Shia Islam
Second-largest branch of Islam
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam and one of the world's largest religious denominations. It holds that at Ghadir Khumm, the Islamic prophet Muhammad appointed his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as his successor and the leader of the Muslim community. Ali was succeeded by a line of divinely appointed Twelve Imams from Muhammad's family, ending with the Mahdi, who is believed to appear before the End Times to restore justice and defeat tyranny alongside Isa (Jesus). Belief in the Mahdi is shared by both Shia and Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam places particular importance on the Ahl al-Bayt, the Ahl al-Kisa, and the Fourteen Infallibles. The Quran, the teachings of Muhammad (Sunnah), and the Imams form the principal foundations of Shia religious thought and jurisprudence, from which Sharia legal rulings are derived. Shia Muslims are guided by the Ja'fari school of jurisprudence. The Shia canonical hadith collection are The Four Books, known as Kitab al-Kafi, Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, Tahdhib al-Ahkam, and Al-Istibsar.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shia Islam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.