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Sunni Islam

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Countries with more than 5% Muslims in the total population. Sunnis are shown in shades of green, Shiites in shades of red. Shiites may be under-represented, because they do not always show up in statistics. The same applies to other Islamic movements.

Sunni Islam (Arabic: أهل السنة) is the largest branch of Islam. They are the branch of Islam that came through the Rashidun Empire, which started with Abu Bakr and ended by Ali ibn Abi Talib. Sunni beliefs are based on the Quran and the Kutub al-Sittah. Sunnis make up around 90% of the world's Muslim population.[1][2][3] With approximately 1.8 billion followers, it is the largest religious denomination of any religion in the world.[4] Catholicism is the second-largest. There are four sub-groups (Madh'hab)s within Sunni Islam; Malikis, Hanafis, Hanbalis and Shafi'is.

Adherents of Sunni Islam are Sunnis or Sunnites. The word Sunni comes from the word sunna (سنة), which means the tradition of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. Sunnis are also called ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة), which means people of tradition and congregation; this means that the Sunnis are united.

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References

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  1. "Politicsdaily.com". Archived from the original on 2012-01-11. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  2. Sue Hellett; U.S. should focus on sanctions against Iran Archived 2012-03-17 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 13 December 2012
  3. Quick guide retrieved 13 December 2012
  4. Religious Diversity and Children's Literature: Strategies and Resources, Sandra Brenneman Oldendorf - 2011, p 156

Other websites

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Media related to Sunni Muslims at Wikimedia Commons