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0:00
Hi. This is Matt Baker. Last year, after an eight-part video series, we released our Christian Denominations Family Tree poster, which includes every major branch of Christianity and shows how they are all related. Well, since then, I've been making similar videos for other religions and today I'm happy to announce that I've finally combined all of these charts into yet another new poster, which I've titled the World Religions Family Tree. It includes a simplified
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version of the Christian denominations tree but more importantly it also includes the trees I made for Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. On top of this, I've also added several things that I've not yet talked about, such as Chinese religions, folk religions, and esoteric religions.
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So, first of all, you can see here at the top that I've included an infographic showing the approximate number of followers in each major religion so that you can get a rough idea of how the world population breaks down. Now, regardless of which data source one uses (I've used the one from an organization called the Pew Research Center), what every source agrees on is that the four largest religions in the world are,
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in order: Christianity (with around 2.4 billion followers), Islam (with around 1.8 billion), Hinduism (with 1.2 billion) and Buddhism (with 500 million). So these are the undisputed “Big 4”. However, within the field of Religious Studies, it is often said that there are FIVE major world religions, not four, with the fifth one being Judaism. But I want to make it clear that the number of people who follow Judaism is actually extremely
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small compared to the other four (just 16 million). The only reason Judaism gets included as a major world religion is because of its age and because it is the parent religion to both Christianity and Islam. If we were simply going by size, the fifth largest religion in the world (and the only other one that stands out as being really big) would be Chinese Folk Religion - or as I've called it here - Chinese Syncretism. Syncretism means a mixture of different religious
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ideas and indeed Chinese Religion does stand out in that it's not really just one thing. I'd also like to point out that over here on the right, there's another infographic - this time a map showing the dominant religion in each country. Again, the Big 4 (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) really stand out, as does Chinese Syncretism. Alright, let's now start at the very top, where I have an image labeled “Prehistoric Religions”.
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This image is of Göbekli Tepe - in what is today Turkey. Göbekli Tepe is the oldest human-made structure on earth and although we don't know all the details, it almost certainly served as some sort of religious site. Now, I'm not saying that all religions can be traced back to whatever was happening at Göbekli Tepe. I’m simply using it as an example of prehistoric religions in general. From there, I highlight four of the earliest religions to emerge during the historical era:
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Ancient Egyptian Polytheism, Ancient Mesopotamian Polytheism, Proto-Indo-European Polytheism, and Indus Valley Civilization Religion. Note that I didn't use the label “polytheism” for the last one because currently the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered and therefore we don't actually know for sure whether their religion was polytheistic or not. I chose these four because they had a direct influence on the two oldest religions still in existence today: Judaism and Hinduism.
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Both the religion of Ancient Egypt and the religion of Ancient Mesopotamia had an influence on Israelite Religion, because Ancient Israel happened to be located right in between these two centers of early civilization. And, of course, it is from Ancient Israelite Religion that Judaism developed. Likewise, both Indo-European religion and Indus Valley Civilization religion had an influence on Vedic
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Religion, due to the fact that a subset of Indo-Europeans ended up migrating into India. Now, what's interesting is that a different subset of Indo-Europeans ended up in Persia, where the religion of Zoroastrianism developed. And several other subsets ended up in Europe, where the various forms of European Paganism developed - such as Greek Paganism, which in turn gave rise to Greek Philosophy. Now, the reason why this is interesting is because both the
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Persians as well as the Greeks ended up ruling the Jews and therefore both Zoroastrianism and Greek Philosophy ended up influencing Judaism. Which means that the world's two oldest religions — Judaism and Hinduism — are connected, at least remotely, via the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
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Now, the first thing I want to do is remind you that I’m using the word denomination very loosely in these videos. The word “denomination” really only works within a Christian context so you have to understand that when I use it to talk about a non-Christian religion, like Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism, the analogy is not perfect. So basically, whenever I say “denomination,” know that I simply mean a branch or sub-group within a larger religion.
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Now, when it comes to Hinduism, even the word religion itself is problematic because it can definitely be argued that Hinduism is not actually a single religion but rather a cluster of religions, grouped together simply because of their connection to India. In fact, Hindus themselves don’t refer to Hinduism as a religion. They call it a dharma, which means something closer to a cosmic order, or set of divine laws. This is why
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Hinduism is often categorized as one of the Dharmic religion, together with Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism – all of which originated on the Indian subcontinent. Now, the one thing (and this is often the only thing) that most non-Hindus know about Hinduism is that it has a lot of gods. So another thing I want to clear up from the start is that this does not necessarily mean that all Hindus are polytheists, meaning people who worship many gods. In fact,
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a lot of Hindus are actually monotheists, meaning that they believe that all gods are simply various aspects of one god. Others are something closer to henotheists, meaning that they have one god that they worship as the Supreme God but they also acknowledge the existence of lesser gods. To make things even more complicated, many Hindus are more accurately pantheists, meaning that they believe that God and the entire universe are actually one and the same. And then, finally,
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there are also some Hindus who are actually atheists, meaning that they don’t really believe in gods at all and instead approach Hinduism from a strictly philosophical perspective. However, with that said, I do want to introduce you to some of the main gods within Hinduism because this will help you later when I discuss Hindu denominations. It is often said that modern Hinduism has three main gods. These are Brahma,
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Vishnu, and Shiva – often labelled as the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer (although not all Hindus view them this way). Sometimes, these three gods are even referred to as the “Hindu Trinity” although the more appropriate word is the Trimurti. Brahma should not be confused with Brahman. Brahman (with the “N” on the end) refers to the concept of an ultimate reality, which is equated with the totality of the universe. In contrast,
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Brahma is a distinct god – in fact a male god, who is credited with having created the physical world and with being the father of many other gods. Strangely though, Brahma is not a god who is regularly worshipped in India today and in fact, there are very few temples that are dedicated to him specifically. The easiest way to recognize him is that he is usually depicted as having four heads. Vishnu and Shiva are much more popular. Vishnu is usually depicted with multiple arms,
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a blue complexion, and one hand holding a shell. You’ll also usually see him sitting on a giant, multi-headed snake. And note that I said HIM. Vishnu, like all three of these main gods, is male. He’s also well known for having been incarnated many times on earth – his two most popular incarnations being Krishna and Rama. Shiva can be distinguished from Vishnu because he has a more wild appearance – matted hair
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and clothes made from animal skin. Also, he’s almost always carrying a trident. Now, each of the three main Hindu gods also has a female consort, or wife. Saraswati pairs with Brahma, Lakshmi pairs with Vishnu, and Parvati pairs with Shiva. If you see a goddess sitting on a white lotus flower, playing a stringed instrument near a peacock, that’s Saraswati and if you see a goddess sitting on
