It became a fundamental dogma of Islam, that the Sunnah was the indispensable completion of the Qoran, and that both together formed the source of Mohammedan law and doctrine; so much so that every party assumed the name of “People of the Sunnah” to express its pretension to orthodoxy.  The contents of the Sunnah, however, was the subject of a great deal of controversy; so that it came to be considered necessary to make the Prophet pronounce his authoritative judgment on this difference of opinion.  He was said to have called it a proof of God’s special mercy, that within reasonable limits difference of opinion was allowed in his community.  Of that privilege Mohammedans have always amply availed themselves.

When the difference touched on political questions, especially on the succession of the Prophet in the government of the community, schism was the inevitable consequence.  Thus arose the party strifes of the first century, which led to the establishment of the sects of the Shi’ites and the Kharijites, separate communities, severed from the great whole, that led their own lives, and therefore followed paths different from those of the majority in matters of doctrine and law as well as in politics.  The sharpness of the political antithesis served to accentuate the importance of the other differences in such cases and to debar their acceptance as the legal consequence of the difference of opinion that God’s mercy allowed.  That the political factor was indeed the great motive of separation, is clearly shown in our own day, now that one Mohammedan state after the other sees its political independence disappearing and efforts are being made from all sides to re-establish the unity of the Mohammedan world by stimulating the feeling of religious brotherhood.  Among the most cultivated Moslims of different countries an earnest endeavour is gaining ground to admit Shi’ites, Kharijites, and others, formerly abused as heretics, into the great community, now threatened by common foes, and to regard their special tenets in the same way as the differences existing between the four law schools:  Hanafites, Malikites, Shafi’ites and Hanbalites, which for centuries have been considered equally orthodox.

Although the differences that divide these schools at first caused great excitement and gave rise to violent discussions, the strong catholic instinct of Islam always knew how to prevent schism.  Each new generation either found the golden mean between the extremes which had divided the preceding one, or it recognized the right of both opinions.

Though the dogmatic differences were not necessarily so dangerous to unity as were political ones, yet they were more apt to cause schism than discussions about the law.  It was essential to put an end to dissension concerning the theological roots of the whole system of Islam.  Mohammed had never expressed any truth in dogmatic form; all systematic thinking was foreign to his nature.  It was again