SHI`I ISLAM. [This entry comprises two articles. The first provides a historical overview of the Shi `ah, the partisans of ‘Ali; the second traces the development of Shi thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.] Historical Overview The term shi`ah literally means followers, party, group, associate, partisan, or supporters. Expressing these meanings, shi hh occurs
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SHAYKHIYAH. A branch of Twelver Shiism, Shaykhiyah is named after Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’Y (1753-1826), a theologian born in Bahrain. Ahsa’f had a predisposition for mystical experiences and spiritual visions. He spent fifteen years in Iran, where he won the esteem of many believers, including the Qajar ruler Fath ‘Ali Shah. But Ahsa’i was eventually anathematized
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SHAYKH AL ISLAM. Connected with Islamic religious figures, the title Shaykh al-Islam assumed a more precise and formal meaning during the Ottoman period. The title emerged initially in Khurasan in the latter part of the tenth century; it then spread east to India and Muslim areas of China and west into the Middle East. Apparently
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SHAYKH. The Arabic term shaykh is an honorific title given since pre-Islamic times to men of distinction. Its meaning embraces several concepts expressed by the English words “leader,” “patriarch,” “notable,” “elder,” “chief,” and “counselor.” Throughout the Muslim era the term shaykh al-din (“leader of the faith”) has been applied to men who possess scriptural learning.
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SHATTARIYAH. A Sufi order of importance in India and Indonesia, the Shattariyah is in the Tayfuri line of Sufi orders that follow the mystical tradition of Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. 874) and was called the Bistamiyah in Ottoman Turkey and `Ishqiyah in Iran and Central Asia (the principal exponent in Transoxiana was Abu Yazid al-`Ishqi).
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SHARIF. The meanings of the Arabic word sharif (pl., ashraf, shurafd’) include “noble,” “honorable,” “highborn,” and “highbred” (Lisan al-`Arab, p. 2241). In most contexts the word sharif is associated with honor, high position, nobility, and distinction. A sharif is a man who claims descent from prominent ancestors, usually the prophet Muhammad. Although the Qur’an and
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SHARIATI, ALI ( 23 November 1933 – 18 June 1977), one of the most important social thinkers of twentieth-century Iran. Shari`ati’s ideas are distinguished more by their practical impact than their intellectual content. In this regard, he can be compared in stature with Jamal al-Din alAfghani (1838 or 1839-1897) or the Egyptian writer and activist Sayyid
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SHARIAH: Sharia law, or Islamic law is the religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God’s immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The
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SHA’AWI, HUDA (June 23, 1879 – December 12, 1947), Egyptian feminist leader. Born in Minya in Upper Egypt to Sultan Pasha, a wealthy landowner and provincial administrator, and Iqbal Hanim, a young woman of Circassian origin, Nur al-Huda Sultan (known after her marriage as Huda Sha’rawi) was raised in Cairo. Following her father’s death when
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SHAME. The concept of shame (Ar., hashm; Pers., sharm) is an aspect of social status often paired with honor as contraries of moral evaluation. This is at once too narrow and too broad. Notions of shame draw in religious injunctions to modesty, temperance, and covering that symbolically limit interaction with others. Local, tribal, and class-bound
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