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a red lotus near elephants with coins somehow being pouring out, that’s Lakshmi. Otherwise, it’s probably Pavarti or one of Pavarti’s many alternative forms such as Durga or Kali. Another popular god in Hinduism is Ganesh. He’s easily recognizable because he’s the one with the elephant head. He fits on the family tree as the son of Shiva and Pavarti. Finally, let me introduce the Hindu gods for the sun and the moon: Surya and Chandra. Now you know why
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the Indian space missions to the moon are called Chandrayaan (yaan meaning vehicle). There are, of course, many more Hindu gods beyond these ones but I’m going to stop there for now. Next, I want to introduce you to the main Hindu scriptures, or holy writings. Unlike Christians, who have the Bible, and Muslims, who have the Quran, there is no single book within Hinduism that is directly comparable to these two. Just like Hinduism has many gods,
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it also has many scriptures. These are divided into two categories: Shruti, meaning that which is heard, and Smriti, meaning that which is remembered. Shruti is considered more authoritative and it consists of the four vedas: the Rigveda (which is the oldest), followed by the Yajurveda and Samaveda, and finally the Atharveda (which is the most recent). In turn, each veda also has four parts,
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or layers. The oldest layers are the Samhitas, which are kind of like hymns or prayers. Next, there are the Aranyakas, which are instructions about rituals and ceremonies and the Brahmanas, which are commentaries on those instructions. Finally, there are the Upanishads – which, keep mind, were added last. These are more philosophical and represent Hinduism’s transition from a mere system of ancient rituals to what we today consider to be a fully fledged religion.
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Smriti consists of an even larger collection of writings. I’m going to mention just three. First, there are the Mahabharata and Ramayana – two epic poems that are sort of like the Iliad but much, much longer. One small section of the Mahabharata is known as the Bhagavad Gita (which is often the only set of Hindu scriptures that most Westerners are familiar with). Previously, I did a whole video on the Mahabharata and the family tree of its characters,
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so if you want to learn more about that, I’ll leave a link to it in the description. Finally, included as Smriti are the Puranas, a large collection of stories and encyclopedic information that cover everything from the genealogy of the gods to the history of royal dynasties. Okay, so now that you have some background on the Hindu gods and Hindu scriptures, let me now talk about how the religion we now call Hinduism developed. Like I did in
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the Christian series, I’m going to offer you two scenarios: the one that is told by those who take the Hindu scriptures literally and the one that is told by secular academics. According to the traditional Hindu view, the people living in India today are the direct descendants of the people who were living there 10,000 years ago and throughout that entire time, the Hindu religion has pretty much been the same. In fact, one view within Hinduism is
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that history is cyclical and made up of 4 ages (with each one being worse than one before). Once the four ages are completed, the whole process repeats itself. Currently, we are in the fourth age, which started around 3100 BCE, around the time of the Mahabharata War. According to the traditional Hindu view, the most important scriptures – the Vedas – are authorless and were revealed to certain sages before this, through intense meditation. However,
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near the end of the third age, a sage named Vyasa compiled them in the form that we have them in today, in addition to writing the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Now, as you might have guessed, the secular view of how Hinduism developed is quite different. According to the academic consensus, what we call Hinduism today evolved slowly over time and has its roots in at least three different places. One of these is the Indus Valley Civilization – which
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is one of the three oldest civilizations on Earth (the other two being Egypt and Sumer). However, unlike with Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, we cannot read the writing left behind by the Indus Valley Civilization and hence we cannot know for sure what their religion was and how it might be connected to Hinduism. There are some tantalizing hints though, such as this Indus Valley seal, which shows a figure who shares certain attributes in common
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with the Hindu god Shiva. Then there are local folk religions that likely developed throughout the Indian subcontinent – each with their own local god. To this day, there are rural villages in India that still follow a kind of folk Hinduism that combines certain Hindu practices with the worship of a local god who actually predates Hinduism. Finally, there’s Proto-Indo-European religion – the same religion that gave birth to the pantheon
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of gods worshipped by the Greeks, Romans, and Germanic tribes. For example, the main gods worshipped by the Proto-Indo-Europeans include a sky father named Dyeus, a young goddess of the dawn named Hausos, and a set of twins associated with horses. In Greece, Dyeus became known as Zeus and in many European languages today, the word for God is still something like Dieu or Dios. There’s also a Greek goddess of the dawn named Eos and a pair
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of twins in Anglo-Saxon legend named Hengist and Horsa. What about in India though? Well, what do you know: In the Rig Veda (which remember, is the oldest set of scriptures in Hinduism) it too mentions a sky father deity named Dyaus. And it also has a goddess of the dawn called Ushas and a set of twins called the Ashvins (Asvin being the Sanskrit word for horsemen). But don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that I agree with the now debunked “Aryan
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Invasion Theory”. That theory, which clearly had racist overtones, claimed that lighter skinned Indo-Europeans called “Aryans” conquered the earlier darker-skinned inhabitants of India in some sort of dramatic fashion, causing the sudden demise of the Indus Valley Civilization. Instead, the academic consensus today is that there was a very slow MIGRATION of Indo-Europeans into India, between the years 2000 and 1500 BCE and that these people likely intermixed with
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the local populations, resulting in the creation of the Vedic civilization. This new hypothesis is backed up by both linguistic evidence and DNA evidence. Now, as you probably guessed, the Vedic civilization is so named because it produced the Hindu scriptures called the Vedas. But keep in mind that the Vedic religion was not the same thing as modern Hinduism. For example, the main gods talked about in the
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Vedas are not Vishnu and Shiva. Rather, they are Indra, Varuna, and Agni. So, although it’s often said that Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, dating back 4000+ years, this is not exactly true. The ROOTS of Hinduism and some of its customs do go back that far but Hinduism as we know it today does not. The same is true for Judaism. Judaism has its roots in Ancient Israelite religion, which originated around 3000 years ago. However, Judaism as
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we know it today is not identical to the religion practised by the Ancient Israelites. It developed mostly between the years 600 BCE and 200 CE. So my point is: dating religions is not as simple as you might think. Because religions change over time. And this is certainly true of Hinduism. The Vedic religion eventually evolved into Brahminism, by which point the priestly caste known as Brahmins was firmly established. But Brahminism was by no means the only
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religion in India at this point. It was mainly practised in the Kingdom of Kuru. Further east, the Shramana movement was taking hold (Shramana meaning “seeker”). Shramanas rejected the authority of the Vedas as well as the Brahmins and instead promoted rigid self-discipline and the rejection of worldly pleasures. It was out of the Shramana movement that the religions of Buddhism and Jainism developed. However, it also had a big impact on the development of Hinduism,
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leading to what’s been called the “Hindu synthesis” - which occurred over the period from around 500 BCE and 500 CE, which is when many religious ideas and customs came together to form what we know as Hinduism today. It was during this period that the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Puranas were written and it was after this period that Indian religious views could now be divided into clear categories, called “Astika” and “Nastika”.
