Differences between Islamic schools of thoughts and their impact on the unity of the Muslims

Abstract

This Paper presents a very important topic in today's Muslims' life. That is, it addresses the differences between Islamic schools of thoughts and the effect of these differences on the unity of the Muslim Ummah. Islamic-ally, it is healthy and very encourage-able to study the Islamic teachings and to extract rules and regulations that are consistent with the Quran and Sunnah. With that mentioned, having the same text studies by different scholars will definitelyleadtodifferentinterpretations.Theissuethatthispapertriestoaddress is the fact these differences instead of being factors to enrich the understanding of Islam, it led some Muslims to fightagainsteachotherandthen to unwanted diversity.

As we believe in that having several schools of thoughts will improve our understanding of Islamic teachings, we also believe that understanding will not be achieved unless Muslim Scholars follow the Islamic teachings of Ijtihad. Ijtihad in Islam has rules, conditions, tools, and morals by which scholars can freely work in a scientificenvironment.Aboveall,wepresentthefacts that makes Ijtihad in Islam is a dynamic science as it is based on solid and unchangeable roots, Quran and Sunnah, and in the same time scholars are free to work openly without and external and biased influencestosolvethe ongoing political, economical, and social problems and needs.