ISLAM FOR BEGINNERS BRS 107.pdf - CUEA

above others and automatically become references. Thus we pass from collectiveleadership to individual leadership. An individual has, therefore, the right to direct andinfluence community life. In this way, how many scholars will we count in Muslim world? Itseems that each country, each movement, each sect has its scholars. I was surprised tonote that Muhammad Tantawi, the Cheik of Al-Azhar -the greatest Islamic university inMuslim world- has no authority outside Egypt. Threfore, leaders are as many as theUlama.In Shi`ism, we encounter the same reality but expressed differently. In fact, the Shi`ites,reacting against the background of the sunnite consensus, relied solely on the person ofthe Imam. The Imam is the leader of the Umma; he decides on religious, political,economical and cultural issues. But already early in the 8 th century, the Shi`ites split intotwo groups: the Twelvers and the Seveners. Who knows the exact number of the Shi`itesects or movements today? The Imams are also multitudinous.As we sum up this essay, we should not lose sight the fact that leadership in Islam and inChristianity has no much difference, for who will deny this truth that there are moremushroom Christian sects than computers in the market? Maybe only the Catholic Churchcould claim to have an organized leadership. But even there, Catholics have their thorns.We know that leadership in Islam is much more different from the one in the CatholicChurch -Roman and Orthodox since Islam lacks the idea of Ecclesia or an ecclesiasticalauthority who speaks ex cathedra. Islam has many leaders and every leader has its ownIslam; therefore no one speaks for all or no one can speak for all. That is why professorBormans in the Pontifical Institute of arabic and Islamic studies (P.I.S.A.I in Rome) speaksof the existence of Islams and not of Islam: Islam of Bourgibba, Islam of Kadaffi, Islam ofKing Afuad, Islam of Khomeini, Islam of Sadaam Husein, Islam of Osama Bin Laden. It willnot appear so strange to those who are aware of the multiplicity of “Islams” in the Muslimworld that Zanfara State Governor Ahmad Sani Yerima will lunch, proclaim its own Islamand frame it as it pleases to him and to his sponsors or godfathers. Maybe it could havebeen more adequate to title our essay as “the Quest of the lost leadership in Islam”.With the above information, we could be able to understand different views found in Islamconcerning Shari`a; there are divisions and confusions because there are, in Arab andMuslim world, groups or individuals calling for its application, groups rebelling against itsFrederic N. Mvumbi,OP Page 77 of 85