Patience in Sunni Muslim Worldviews

Patience is one of the predominant themes of the Sunni Muslim worldview. The population of Muslims worldwide is more than 1.5 billion. The Sunni, derived from the Arabic word “Sunnah” meaning the tradition of the Prophet Mohammad, is the largest branch of Islam, constituting 90% of the religion’s followers, stretching from Indonesia to Morocco. Muslim merchants, skillful in trade, and Islamic mystics, with their peaceful manners, played an important role in the spread of Islam in various countries, including India in the early seventh century (el-Aswad 2012b, p. 358). The Shi’a is the second-largest denomination of Islam. Countries with a Shi’a majority include Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain. Shi’i Muslims are followers of Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. They believe that Ali should have been the first imam or successor of the Prophet. For the Sunni, Ali is the fourth of the rightly guided caliphs (el-Aswad 2012c, p. 350). Although the...