" Ever since the time of my ancestor Ali, the first Imam, that is to say over a period of thirteen hundred years, it has always been the tradition of our family that each Imam chooses his successor at his absolute and unfettered discretion from amongst any of his descendants, whether they be sons or remote male issue and in these circumstances and in view of the fundamentally altered conditions in the world in very recent years due to the great changes which have taken place including the discoveries of atomic science, I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the Shia Muslim Ismailia Community that I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age and who brings a new outlook on life to his office as Imam.

They view Hussein as the defender of Islam from annihilation at the hands of Yazid I. Hussein is the last imam following Ali whom all Shia sub-branches mutually recognise.

The Shia Ismailis, who in turn split from the Shia mainstream of Twelvers over another succession dispute, have subsumed several groups which the majority of Muslims view as heterodox, such as the Seveners, and gnostic-influenced Alawites, and many other sects and subsects.

From the Shia point of view and that of many Sunnis-as has been recorded in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, in a hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Umar-Imam Hasan ibn Ali did not sign the treaty with Muawiyah because he liked him ; rather, he did so to prevent even worse bloodshed than had already happened at Siffin.

However the Shia faith believe the 6th pillar is khomes which means that you have to pay 1: 5 of your wealth to the poor and needy, unlike some Sunni minorities such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda, identifying those groups as sharing the Kharijite view that jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, and renewalist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are described as not sharing that view.

* Shia view of the Sahaba

" Another view is that the Hidden Imam is on earth " among the body of the Shia " but " incognito.

Interpretation of the Qur ' an according to Shia point of view.

* Shia view of the matter

Still, some Yemeni Jews considered Muhammad a true prophet, including Natan ' el al-Fayyumi, a major 12th century rabbi who incorporated various Shia doctrines into his view of Judaism.

Some Muslims, typically those who are referred to as Shia, hold the view that since the word Ghanima is used, it therefore implies that the one-fifth tax of Khums also applies wherever gain or profit is involved.

Shia scholars dispute the paternity of Khadija's daughters, as they view the first three of them as the daughters from previous marriages and only Fatimah as the daughter of Muhammad and Khadija.

In the Shia Ithna Asheri view, each of their Maraja have reached this level.

The Shia view differs among the three main schools of thought, Ismaili, Twelvers and Zaydis.

They reject the Shia view that Ali considered Abu Bakr's succession undeserved.

In them, he was largely concerned with espousing and defending the Shia view of the Imamate and Mutazilite notions of free will ( as opposed to Asharite determinism ).

# The rise ( Sunni view ) or the return from occlusion ( Shia view ) of the Mahdi to restore Islam.

The Shia view of Islam is contradictory to the Sunni school of thought.

Shia believe that the Sunni view of Umar is an inaccurate one, created by the later Umayyad dynasty to honour the man that gave power to the first Umayyad ruler and third Sunni Caliph, Uthman.

Shia believe that the Umayyad view was propagated with lethal force and heavy duress and as time went on, that view became predominant and eventually taken as truth, cemented by the works of Bukhari.

* 2003 – Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.

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

Shia Islam is like a tree whose roots are its beliefs and whose branches are its practices.

The fatwas, or time and space bound rulings of early jurists, are taken rather more seriously in this school, due to the more hierarchical structure of Shia Islam, which is ruled by the Imams.

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.

While Iran is helping to develop the Afghan Shia communities, the NATO officials have been accusing Iran of secretly arming and training the Taliban insurgents.

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 its harshest form it preached that Muslims should not only " always oppose " infidels " in every way ," but " hate them for their religion ... for Allah's sake ," that democracy " is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century ," that Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslims were infidels, etc.

Also academics note that since much of what is known about Manichaeism comes from later 10th and 11th Century CE Islamic historians like Al-Biruni and especially the Shia Muslim Persian historian Ibn al-Nadim ( and his work Fihrist ); " Islamic authors ascribed to Mani the claim to be the Seal of the Prophets " This topic is discussed by an Israeli academic Guy G. Stroumsa

In 2009, RAWA and other women's rights groups strongly condemned a " Shia Family Code " which is claimed to legalise spousal rape within Northern Afghan Shia Muslim communities, as well as endorsing child marriage, purdah ( seclusion ) for married women, which was passed by President Hamid Karzai to garner support for his coalition government from hardline elements within the aforesaid communities, as well as the neighbouring Shia-dominated Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Imam Husayn Shrine | Imam Hussein Shrine in Karbala, Iraq is a holy site for Shia Muslims

Shia Islam (, Shīʿah ) is the second largest denomination of Islam.

" Shia " is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī (), meaning " followers ", " faction ", or " party " of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, whom the Shia believe to be Muhammad's successor.

Like other branches of Islam, Shia Islam is based on the teachings of the Quran and the message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Although there were many Shia branches throughout history, modern Shia Islam is divided into three main branches.

The largest Shia sect in the early 21st century is the Ithna ashariyya, commonly referred to in English as the Twelvers, while smaller branches include the Ismaili (" Seveners ") and Zaidi (" Fivers ").

The word Shia ( Classical Arabic: ) means follower and is the short form of the historic phrase ( ), meaning " followers of Ali ", " faction of Ali ", or " party of Ali ".

Shia Muslims believe that just as a prophet is appointed by God alone, only God has the prerogative to appoint the successor to his prophet.

The judgement was significant in that it legally established the status of the Khojas as a community referred to as Shia Imami Ismailis, and of Hasan Ali Shah as the spiritual head of that community.

The death of Uthman was followed by a civil war known as the First Fitna, and the succession to Ali ibn Abi Talib was disputed, leading to the split between the Sunni and Shia sects, and later to competing caliphates when the descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and Ali set up separate Fatimid societies.

Narrators who took the side of Abu Bakr and Umar rather than Ali, in the disputes over leadership that followed the death of Muhammad, are seen as unreliable by the Shia ; narrations sourced to Ali and the family of Muhammad, and to their supporters, are preferred.

In Shia hadith one often finds sermons attributed to Ali in The Four Books or in the Nahj al-Balagha.

According to Human Rights Watch, numerous Iranian agents were assisting the Shia Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence.

The United Iraqi Alliance, tacitly backed by Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with some 48 % of the vote.

* As a Shia, the early Muslims whom Khomeini looked to were Ali ibn Abī Tālib and Husayn ibn Ali, not Caliphs Abu Bakr, Omar or Uthman.

Additionally to the bombardment campaign conducted by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, tension between the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari and the Sunni Pashtun Ittihad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf soon escalated into a second violent conflict.

* 818 – Ali ar-Ridha, Islamic Shia Imam ( b. 766 )

After the last pilgrimage, Muhammad ordered the gathering of Muslims at the pond of Khumm and it was there the Shia believe Muhammad nominated Ali to be his successor.

Shia Muslims believe this to be Muhammad's appointment of Ali as his successor, while Sunni Muslims believe it a simple defense of Ali in the face of unjust criticism.

* 828 – Ali al-Hadi, Shia tenth of the Twelve Imams ( d. 868 )

In Shia hadith one often finds sermons attributed to Ali in The Four Books or in the Nahj al-Balagha.

According to Human Rights Watch, Iran assisted the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran attempted to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence.