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Politics in Islam
After
Muhammad
's death, the disputed question of who should be the successor (
Caliph
) to Muhammad's political authority led eventually to the division of Islam into
Sunni
and
Shia
.
Sunni's believe that he should be elected, whereas Shia believe in divinely ordained
infallible
twelve Shi'a
Imams
for leadership after Muhammad. The
Ismaili
Shia have their own version of the
Imamah
doctrine.
Originally, Shi'a belief was that they should refrain from politics in the absence of one of the twelve
Shia Imams
. But after The Occultation of the twelfth Shia Imam, the original Shia concept of leadership became untenable, so the notion of
Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists
(
Velayat-e faqih
) was derived by
Ruhollah Khomeini
.
See also
[
edit
]