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Astika schools of thought are considered orthodox by Hindus because they all accept the authority of the Vedas. The six “Astika” or “Schools of Hinduism” are Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. However, keep in mind that these are not denominations. They are more like philosophies that people within different Hindu denominations can follow. In contrast to the Astika schools,
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the Nastika schools reject the Vedas and are therefore considered heterodox by Hindus. These include the religions of Buddhism and Jainism but also several lesser known schools of thought. Now, if you’re a Westerner, out of the six astika, there’s probably only one that you recognize: Yoga. Well, the first thing you need to know about Yoga is that it is not simply a series of exercises, which is what most Westerners think Yoga is. Yoga is actually a complete
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system of philosophy and in fact, it’s one of the more popular systems of Hindu philosophy. As you probably know, most Hindus believe in reincarnation and that we are stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The goal of Hinduism is therefore to achieve moksha, which is the release from the cycle. Well, Yoga posits that there are actually four different religious paths that a person can follow to achieve moksha.
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The first is Karma Yoga, which basically involves working hard, doing good, and serving others. Then, there’s Bhakti Yoga, which involves showing love and devotion towards a particular god. Finally, there’s Jnana Yoga, which involves pursuing knowledge and Raja Yoga, which involves meditation. But again – these four paths do not represent four different denominations. Hindus from various denominations may follow one or more of these paths.
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If there’s anything akin to denominations within Hinduism, we could place them under Bhakti Yoga because the most common way that Hindus can be divided into various subgroups is by which god or god(s) they are particularly devoted to. This is why it often said that Hinduism has four main denominations: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Let’s look at Vaishnavism first, because its the largest denomination, representing around
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70% of all Hindus. Vaishnavists worship the god Vishnu as the Supreme Deity. This includes his various incarnated forms (called avatars) – which is when he was born on earth as a human or animal. His two most popular avatars are Rama and Krishna. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Vishnu was not actually one of the main Vedic gods (although he is mentioned a few times in the Rigveda). However over time, he took on the attributes and legends of other gods and
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became more and more important. For example, one group of ancient Indians worshipped a god named Vasudeva. This god was eventually merged with another god named Krishna, who was worshipped by a different group of people. But then, still later, Vasudeva-Krishna merged with Vishnu and was understood to be just one of Vishnu’s ten main incarnations. Now, lest you think that this is strange, let me point out that two or more gods
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merging into one is actually a pretty common thing throughout the history of religion. For instance, in Canaan, there was originally a god named El who was separate from the god represented by the letters YHWH. But then, eventually, over time, these two gods merged and were seen as being one and the same. Which explains why, to this day, the Bible sometimes calls God El or Elohim and then other times calls him YHWH.
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The second largest Hindu denomination is Shaivism, found mostly in South India and followed by around 25% of all Hindus. Shaivists worship the god Shiva as the Supreme Deity. Unlike Vishnu, Shiva is not mentioned in the Rig Veda at all. However, the Rig Veda does mention a god named Rudra who is very similar to Shiva and is thus strongly associated with him. Another thing that makes Shaivism different from Vaishnavism is that
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Shiva is often worshipped in a non-human form – being displayed in many temples as a simple stone called a lingam. Many people assume that the lingam is supposed to represent a male phallus but this is actually not true. It’s simply meant to communicate the idea that Shiva has no real form. The remaining 5% of Hindus follow either Shaktism or Smartism. Shaktism is closely related to Shaivism but whereas Shaivists worship the Supreme Deity in the form of the male god Shiva,
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Shaktists worship the Supreme Deity in the form of the female goddess Shakti, which is another name for Parvati, Shiva’s wife. Like I mentioned earlier, this Supreme Goddess takes many forms: Sometimes she’s the sweet and loving Parvati but other times she’s the warrior goddess Durga or even the scary-looking Kali. Finally there is the Hindu denomination known as Smartism, in which five gods are worshipped equally: Ganesh, Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu,
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and Surya. Note that the word Smartism is based on the word Smriti, which we came across earlier and which refers to the body of Hindu scriptures that came after the Vedas.
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Now, as a whole, Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion, with around 1.1 billion followers. However, unlike the other two big religions, Christianity and Islam, Hinduism is mostly limited to just one area of the world: South Asia. And, whenever you do find Hinduism being practised outside of South Asia, it’s almost always among people of South Asian descent. The one exception to this is the many neo-Hindu movements that have
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sprung up in Western countries since the middle of the 20th century. Most of these were founded by individual gurus, or teachers – many of whom were or are quite controversial. It would take a whole other video to go through all of them so let me just point out two. The first is Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, better known as the Hare Krishnas because they are known for chanting that phrase
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over and over as well as “Hare Rama”. The word “Hare” is another name for Vishnu and, as we learned earlier, both Krishna and Rama are avatars of Vishnu. So it won’t surprise you when I tell you that the Hare Krishnas follow a type of Vaishnavism. However, their type of Vaishnavism traces its roots back to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which started around the year 1500 and which focuses on Krishna as the Supreme Deity. Swami
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Prabhupada was himself a controversial figure, known for making racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and classist comments. And the controversies continued after his death with ISKCON leaders eventually admitting that physical and sexual abuse was taking place within their organization. They have since taken steps to rebuild their reputation and hopefully better protect children. The other guru I want to mention is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who many people know of simply
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because of his association with the Beatles. More importantly though, he’s the founder of the Transcendental Meditation Movement. Although marketed as a non-religious method, it has its roots in meditation techniques that have been practised within Hinduism for centuries. So let’s start with the Vedic Religion, which I introduced in my Hinduism video. It developed in India around 1500 BCE, after a group of Indo-Europeans slowly migrated into
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the area – probably intermingling with the descendants of the once mighty Indus Valley Civilization as well as with other native Indians living along the Ganges River. The Vedic Religion likely borrowed elements from all three of these groups, which is an important point to remember. We call this early form of Hinduism “Vedic” because it was during this period that the oldest and most sacred Hindu scriptures – called the Vedas – were composed.
