A Guide to the Islamic Sects

Rick Ross runs an excellent website dealing with cults and such. He also devotes a lot of time explaining the ins and outs of various of the World's Spiritual Practices -- here is his page on Islam:

A Guide To Islamic Sects
The world's second-largest faith, Islam is hardly monolithic. Schisms, focusing first on disagreements over who should lead the new faith and later on matters of doctrine, began developing soon after the prophet Muhammad's death in the year 632.

Here are some of the major sects within Islam, which has 1.3 billion followers:

Sunni:
Accounting for at least 85 percent of the Islamic world, the Sunni claim to be the direct continuation of the faith as defined by Muhammad. For many years they acknowledged the religious authority of a ruling caliph, the major point of contention with the breakaway Shiite movement. The Sunni derive their name through reliance on the "Sunnah" or the observed sayings, lifestyle and practices of Muhammad as recorded in a collection of writings called the Hadith. The Sunni accept the "Sunnah" as a source of spiritual wisdom, while the Shiite insist on the primacy of the Koran.

Shiite:
The smaller of the two principal branches of Islam, the Shiite account for at least 10 percent of all Muslims. They originally were followers of the fourth caliph, Ali, who was Muhammad's son-in-law through the prophet's daughter Fatima. Ali claimed that Muhammad on his deathbed selected Ali as leader of the faith, but Ali was murdered during the fifth year of his reign. The Shiite formally broke away from Muslim leaders recognized by the Sunni around 680. A principal belief of the Shiite is that no caliph since Ali has been legitimate. The movement became popular among disaffected non-Arab Muslims who feared they were held in lower esteem within the faith.

Kharijis:
Accounting for less than 1 percent of all Muslims, the Kharijis were the first major schism within Islam. They broke away in 658 when they rejected the use of arbitrators empowered to decide major issues within the faith.

And my favorite:

Sufi:
These are the mystics within the Muslim faith, a religious order that follows mystical interpretations of Islamic doctrines and practices.

And let's not overlook the "Religion of Peace" (tm) which is being exported Wholesale by those loving people in Saudi Arabia:

Wahhabi Movement:
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab began a campaign of spiritual renewal in the smaller city states of Arabia in the mid- 1700s. His extremely traditional group opposed all innovations within Islam, often using violence to enforce its views. The group threatened to become the first nation state in Arabia, prompting a crackdown by the Egyptian army in 1818. Today, Wahhabism is quite strong in Saudi Arabia. It demands punishment for those who enjoy any form of music except the drum and severe punishment up to death for drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as unbelievers those who do not pray, a view that never previously existed in mainstream Islam. Wahhabism has been an inspiration to Osama bin Laden.

Nice people...