[Cronos]

I respectively disagree -- I see it as being primarily political. And this is also the viewpoint of Ibadis. Islam has never had a separation of Church and State -- indeed that is inconceivable since the prophet was also the military and political leader as well as the religious leader.

While you are right that the Protestant-Catholic and Catholic-Orthodox feuds were exacerbated by politics (kings and emperors and little princelings wanting a pound of flesh), I would say that those were not the root causes as opposed to the Islamic civil disagreemetns

"Protestant" is too broad a term, but the ones who consider themselves as returning to the original, "purer" form of the religion would be analogous to Wahabbis in Islam.


The sectarian quarrels within Islam are mainly divided between Sunnis and Shias but you also have the Allawis, Druze, Ismailies, Bohras, Ibadis etc. who have their own viewpoints. The Sufi sect is more syncretic, mystical and so the fundamentalists like the Wahabbis do attack the Sufis (witness the bombing of a mosque (rather a Sufi sant's mausoleum) in Pakistan by the Taliban).

[muawiyah]

The Druze think they are the 144,000 men the Bible refers to. They also use hypnotic regression to take folks back to their prior lives.

Islam is a very light wrap they have used in the past to protect themselves from the extreme Islamofascist majority over the ages.

They claim, and DNA tests have demonstrated, that they are descendants of every group to have come to or ruled over the Holy Land.

[grey_whiskers]

WAY over my head.

May I ask some questions?

1) Who is ibadis?

2) I agree Wahabbis would be the strictest group of Islam that I've heard of, and that they want to "purify" Islam (what is their relation to the Taliban, btw?), but I'm not sure what the Wahabbis consider themselves as rebelling against -- from my limited knowledge, I didn't think their was a formal, historical, hierarchical structure within Islam? Could you elaborate?

3) I never heard of Ismailies (it vaguely reminds me of Moby Dick, LOL), and I was under the impression that many of the Druze were Christian. Is that a different spelling, or is "Druze" an ethnic term instead of theological?

Last point -- if it *is* true that the Arabs are the descendents of the Biblical Hagar, it sure looks like Genesis 16:12 has come true...

Thanks for the information, I appreciate the corrections.

Cheers!