From the 8th century to the 9th century, many inhabitants of what is present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and areas of northern India were converted to Sunni Islam.

During the 8th through the 9th centuries, many inhabitants of what is present-day Afghanistan and western Pakistan were converted to Sunni Islam.

The Ghaznavid military incursions assured the domination of Sunni Islam in what is now Afghanistan and western Pakistan.

The main religions are Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Sunni Islam.

Eventually the Chechens converted to Sunni Islam, largely encouraged by the motive of receiving help from the Ottoman Empire against Russian encroachment.

The above mentioned reports are adopted from the authentic sources explaining Shia Islam, and Sunni Islam.,

While Sunni and Shia Islam differ sharply on the conduct of a caliph and the right relations between a leader and a community, they do not differ on the underlying theory of stewardship.

In 1305, after the issuing of a fatwa by the scholar Ibn Taymiyyah calling for jihad against all non-Sunni Muslims like the Druze, Alawites, Ismaili, and twelver Shiites, al-Malik al-Nasir inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Druze at Keserwan and forced outward compliance on their part to orthodox Sunni Islam.

At the end of the 17th century ( 1697 ) the Shihabs succeeded the Ma ' ans in the feudal leadership of Druze southern Lebanon, although they reportedly professed Sunni Islam, they showed sympathy with Druzism, the religion of the majority of their subjects.

85 % of the Tigre people adhere to the Islamic religion Sunni Islam, but there are a considerable amount of Christians among them as well ( often referred to as the Mensaï in Eritrea ).

In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar.

These leaders are known as the " Rashidun " or " rightly guided " Caliphs in Sunni Islam.

The two largest denominations of Islam, Shiʻa and Sunni, have different sets of hadith collections.

Sunni Islam severely limits the use of visual representations ( see Islamic art ).

Olivier Roy argues that " Sunni pan-Islamism underwent a remarkable shift in the second half of the 20th century " when the Muslim Brotherhood movement and focus on Islamistation of pan-Arabism was eclipsed by the Salafi movement with its emphasis on " sharia rather than the building of Islamic institutions ," and rejection of Shia Islam.

The Sunni branch of Islam does not have imams in the same sense as the Shi ' a, an important distinction often overlooked by those outside of the Islamic faith.

for a recognized religious scholar or authority in Islam, often for the founding scholars of the four Sunni madhhabs, or schools of jurisprudence ( fiqh ).

Eschatology relates to one of the six ( seven according to Shī ‘ a traditions ) articles of faith ( aqīdah ) of Islam according to the Sunni traditions.

A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.

Nearly everyone in Jalalabad are Muslim, followers of Sunni Islam.

The son of a Hindu Rajput mother who converted to Islam, Jahangir made the precepts of Sunni Islam the cornerstone of his state policies.

For example, Sunni Muslims would favor a Sunni fatwā whereas Shiite would follow a Shi ' a one.

Chuck is a pescatarian and Sunni Muslim.

He is a well-respected Sunni cleric who studied in the Sudan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Religious affiliation is itself multi-layered and includes religious considerations other than being Muslim, such as sectarian identity ( e. g. Shia or Sunni, etc.

Thus, the Sheikh of al-Azhar in Cairo, Muhammad Sayid Tantawy, who is the leading religious authority in the Sunni Muslim establishment in Egypt, alongside the Grand Mufti of Egypt, said the following about fatwās issued by himself or the entire Dar al-Ifta:

Iran is accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan, a helper to the Afghan Shias and a destabilizer for the larger Sunni Afghans.

The population is predominantly Sunni Muslim.

In the Sunni tradition, the number of such texts is ten thousand plus or minus a few thousand.

The most dangerous insurgent area is the Sunni Triangle, a mostly Sunni-Muslim area just north of Baghdad.

Iraq and Sudan are connected by remote cultural similarities such as language ( both countries speak Arabic, though the two are different in dialect ) and religion, both are Muslim ( however Sudan is predominantly Sunni, while the majority of Iraq is Shia ).

In every day terms, the imam for Sunni Muslims is the one who leads Islamic formal ( Fard ) prayers, even in locations besides the mosque, whenever prayers are done in a group of two or more with one person leading ( imam ) and the others follow by copying his ritual actions of worship.

Jordan's most significant means of influence is its hosting of a large and ever-changing Iraqi expatriate community, mostly of Sunni Arab origin.

85 % of Kuwait's population is Muslim ( Sunni 70 %, Shi ' a 30 %) and the rest belong to other religions ( includes Christian, Hindu, Parsi ).

The largest religious and ethnic group in the Levant is Sunni Muslim Arabs, but there are also many other groups.

The Anbar Salvation Council is a Sunni armed group in Iraq formed by members of baathist and nationalist elements to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

This is also the position of the Ashari school, the largest school of Sunni theology.

The understanding of the divine spiritual endowment of the rooster within Islam, may be evidenced in the words of Muhammad of that Abrahamic religion in one of the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam, stating that of " when you hear the crowing of cocks, ask for Allah's Blessings for they have seen an angel " as well as the mention where " the cock is also venerated in Islam: it was the giant bird seen by Muhammad in the First Heaven crowing.

The Al ash-Sheikh are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century founder of the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia.

Iraq and Sudan are connected by remote cultural similarities such as language ( both countries speak Arabic, though the two are different in dialect ) and religion, both are Muslim ( however Sudan is predominantly Sunni, while the majority of Iraq is Shia ).

Consequently, the demographics of Lebanon were profoundly altered, as the territory added contained people who were predominantly Muslim or Druze: Lebanese Christians, of which the Maronites were the largest subgrouping, now constituted barely more than 50 % of the population, while Sunni Muslims in Lebanon saw their numbers increase eightfold, Shi ' ite Muslims fourfold.

Sunni Islam ( or ) is the largest branch of Islam, making up more than 75 % and as much as 90 % of all Muslims.

The nation is 88 % Muslim ( mostly Sunni, with a 5 % Shi ' a minority ), 9 % Eastern Orthodox and 3 % other faiths ( which include small communities of Korean Christians, other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Baha ' is, and more ).

Sufis generally hold to a much more inclusivist and tolerant view of other faiths and religious systems than traditional Sunni and Shi ' a Islam.

According to historian Juan Cole it was under Sunni rule that Twelver Shiaism became established in Bahrain, as Shia Bahrainis gradually moved away from the radical, egalitarian Ismaili Qarmatian sect to the more quietist Twelver or Imami branch, a process which the Sunni rulers encouraged.

In modern Shi ` ah Islam, scholars play a more prominent role in the daily lives of Muslims than in Sunni Islam ; and there is a hierarchy of higher titles of scholastic authority, such as Ayatollah.

To achieve this, he began enacting several reforms to modernize the al-Azhar Mosque, which serves as the de facto leading authority in Sunni Islam, and ensure its prominence over the Muslim Brotherhood and the more conservative Wahhabism promoted by Saudi Arabia.

Among Sunni Bahrainis the situation is often equally complicated: many of the most influential Sunni business and political families have their origins in Iran, having emigrated to the more liberal economic and social atmosphere of Bahrain over the last hundred and fifty years ; and in fact many still speak Persian in their homes.

It is claimed that this was carried out by some of his more extreme followers by the killing of innocent Sunni Muslims however this is fiercely debated.

Shia Muslims and both several pro-Ali Sunni imams like Imam Nasa ' i and more anti-Shia Sunni imams like Bukhari and Muslim, were of the opinion that Mu ' awiya was lazy, gluttonous, and obese to the point of not even being able to ride a horse.

He was also widely regarded as a tyrant and usurper by both Shia Arabs and Persians, who despite being ruled by Sunni Arabs and their vassals for centuries, ultimately found the egalitarian Shia creed more palatable than the oppressive, Arab-supremacist tribal rule of Muawiyah.

Black banners with Quranic inscriptions crisscross the streets and dozens of free religious schools preach rigid Sunni doctrines and more women are spotted taking up the " niqab.

This decision was supported by the Sunni religious elite as well as the leaders of other, more orthodox, Sufi orders.

* Buddy ( voiced by the late Dana Hill ) is a teenaged member of the Barbics, about Sunni's age ; more gentle and artistic than the rest of his tribe, he enjoys playing the flute and eventually becomes close friends with both Sunni and Cavin.

Blasphemy against Sunni Islam is also punishable by death, but the more common penalty is a long prison sentence.

Doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shi ' a Islam began to become more pronounced.

As Muhammad's only descendants, they are respected by both Sunni and Shia, though the Shias place much more emphasis and value on the distinction.

While their program of united resistance to Russian conquest was popular, uniting Ichkeria / Mishketia with Dagestan was not necessarily ( see Shamil's page ), especially as some Chechens still practiced the indigenous religion, most Chechen Muslims belonged to heterodox Sufi Muslim teachings ( divided between Qadiri and Naqshbandiya, with a strong Qadiri majority ), rather than the more orthodox Sunni Islam of Dagestan ; and finally, the rule of Ichkeria by a foreign ruler not only spurred distrust, but also threatened the existence of Ichkeria's indigenous " taip-conference " government structure.

It was only after al-Wathiqu's death and the ascent of his brother al-Mutawakkil, who was much friendlier to the more traditional Sunni dogma, that ibn Hanbal was welcomed back to Baghdad.

Representing the Sunni minority in the country, the group has used their considerable leverage to secure the release of more than 20 hostages in the early months of 2004.