lim community, or Ummah, arose. Initially, his successors could be drawn from
the Prophet's contemporaries, but with time, this was no longer possible.Those
who became the Shia held that any leader of the Ummah must be a direct
descendant of the Prophet; those who became the Sunni argued that lineal
descent was not required if the candidate met other standards of faith and
knowledge.After bloody struggles, the Sunni became (and remain) the major-
ity sect. (The Shia are dominant in Iran.) The Caliphate--the institutionalized
leadership of the Ummah--thus was a Sunni institution that continued until
1924, first under Arab and eventually under Ottoman Turkish control.
happened then--the spread of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula throughout
the Middle East, North Africa, and even into Europe within less than a cen-
tury--seemed, and seems, miraculous.
their faith.This does not necessarily translate into a desire for clerical rule and
the abolition of a secular state. It does mean that some Muslims tend to be
uncomfortable with distinctions between religion and state, though Muslim
rulers throughout history have readily separated the two.
authority over all aspects of life. Periodically, the Islamic world has seen surges
of what, for want of a better term, is often labeled "fundamentalism."
a return to observance of the literal teachings of the Qur'an and Hadith. One
scholar from the fourteenth century from whom Bin Ladin selectively quotes,
Ibn Taimiyyah, condemned both corrupt rulers and the clerics who failed to
criticize them. He urged Muslims to read the Qur'an and the Hadith for them-
selves, not to depend solely on learned interpreters like himself but to hold one
another to account for the quality of their observance.
their religion, thereby leaving Islam vulnerable to encroaching foreign powers
eager to steal their land, wealth, and even their souls.
Despite his claims to universal leadership, Bin Ladin offers an extreme view of
Islamic history designed to appeal mainly to Arabs and Sunnis. He draws on
fundamentalists who blame the eventual destruction of the Caliphate on lead-
ers who abandoned the pure path of religious devotion.