Wylie wrote:
> POD: Mohammed produces a son, who lives to become his successor when
> he passes. Without the power vacuum, we don't see the Shiite-Sunni
> rift.
This is non-sequitor, and not automatic.
It was a tribal tradition that in the very early days resulted
in the first successors being chosen in ways that did not
involve inheritance.
After the death of Othman Muawiyah I installed Yazid I as
the next Caliph after him by inheritance. Later on when
the Abbasids became Caliphs they claimed inheritance
to the Caliphate through their descent from Abbas ibn
Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammed, and Ali was
a cousin and son-in-law of Muhammed. Furthermore,
both Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman had all intermarried
into relatives within Muhammed's family.
Even if 1. During the early expansion of Islam, with a
son that survived to adulthood, the early Moslems
had decided to completely forego shuras and accept
hereditary descendants of Muhammed.
And 2. This son was universally accepted by all
and had male descendants.
It is very likely that eventually there would be some
conflicts between the various descendants of
Muhammed, gradually producing rifts, even if
so much faith were placed in inheritance.
Furthermore Sunni-Shia was not the only rift
within Islam. Even at the very beginning of
the rift after the death of Othman there was
the Kharijites. It was only the most major one.
Ask yourself if any of the monarchies in
Europe always had no seemless transitions
or disputes because the 'divine right of
kings', has placed some value on inheritance,
when it came to secular political leadership
in the middle ages.
Now consider the number of generations,
the time periods involved, between the
600s or 700s AD, and the 1000s AD,
both time periods being before the
crusades.
> What does a more coherent Islam mean?
Deriving as theoretical sequitor from an
questionable initial theory.
> ...
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