The path of the community's consensus.
The largest branch of Islam — roughly nine in ten Muslims. Authority after the Prophet passed to the community and its consensus; the sunna, systematized in four schools of law, patterns the whole of life.
DeitiesOne God
Founded632 CE · Arabia
AfterlifeJudgment; garden or fire
TextsQuran · Six canonical Hadith collections
The map
Sunni Islam’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →
610 CE Islam 632 CE Sunni Islam
Authority passed to the community.
The consensus chose Abu Bakr; legitimacy flows through the umma, not a bloodline.
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The sunna patterns the whole of life.
The Prophet's example, preserved in hadith, reaches from prayer to table manners.
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Four schools, one law.
Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali — parallel, mutually valid readings of the sharia.
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Jumu'ah — Friday prayer.
The week's congregational gathering: sermon, then rows bowing as one.
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