(This is part two of a four-part series on Shiite Islam and the Iranian regime. Please click here to read part one.)
The previous article introduced the Shiite concept of justice through Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin of Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Ali is a linchpin for understanding the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam, the former representing the majority of Muslims in the world and the latter representing the majority in Iran. In 1979, Iran led a revolution that resulted in the world’s only Shiite government, establishing wilayat al-faqih, the “guardianship of the jurist,” meaning the rule of an expert scholar in sharia law.
This article will continue our examination of Shiite history, starting with the way Shiites see the Quran as containing both literal commands and mystical values. Shiites say it takes spiritual insight to understand the Quran correctly. And there are a multitude of traditions—the Sunna, from which Sunnis take their name—describing what Muhammad said and did.
Sunni scholarship recognizes many of these reports as authentic and others as uncertain or outright invented to support a political cause. They exist in the thousands, and although the standards of determining authenticity are internally rigorous, the task is a human endeavor.
Shiites say the Sunni criteria are necessarily insufficient. They believe proper Islamic leadership requires supernatural insight passed directly from Muhammad to his offspring—those who knew him best. Ali married the prophet’s daughter Fatimah, and they had two sons, Hasan and Hussein. Recall that Ali was assassinated in an Islamic civil war and leadership passed into Sunni hands. In AD 680, Hussein led a revolt against Yazid, the sixth caliph, whom many Sunnis consider impious. Yazid’s army slaughtered Hussein with his small contingent in Iraq, marking another blow to Shiites while reinforcing…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on July 9, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.
Jayson Casper 