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However, by around 500 BCE, the Vedic Religion had evolved into Brahminism, in which a certain class of people – known as Brahmins – controlled the priesthood as well as many other aspects of society. Below them were the Kshatriya (consisting of secular rulers and warriors), the Vaishya (the farmers and merchants), and finally, the Shudra (laborers and servants). However, not everyone was
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happy with the authority of the Brahmins and with the teachings in the Vedas. This gave rise to the Shramana movement, which was particularly popular along the Eastern Gangetic Plain. In order to explain, let’s take a look at a map of India around 500 BCE. By this point, most of the North was divided into sixteen independent states, which were known as “Mahajanapadas”, meaning “great realms”. Brahminism was strongest
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in the Kingdom of Kuru, which had previously been much larger and was the setting for the great Hindu epic The Mahabharat. But to the east, there were other states like Kosala, Vriji, and Magadha, where support for the Brahmins was weaker. It was here that the Shramana movement took hold. Basically, a “Shramana” was a person who dropped out of everyday society in order to instead live a very simple life focused on spiritual development. This resulted in the
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development of several new schools of philosophy but it also ended up influencing Brahminism as well - leading to what’s been called the “Hindu Synthesis” - which is when what we know today as Hinduism really took shape. So, from this point forward, from the Hindu perspective, Indian schools of philosophy were now divided into two categories: “Astika” and “Nastika”. Astika schools accept the authority of the Vedas (and are hence considered to be a part of Hinduism),
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whereas the Nastika schools reject the Vedas are thus considered to be separate religions. The two Nastika schools that most people are familiar with today are Jainism and Buddhism but in earlier times, there were other schools of thought that were just as popular. These include the atheist Charvaka school, the agnostic Ajñana school, and the fatalistic Ajivika school. Okay, with that background, let’s now focus exclusively on Buddhism. Unlike Hinduism,
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which has no founder, Buddhism does. It was founded by the person who most people know simply as The Buddha. But this was not his actual name. At birth, he was called Siddhartha Gautama and he was a prince living within the Kingdom of Kosala. More specifically though, he belonged to a region and ethnic group within Kosala known as the Shakyas, whose territory actually fell within what we today call Nepal. This is why,
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in the earliest records, the Buddha is called Shakyamuni, meaning the Sage of the Shakyas. I won’t go through his full story but here are the highlights. At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his family and life of luxury to become a Shramana. At first, he practised asceticism - denying himself all but the smallest amount of food needed to survive. But then, at the age of 35, while sitting under a tree, he is said to have achieved enlightenment. It’s at
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this point that he became “the Buddha” which is a title meaning “the Enlightened One”. After this, he preached about the “Middle Way”, which promotes living in-between the extremes of overindulgence on one side and self denial on the other. He also laid the foundations for Buddhist thought, called Dharma, which can be summed up by the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. During the Buddha’s lifetime, he not only taught The Dharma, he also built up a community of
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followers known as The Sangha. You may have heard Buddhists refer to the Triple Gem, or three jewels. This is a reference to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. According to tradition, the Buddha died at age 80, around the year 480 BCE. At this point, the First Buddhist Council was held, with 500 of his followers attending. The purpose was to make sure that all of the teachings of the Buddha and the rules for the community were remembered.
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One of his 10 core disciples, named Ananda, recited all of the teachings (which are known as sutras) and another disciple (named Upali) recited the community rules (which are known as vinaya). According to tradition, a Second Buddhist Council was held approximately 100 years after the Buddha’s death. This time, there were disagreements over the community rules and this led to the first Buddhist schism. The majority group became known as the Mahasangika,
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meaning “the Great Sangha” and the minority group became known as the Sthaviravada, meaning “School of the Elders” because it consisted mostly of the more senior monks. Take note that all of the modern branches of Buddhism descend from the Sthaviravada, although there is some debate over whether or not the Maha-sangika had an influence on the development of Mahayana, a term that I will explain in a bit.
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But back to Early Buddhism. Eventually more and more divisions occurred, to the point where, in ancient times, it is thought that there were at least 18 separate schools. Around the time of Ashoka (the great Indian emperor who united most of India for the very first time) the three main ones were the Vibhajyavada, Sarvastivada, and Pudgalavada. Ashoka is an extremely important figure in the history of early Buddhism because he himself converted to the new religion and promoted
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missionary efforts to spread Buddhism to other lands. The most important of these missions was led by his first-born son, Mahinda, who became a monk and brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka. (Now, I should point out that one does not need to become a monk to follow Buddhism, although some still do - as it is generally seen as being a faster way to reach enlightenment.) In Sri Lanka, the school founded by Mahinda became known as the Tamrashatiya School and it
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was a branch of the Vibhajyavada School. It was in Sri Lanka that the Pali Canon was produced - which today is the oldest surviving complete set of Buddhist scriptures (Take note that Pali is a language closely related to, but not quite the same as, Sanskrit). Let’s now take a moment to look at the contents of the Pali Canon. A full set of Buddhist scriptures is called a Tipitaka, which means three baskets. That’s because it’s comprised of three main parts: the Vinaya pitaka
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(which contains the community rules), the Sutta pitaka (which contains the Buddha’s teachings), and the Abhidhamma, which contains analysis on those teachings. The Vinaya pitaka contains rules for both male monks, who are called Bhikkhus as well as for female monks (or nuns), who are called Bhikkhunis. It also contains a few sections covering early Buddhist history. In the Pali Canon, the Sutta Pitaka is divided into five parts,
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called nikayas (meaning volumes). These can then be broken down further into smaller books. Of these smaller books, the one that I’d like to highlight is the Dhammapada, which is located in the fifth nikaya. It’s the most well known of all the Buddhist scriptures and is a good starting point for those who want to dip their feet in the water. Finally, I’d like to point out that the Pali Canon version of the Abhidhamma has seven parts.
