Shia Islam is a sect in Islamic teachings that has been around for a long time.
They have several fundamental differences in their teachings, but at first glance they are almost similar to the teachings of Sunni Islam.
These two branches of Islam, Shia and Sunni Islam, although they adhere to the same Islamic teachings, have different interpretations in certain areas.
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Adherents of Shia Islam currently exist in 22 countries, and Iran has a fairly high number of followers, around 70 million, followed by Pakistan with 3 million and Iraq with 20 million Shia followers.
This fact cannot be denied that the teachings of Shia Islam are developing quite rapidly so that the number of followers of its teachings is very large and has even spread everywhere like a virus.
Shia Islam and Sunni Islam, when the Prophet Muhammad SAW was still alive, did not exist at all. There is not a single proposition from either the quran or the hadith that relates to Shia Islam or Sunni Islam.
There are only words for the religion of Islam as stated in the Koran, surah al-Imran verse 19, the interpretation of which briefly states that Allah SWT said that in fact only the religion of Islam is blessed by Allah.
So outside the Islamic religion, such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism or whatever the name of the religion, will be rejected in the afterlife. This is logical, because it is impossible for all religions to be true, there must be only one religion that is true and the creator said this in his words in the quran.
Returning to the original topic, Shia Islam and Sunni Islam only emerged after the Prophet Muhammad SAW died. And this is a term given to followers of Islamic teachings with a certain interpretation.
This is in line with the term Shia in the Arabic dictionary by Abu Manshur Muhammad Bin Ahmad al Azhari Tahdzibul Lughah volume 3, that Shia is defined as the defender and follower of someone or every group gathered on a matter.
Shia Islam first appeared at the end of the reign of Uthman bin Affan, which ended with the killing of the third khafilah. This incident occurred because of the emergence of various accusations and slander from groups who did not like Uthman bin Affan's style of government.
This group of slanderers became stronger in their teachings during the reign of Ali bin Abi Talib, but it was not obvious. This is clearly explained by Imam Bukhari in his book Sahih Bukhari.
At that time Shia Islam was divided into 3 streams, namely
1. The sect that considers Ali bin Abi Talib to be God and is known by him
2. The sect that likes to criticize the friends of the Prophet Muhammad SAW, namely Abu Bakar Ash-Shiddiq and Umar bin Khattab
3. The sect that considers Ali bin Abi Talib to be a superior figure to the companions of the Prophet Abu Bakar Ash-Shiddiq and Umar bin Khattab.
In the course of history, later on, the three sects of Shia Islam finally split into five sects, namely Imamiyyah, Kaisaniyyah, Zaidiyyah, Ismailiyah and wrestling. Now, of the five sects, the Imamiyyah sect is a hardline group that has tried hard to destroy Muslims from the past until the present.
The issue of the emergence of Shia Islam came from a Jew from Yemen named Abdullah bin Saba during the reign of Uthman bin Affan. He campaigned that after the Prophet died, Ali bin Abi Talib should be in charge, not Abu Bakar Ash-Siddiq, Umar bin Khattab and Ustman bin Affan.
He said, Ali bin Abi Talib was protected from all forms of sin and apart from that, he was also the son-in-law of Rasullulah, Fatimah Azzahra's husband. Abdullah bin Saba's campaign was continuously carried out and the belief in Ali bin Abi Talib as a god even emerged.
Knowing this excessive belief, Ali then fought them and burned the followers of Abdullah bin Saba who did not repent. Abdullah bin Saba as the main figure behind Shia Islam is a Jewish infiltrator who was deliberately infiltrated among Muslims by Jews.
The aim was to destroy the Islamic religious order which at that time was starting to develop rapidly. This effort could be said to be successful with the emergence of great conflict among Muslims and ending with the killing of Uthman bin Affan at that time.
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