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THE SPLIT WITHIN THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY

Summary/Abstract: In this work we deal with genealogical, historic-religious and also religious-political dimension of Islam as causes which instigated the split within the Muslim community. Mohammad’s death triggered the crisis in leadership in newly formed community of faithful, whose schism initiated the creation of caliphate. This conflict around the caliphate happened after the murder of righteous caliph Osman, when three conflicting sides emerged: Haredgide, Sunnite, and Shiite. Despite the domination of Sunnite majority, Muslim community was quickly organized as a caliphate state, whose extremely quick penetration eastward couldn’t be stopped neither by the Byzantium nor the Persian Empire. Key elements of creation of Muslim caliphate were the long-running exhausting warfare between the Byzantine and Persian Empire, and religious factors which contributed to the creation of the new ideological framework in the sphere of social organization. The whole lot of historical and socio-religious circumstance in this area contributed immensely to the creation of new conditions for creation of the new state which did not exist in this territory before. The first thirteen centuries of Islam could roughly be divided into six periods: the rule of first four righteous Muslim caliphs (632- 661), caliphate Omayada in Damascus (661-750), Abasid caliphate in Baghdad (750- 1258), Mameluke Empire (1250-1517), Safavid Empire (1501-1722) and the Ottoman Empire (1281-1924). In this period this “planetary religion” developed into a subtle and complex dogmatic theology which in many details exposes a phenomenon of Gnostic syncretism, but also a mixture of Judeo-Christian, Manichean, Heleno-Gnostic, Jewish and Persian teaching which continued to exist in Islam for centuries.

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