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Okay, let’s now go back to the family tree chart. From Sri Lanka, Buddhism eventually spread to Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The type of Buddhism found in all of these countries is therefore very similar. Nowadays, it is called Theravada Buddhism. Take note that the word “Theravada” is actually just the Pali version of the Sanskrit word Sthaviravada, which as you might remember,
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means “School of the Elders”. Theravada Buddhism therefore sees itself as the original Buddhism. Generally speaking, it is more strict and more earthly-focused than the other forms of Buddhism. Although you can see here that there are three main types of Buddhism in the world today, considering that Tibetan Buddhism is - relatively-speaking - quite small, is often said that there are really just two main types of Buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana.
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I’m therefore going to focus on Mahayana next. The exact origins of Mahayana are unclear. It wasn’t really a separate school but rather a movement that took place within many schools. One theory is that it developed out of the now extinct Mahasangika school but another is that it might have originated among laypeople - meaning non-monks. Whatever the origin, the common factor among Mahayana Buddhists is that they have an additional set of scriptures known
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as the Mahayana sutras. According to Mahayana Buddhism, these special sutras were initially hidden away after the Buddha’s death, only to be revealed later, when the time was right. One of the early schools to accept the Mahayana Sutras was the Dharmaguptaka school, which was originally centered in Gandhara, in what is today Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is why there were - until very recently - some very old Buddha statues in this region.
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Unfortunately these were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. There is some debate over whether the Dharmaguptaka school came out of the Vibhajyavada school, or whether it came out of the Sarvastivada school. I’ve therefore showed it coming from both. From the Gandhara region, the Dharmaguptaka school eventually spread to China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. There were other schools that spread to these areas as well but they all went extinct and therefore today,
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all East Asian Mahayana monks follow the Dharmaguptaka community rules. Strangely, although Buddhism originated in India and was once a dominant force there, today the vast majority of Buddhists now live OUTSIDE of India. In fact, it is now China that has the most amount of Buddhists in the world. I therefore want to talk a bit about the Chinese Canon, which is the main alternative to the Pali Canon. Like the Pali Canon,
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it too contains a tripitaka - however, take note that the sections covering the teachings of the Buddha are called agamas instead of nikayas. The Chinese Canon has only four agamas, which roughly correspond to the first four nikayas from the Pali Canon. The Vinaya and Abhudharma sections, however, are totally different. Whereas the Pali Canon includes the Theravada community rules, the
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Chinese Canon includes the Dharma-guptaka rules, as well as rules from several now-extinct schools. However, the main difference between the Pali Canon and the Chinese Canon is that the Chinese Canon includes several additional sections, most notably the Mahayana Sutras, which I mentioned earlier. There are many of these but the most important are the Lotus Sutra, the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra, and the Nirvana Sutra. But
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that’s not all. The Chinese Canon also includes a section called the Jataka, which describes Buddha’s birth story and a section about tantras, which are esoteric or more “secret” practices, meant only for those with specialized knowledge. Now, as you might have guessed, the Chinese Canon is mostly written in Chinese, Classical Chinese to be exact (although the Japanese version does include some parts in Japanese). This is why the Pali Canon is generally understood to be
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the older of the two canons. After all, Pali is an ancient Indian language and India is where Buddhism originated. However, this paints a bit of wrong picture. It is actually more accurate to say that the Pali Canon is the oldest COMPLETE version of the Buddhist scriptures. This is because there are in fact parts of the Chinese canon for which we do have the corresponding, much older Sanskrit versions. It’s just that we don’t have the COMPLETE Chinese canon available in Sanskrit.
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Okay, now before I move on, I want to briefly describe the main difference between Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism in terms of beliefs. In both cases, the ultimate goal is to achieve enlightenment, which then frees a person from the continuous cycle of birth, death and rebirth (which, btw, is also the goal in Hinduism). Theravada Buddhists teach that there are three paths to enlightenment. The first and - by far - the most common path is the student path,
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in which a person learns from the teachings of a Buddha and eventually becomes an arhat (mostly by means of strict discipline). Once a person becomes an arhat, they will no longer be reborn. The second path is that of the Solitary Buddha, in which a person achieves enlightenment on their own but is unable to teach others how to do it. Finally, there is the Full Buddha Path, in which a person achieves enlightenment on their own AND is also able to teach others how to reach it.
