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Sunni Islam
Historically, Sunni Islam has often been defined only in contrast with other denominations or schools of thought, such as Shia Islam, hanafiyah, Mu'tazila and others, considering itself to be the orthodox form of Islam.[citation needed] As such, a case is sometimes made that Sunnism is as old as Islam itself,[citation needed] or at least dates back to the first civil war in Islam from 656 to 661. However, in terms of doctrine and theology, and in the sense of considering itself a separate denomination, Sunni Islam is younger than that, making it somewhat misleading to talk about Sunnites in a 7th century context. Sunni Islam was under the authority of the Caliph from Muhammad's death in 632 until the abolition of the caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1924. Since then, no central international authority exists; many countries have a Grand Mufti or other official who holds the highest religious authority in the country. However, during all of Islam's history, independent religious scholars - the ulama - have held great influence in religious matters. During the first centuries of Islam, when the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs were the worldly rulers of the Muslim world as well as the highest religious authorities of Sunni Islam, this led to some power struggles between the caliphate and the ulama. As the worldly power of the caliphate declined from the 9th and 10th century onwards, and as the religious law became more codified and exhaustive due to the efforts of the ulama, the caliphate's religious influence decreased as well. There are many challenges to demographers attempting to calculate the proportion of the world's Muslim population who adhere to each of the main traditions. For instance, there is no Sunni–Shi'a breakdown available for many countries, and the CIA World Factbook gives a Sunni–Shi'a breakdown only for countries where Shi'a are a significant minority. When no breakdown is given, all the country's Muslims have been enrolled, provisionally, in the Sunni column. Thus, the exact percentage of the world's Muslim population that adheres to the various Shi'a sects, as opposed to the majority Sunni groups, is indeterminate. Therefore, using various sources, one can arrive at an estimate of anywhere from a low of 7.5% [2] to a high of 10% Shi'ite depending on the sources.
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