa-l-jamaa [Arab.,=the people of the custom of the Prophet and community], the largest division of Islam. Sunni Islam is the heir to the early central Islamic state, in its ackowledgement of the legitimacy of the order of succession of the first four caliphs (see caliphate), in contrast to the Shiite rejection of the first three as usurpers. It can also be seen as the aggregate of the adherents to the four extant schools of religious law (fiqh), the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, and Hanbali schools (see sharia). With no centralized clerical institution, Sunni Islam should be understood as an umbrella identity, grouping close to 90% of the approximately one billion Muslims, stretching geographically from the Indonesian islands to the African steppes, through the Indian subcontinent, central Asia, and the Arab world, and ideologically from ecstatic Sufism to the puritanic literalism of the Wahhabis and Salafias, through scholasticism and secularism. The scholastic formulation, the most constant expression of Sunni Islam throughout its history and geographic span, proposes the relation of the human being with the Divine as essentially individual, with no intermediaries. In actual practice, however, religious scholars (ulama), together with mystic shaykhs, pious persons, and popular saints (awliya), are often recognized as enjoying a religious authority of varying degrees. The Sunni theoretical characterization of the Prophet Muhammad as a mere executor of Divine will has not precluded the intensive devotional rituals directed to his person that flourish in a diversity of forms across the Sunni world. The prime center of scholastic learning in Sunni Islam is the mosque-university of al-Azhar in Cairo.

Larger of the two major divisions of Islam, comprising 90percnt of the world's Muslims. Sunnites regard theirs as the mainstream and traditionalist branch of Islam, as distinguished from the minority branch, the Shīaynites. Sunnites recognize the first four Umayyad caliphs (see Umayyad dynasty) as Muhammad's rightful successors. Because the Sunnites understood Muhammad's theocratic state to have been an earthly, temporal dominion, they were willing to accept unexceptional and even foreign caliphs, provided order and religious orthodoxy were maintained. Sunnite orthodoxy emphasizes consensus based on the views and customs of the majority of the community, thereby enabling them to incorporate various customs and usages that arose historically but that had no roots in the Qurhamzahān. Sunnites recognize the six authentic books of the Hsubdotadīth and accept the four major schools of Islamic law. In the early 21st century, Sunnite Muslims numbered about one billion.

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