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This obviously was the path taken by Siddhartha Gautama, which is why he is called THE Buddha. Now, what a lot of non-Buddhists don’t know is that THE Buddha was not the only person to achieve full Buddhahood. The Pali Canon mentions 27 Buddhas by name - Buddhas who lived before THE Buddha, the three most recent being Kakusandha, Konagamana, and Kassapa. It also talks about a future Buddha, named Maitreya. Which brings me to
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the word Bodhisattva, which is a term that is used to refer to someone on the path towards becoming a full Buddha. In Theravada Buddhism, Bodhisattvas are thought to be rare, with Maitreya being the only current one. Like I say, in Theravada Buddhism, most people take the Arhat path. And this is where Mahayana Buddhism is very different. In Mahayana Buddhism, the first two paths are viewed as being very much inferior. This is why Mahayana Buddhists refer to
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Theravada as “Hinayana” which means “the lesser path”. In contrast, the word Mahayana means “the greater path”. Mahayana teaches that the Full Buddha path (also known as the Bodhisattva path) is open to everyone. It sees Bodhisattvas as being compassionate individuals who put off enlightenment for the sake of helping others. Therefore, in Mahayana Buddhism, there are LOTS of Bodhisattvas, many of whom are understood to be residing in higher realms. So,
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Mahayana Buddhists often pray to Bodhisattvas and ask them for help. One example of a Bodhisattva is this guy, often called the “Laughing Buddha” or “Fat Buddha”. His real name is actually Budai and he was a monk who lived around 1000 years ago. But here’s the important thing. Budai and the Buddha are not the same person. THE Buddha is Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, who became a Buddha [lived] over 2000 years ago. In contrast, Budai, is a Bodhisattva, on his way to
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becoming a Buddha. Some think that he is Maitreya, that future Buddha that I mentioned earlier. All of this brings up the question: Are their gods in Buddhism? Well, it kind of depends on your definition of a god. Although Buddhism is often said to be an atheistic religion, in Mahayana Buddhism at least, a Bodhisattva certainly seem to be something a little bit similar to a god. Maybe not the omnipotent sort of God that Abrahamic religions talk about but some
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sort of spiritual being for sure. In Theravada Buddhism, this is less true. For example, you might see a Theravada Buddhist standing in front of a statue of the Buddha, with their hands together. But in this case, they are not actually worshipping Buddha as a god. Instead, they are simply showing respect or using the Buddha’s form as an aid to meditation. Okay, let’s now go back to the family tree chart. There are three particular
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sub-branches of East Asian Mahayana that I’d like to point out. There are actually many more than these but these three tend to be the most popular. The first is Chan Buddhism, known as Zen Buddhism in Japan. It is particularly popular in the West and mostly focuses on meditation. Then there’s Pure Land Buddhism, where the focus is trying to get reborn in a special “purified land” where it’s then easier to achieve enlightenment. The most
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popular “pure land” in Pure Land Buddhism is the one formed by a Buddha named Amitabha. Finally, there’s Tiantai (known as Tendai in Japan and Cheontae in Korea). It focuses on the Lotus Sutra that I mentioned earlier which teaches that all paths eventually lead to the one Bodhisattva path. Okay, I now want to turn our attention to Tibetan Buddhism. Back in the early days of Mahayana, there was another movement that split off, known as Vajrayana.
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But, like Mahayana, this was not a separate school of Buddhism but rather a movement that impacted several schools. One school that took on many Vajrayana ideas was the Mula-sarvasti-vada School, which was probably a branch of the similarly named Sarvasti-vada School. It eventually spread north to Tibet and Bhutan, which is where it is mostly found today. Tibetan Buddhism differs from other forms of Buddhism in that it incorporates far
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more esoteric practices such as chanting, reciting incantations, and making geometric patterns called mandalas to help induce trances. The most famous Tibetan Buddhist is of course the Dalai Lama, who is seen as being a sort of figurehead for the Tibetan people. He is actually the leader of just one sect of Tibetan Buddhism, of which there are currently four. However, his sect, known as the Gelug or “Yellow Hat” school is the largest one. He is referred to as the 14th
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Dalai Lama because the belief is that he is the reincarnation of a man named Gedun Drupa, who died in 1474 but continues to be reborn on earth. In turn, all of the Dalai Lamas are said to be incarnations of a Boddhisatva called Avalokitesvara.
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Now, before I go, I want to briefly mention Jainism, which is the other religion that can be traced back to the Shramana movement. It was founded by a man named Mahavira, who as you can see here, is often depicted as looking quite similar to the Buddha. In fact, the two teachers lived around the same time, with Mahavira being the older of the two. Whereas the Buddha was born in Kosala, Mahavira was born in Vriji. One of the key features of the Jain
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religion is non-violence and therefore most Jains are vegetarians. Today, Jainism is much smaller than Buddhism and really there are only two main branches. The larger one is called Svetambara, which means “white clad” because its monks wear white robes. Note the face mask also. Jains have been wearing face masks long before the current pandemic. This helps prevent sacred items from being contaminated. The other branch of Jainism is called Digambara,
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meaning “sky clad”. This is because the male monks in this sect wear no clothes at all - a testament to the fact that they want as few earthly possessions as possible. Okay, now what I really want to show you is how I've integrated the various religions in China. Like I said earlier, religion in China is complicated because people there often mix and match from more than one religious tradition. However,
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there are three traditions that are the most important and these are often referred to as the “three teachings”. They are: Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. I've already talked about Mahayana Buddhism in the Buddhism video so let me tell you about the other two. To do so, let me start with the earliest form of religion to develop in China: polytheism. The symbol you see here is from China’s oldest writing system, called the oracle bone script, which was
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used during the Shang dynasty. It is pronounced Shang-di and basically means “highest god”. Later, this god would become associated with a figure known as the Jade Emperor, although in other contexts, he is said to manifest himself as five deities, each associated with a color, element, direction, and planet. But Shang-di was not and is not the only Chinese god. There are dozens more, such as the dragon god who controls the rain and [Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West,
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who is associated with death and has the ability to bestow immortality. However, one unique aspect of Chinese Polytheism, which developed early on, is that the worship (or veneration) of deceased ancestors became just as important — if not more important — than the worship of deities. Another group of spiritual beings, called immortals, became important as well. Immortals are former humans who are not quite gods but who live on
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after death and can posses great powers. Thus, as time went on, self-cultivation in this life became more and more important in Chinese Religion. Then, during the 500s BCE, there was an explosion of new ideas in China, which resulted in what's called the “Hundred Schools of Thought”. Most of these schools eventually went extinct but there are two that have survived all the way to today. These are, as I'm sure you’ve guessed, Taoism and Confucianism.
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Taoism is the more mystical and spiritual of the two. It incorporates all of the gods and immortals from Chinese Polytheism but also places a strong emphasis on living in harmony with something called Tao - a word that's kind of hard to define quickly in English. On a basic level, it simply means “way” or “path” but on a deeper level, it refers to the universe’s ultimate reality. It is usually associated with
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the complimentary forces yin and yang, which you probably know about because of this symbol. Confucianism, on the other hand, is more focused on the physical world and on practical matters such as good government as well as social harmony, whether it's at the family level or the national level. This is why Confucianism is often said to be more of a philosophy than a religion. It's named after its founder Confucius, who lived around the same time as the Buddha. Note
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that Confucius is the anglicized version of Kong Fuzi, which simply means “Master Kong”. The traditional founder of Taoism, Laozi, is said to have lived around the same time as Confucius and as his elder, is thought to have had some influence on him. However, nowadays, Laozi is generally considered to have been more of a legendary figure, whereas Confucius was almost certainly historical. So, like I say, a lot of people in China follow traditions and principles associated with both
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Taoism and Confucianism, as well as Buddhism. So it's not uncommon to see depictions of the Buddha or various Bodhisattvas next to those of traditional Chinese gods or immortals. And on top of all of this, the veneration of ancestors in China remains important to this day as well. Now before I move on, I want to point out some more modern trends within Chinese Religion. The first is Chinese salvationist religions, which became popular in the early 20th century but which
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nowadays are mostly followed in Taiwan. A good example is Yiguandao, which has roots that go back to imperial times but didn't really take off until after 1912, which is when China became a republic. At this point it was being led by a man called Zhang Tianran, who managed to grow the movement to around 12 million members. However, once the revolution started and China became communist, it was mostly stamped out, only to gain traction again in Taiwan during the 80s.
