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WAY over my head.

May I ask some questions?

1) Who is ibadis?

2) I agree Wahabbis would be the strictest group of Islam that I've heard of, and that they want to "purify" Islam (what is their relation to the Taliban, btw?), but I'm not sure what the Wahabbis consider themselves as rebelling against -- from my limited knowledge, I didn't think their was a formal, historical, hierarchical structure within Islam? Could you elaborate?

3) I never heard of Ismailies (it vaguely reminds me of Moby Dick, LOL), and I was under the impression that many of the Druze were Christian. Is that a different spelling, or is "Druze" an ethnic term instead of theological?

Last point -- if it *is* true that the Arabs are the descendents of the Biblical Hagar, it sure looks like Genesis 16:12 has come true...

Thanks for the information, I appreciate the corrections.

Cheers!

1. The Ibadis are the majority islamic sect in Oman (they are tiny minorities elsewhere). The Ibadis are separate from Sunnis and Shia: some differences are that Ibadis believe that hell is everlasting and that there is no such thing as purgatory (sunnis and shias believe that muslims enter purgatory and then are cleansed before going to heaven -- no matter how grave the sin, though how true they are to the Koran determines which level the Muslim goes to (hence the term seventh heaven as in the levels of heaven) -- but non-Muslims all go to hell

they support Ali's stand against Muawiyah, but however, say that since Ali compromised, he wasn't worthy of being the imam. Hence the Ibadis have their own imamate -- in fact they were a law unto themselves in the Imamate of Oman (distinct from the Sultanate of Muscat until the 19th century).

2. Wahabbis are among the strictest group of islam. Taliban ARE Wahabbis -- in their beliefs. Talib means student and these poor souls were trained in Saudi sponsored madrassas in the NWFP in Pakistan -- they were brainwashed and we're living with the consequences.

There always was a formal, historical and hierarchical structure within Islam -- called the Caliphate -- the first CAliph was Muhammad and then the good caliphs like Abu Bakr and al-Khattab. Husein and Ali (descendents of the prophet) tried to make the Caliphate a dynasty but were overthrown by the Umayyads and their followers became the Shias, Ismailies, Bohras etc.

3. Ok, so now you got the split between the Shias and the Sunnis. Now, a bit later, there were disagreements about the rule of one or the other Imam and the dissenters from the main group became Ismailies (or followers of Ismail), then Bohras, Dawoodi Bohras etc.

Druze are a mystery religion with bits and pieces of Islam, etc. They are also ethnic as well as religious since they only marry among themselves and do not accept outside converts (like the Parsis or Zoroastrians in India).

I do believe that the BEDOUIN Arabs are the descendents of Hagar. The ones who are descended from the Arabs in the Yemen were more cultured and not related to the northern arabs (Yemenis after all are descendents of the Shebans and have a civilisation dating back millenia). The Arabs from the Hejaz may be descendents of Keturah.