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Like most Chinese salvationist movements, Yiguandao is kind of a simplified version of Chinese Syncretism but packaged in a way that is more similar to, say, Mormonism. In other words, there's usually a revered leader who received a revelation from God and there's a lot of emphasis on the need for individual salvation and for converting others to the movement. Another good example of a Chinese Salvationist Religion is the more recent Weixinism, founded by Hun Yuan.
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And then there's Falun Gong, which was founded around the same time by Li Hongzhi. It's actually NOT classified as a Chinese Salvationist Religion but does share some similarities with them, although it's more focused on doing special exercises called Qigong. It has become particularly popular within the Chinese expat community in the West where it's known for being super conservative and for protesting against China.
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Okay, let me now explain some important differences between Judaism and Christianity. One of the things that drives Jews crazy is that Christians tend to assume that they already know LOTS about Judaism, because they’ve read the Old Testament. I’ve even had many Christians tell me that I’m not a real Jew because I don’t match their expectation of what a real Jew is. You see, most Christians (as well as most former Christians) have only ever viewed
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the Old Testament through a Christian lens and therefore they assume that Judaism basically uses the same framework that Christianity does but that it simply does so without Jesus. Which is not actually how Judaism works. So I’m going to start by explaining some basic differences between these two religions that you might not be aware of. The first thing you need to know is that Christianity is much more concerned with the
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question: When choosing whether or not to join a church, most Christians (especially Protestants), will first of all ask: What does that church believe? Which is why almost every church website always includes a section called Statement of Faith. It’s also why the ancient church developed CREEDS, such as the Nicene Creed, in order to make a list of what a Christian needs to BELIEVE in order to be considered a Christian. And, of course, the most important thing that
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a Christian needs to believe is that Jesus is God and that he died for our sins. For example, the famous scripture John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So, obviously BELIEF is a key part of what it means to be a Christian. But this is not precisely true for Judaism, nor is it precisely true for MOST other religions.
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Most religions are more concerned with What should a person DO? So, for example, for many modern-day Jews, it’s far less important that you believe that Moses was a historical person than it is that you follow the Jewish traditions that are said to go back to him. So, for example, when I converted to Judaism (which, in my case, was a year-long process) at no point was I asked to agree to certain list of beliefs. Instead, I was taught mostly about Jewish PRACTICES
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and traditions. As well as a lot about the history and language of the Jewish people. The other thing that Christianity is very much concerned with is SALVATION. The whole thing hinges on the question, “What must a person do (or believe) in order to be SAVED.” So, the assumption that most Christians make about Juday- ism is that Jews are ALSO concerned with salvation and that Jews simply have a different way of obtaining it. The further assumption,
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based mostly on the writings of Paul, is that Jews try to obtain salvation by obeying Jewish Law. But that’s simply not true because there is no such thing as Original Sin in Juday- ism, nor is there much of a focus on the exact details surrounding the afterlife. To put it simply: Jews do not follow Jewish Law in order to saved from some future punishment or in order to gain some future reward. For some Jews, they follow the Law simply because God told them to. For others,
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it’s because we believe that many of those laws (which we call mitzvot) serve a purpose in the here and now. The best way that I can explain this is by giving the following analogy: In our modern society, we have many traffic laws that are designed to keep everyone safe. If you break one of those laws – say, by going too fast in your car – you might get a ticket as a punishment. But do you obey the traffic rules simply because you don’t want a ticket? Perhaps,
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but I hope that you also obey them because, for example, you don’t want to hit some kid while passing through a school zone. Likewise, one of the Jewish mitzvot is to rest on Shabbat (or Saturday). We do this, not because we’re scared that God will punish us if we don’t but because we see a benefit in taking some time off at least once per week. Now, as you probably know, different Jews take a different approach to how carefully they follow
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this mitzvah – and I’ll get to that in a moment – but for now, please understand that for all Jews, no matter what branch they belong to, what they do or don’t do is NOT based on trying to earn a future reward. This is summed up by the following principle given by the early Pharisee Antigonus of Sokho: “Be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of reward. Rather, be like servants who do not serve their master for the sake of reward,
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and let the awe of Heaven be upon you.” Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Christians are not at all concerned with what they do. Of course they are. But, in Christianity, belief always comes first, followed by a changed life. And I’m also not saying that there are absolutely no beliefs in Judaism. For some Jews, their only creed is the Shema Prayer: “Hear O Israel. The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” For others, especially the Orthodox,
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there are the Thirteen Principles of Faith by Maimonides. My point is that, generally speaking, Christians put a stronger emphasis on believing and Jews put a stronger emphasis on doing. So, with that under our belts, let’s now look at the family tree. As I mentioned in Episode 1 of the Christian denominations series, Judaism has its roots in Ancient Israelite religion, which was practised by the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Israel and Judah were relatively small
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kingdoms, but they happened to be located right in-between two of the most important centers of civilization in the ancient world – Egypt and Mesopotamia – which is why Egypt, and then later Assyria and Babylon played such a huge role in their history. Now, there are two main explanations for where Ancient Israelite religion came from. One, of course, is that it came directly from God, through divine revelation – specifically when Moses received the
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Torah. The other is that it developed slowly, over time, based on its interactions with both Egypt and Mesopotamia. In fact, the scholarly consensus nowadays is that the Israelites actually started out as a subset of Canaanites and then slowly went from polytheism to monotheism over time. Either way, what we’re concerned with here is what happened during the late Iron Age. Basically, Israel fell to the Assyrians and Judah fell to the Babylonians but then following a brief exile
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in Babylon, the former inhabitants of Judah (now called Jews) were able to return to their land and rebuild their temple, which is why Judaism between 537 BCE and 70 CE is known as Second Temple Juday- ism. During this time, it was influenced by both Zoroastrianism (which was the religion of the Persians) as well as by Hellenism (which was the religion of the Greeks) but most importantly, by this
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point, Judaism was definitely monotheistic – which is, to this day, its defining feature. However, by the time that the Romans took over, there were four major sects within Second Temple Judaism: the Pharisees (who represented the everyday people), the Essenes (who were a mystical bunch), the Zealots (who wanted to fight against the Romans) and the Sadducees (who were the elites who ran the temple). To this was added a fifth group: the early Christians. However,
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Christianity quickly became a separate, mostly Gentile (meaning non-Jewish) religion. The early Christians who continued to maintain Jewish traditions, such as the Ebionites and Nazarenes, eventually went extinct, although there is evidence that they had an influence on the development of Islam before doing so. Anyway, the Essenes, Zealots, and Sadducees also all went extinct, back when the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 CE. Thus,
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the only sect of Second Temple Judaism that survived was that of the Pharisees. Now, the New Testament does not have a lot of nice things to say about the Pharisees. But for Jews today, the Pharisees are actually our spiritual ancestors. After the destruction of Jerusalem, they set up a school in the nearby town of Yavne (known in Christian sources as Jamnia), where they helped Judaism evolve from being a temple-based religion to one that is based
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mostly on communal prayer and on studying the five books of Moses (also known as the Torah). The scholars at this Yavne school eventually became known as rabbis. Thus, Judaism as it exists today can more accurately be called RABBINIC Judaism, in order to distinguish it from the earlier Second Temple Judaism. One of the things that the early rabbis did was to develop the Talmud, which actually has two components: the Mishnah (which was written
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first) and the Gemara (which was written later and consists of commentary on the Mishnah). According to tradition, the Mishnah is based on the Oral Torah, which consisted of various clarifications that were given was given to Moses around the same time as the Written Torah. These were supposedly passed down by word of mouth until the time of the rabbis. However, according to modern critical scholarship, the Oral Torah likely does not go all the way back to Moses. But
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it does at least go back to the Second Temple Period – to figures like Hillel and Shammai, who lived just prior to the time of Jesus. If you want to learn more about the various rabbis mentioned in the Mishnah, we actually have a video on that, which I’ll link to in the description. Now, in case you’ve heard some of the nasty things that sometimes get said about the Talmud, let me make it clear that in those cases, the Talmud is usually being taken out of
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context, for anti-Semitic reasons. Rather than being a list of clear cut rules, The Talmud (and the various notes that now come with it are more like a collection of case law, in which various opinions are given in addition to opinions about those opinions and then opinions about the opinions about the opinions. Which is why a typical Talmud page looks something like this. Now, it’s at this point that I should bring up the Karaite Jews. Karaite Jews reject the Talmud
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and therefore some people claim that the modern Kara-ites can trace their lineage all the way back to the Sadducees. But what’s more likely is that they were simply a group that broke away from mainstream rabbinic Judaism around the year 800. An even earlier group to break away from (or at least lose contact with) Rabbinic Judaism is Beta Israel, based in Ethiopia. They may go all the way back to Second Temple times but there is also evidence that they initially
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maintained some contact with the early rabbis but then, for some reason, that contact was eventually severed. It wasn’t actually until modern times that Beta Israel was quote end quote “rediscovered” and integrated back into mainstream Judaism. So, again, I wouldn’t consider Beta Israel to be outside of Rabbinic Judaism but rather to be a unique stream within it. But then there’s the Samaritans, who definitely ARE a separate group from
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Rabbinic Jews. They claim to be the descendants of the Northern Ten Tribes of Israel. However, according to historians, the situation is much more complicated. When Assyria conquered Israel, some Israelites were carried away and then non- Israelites were brought in to replace them. However, other Israelites simply moved south to Jerusalem, where they became integrated into the Kingdom of Judah. Then, when the Babylonians conquered Judah, a split occurred whereby
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many of the elites were carried off to Babylon, whereas the every day people were left behind, where they sometimes intermarried with foreigners. When the Judean elites returned to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, some of those who had been left behind (who the Bible calls “the people of the land”) wanted to build a separate temple, which they did at Mount Gerizim – which happened to be in the territory where the northern tribes used to live. So, to me, it’s unclear whether the
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Samaritan-Jewish division was more about an ethnic division or a class division. Either way, what we do know is that the Samaritans eventually dwindled in size and today consist of around 850 people. Okay, so let’s now look at how the main branch of Rabbinic Judaism evolved. Generally speaking, from 70 CE to around 1740 CE, there was nothing within Judaism that was anything like what the word denomination refers to – there was simply Judaism. This is partly
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because Jews were very much the minority wherever they were found so when you’re already a small, persecuted group, you tend to stick together. However, it also boils down to the fact that Judaism – to this day – has no central leadership. If you’re looking for an analogy from within the Christian framework, it would be best to say that Jews follow a congregational style of governance, sort of like the Baptists. Rabbis get trained at rabbinical colleges (where some rabbis end
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up being more influential than others) but then each congregation gets to choose who they want to be their rabbi and how they want to run things. Although, note that nowadays, some countries do have what’s called a Chief Rabbi – which I’ll get to later. Now, don’t get me wrong. When I say that there was just one Judaism until 1740, I’m not saying that there were absolutely no differences to be found – there were. Which brings me to the terms Sephardi,
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Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi. But please note – these are NOT different denominations. They are more like regional subcultures. To explain, let’s bring up a map. Basically, following the fall of Jerusalem, Jews ended up all over the Roman Empire. One particular area where a lot of them ended up is in what we today called Spain and Portugal. Jews from this area became known as Sephardic Jews (S’pharad simply being the Hebrew word for Spain).
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For many centuries, they were ruled by Muslims, who generally treated them very well. However, following the Reconqista and the shift back to Christian control, Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula and thus many of them ended up back in the Middle East (where they were welcomed by the Ottoman Empire). Others ended up in North Africa, or in the Low Countries, or in the so-called New World, where they settled long before the
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arrival of the now more dominant Ashkenazi Jews. The word Ashkenazi comes from the name Ashkenaz, which was a very old Jewish name for Germany. Based on recent DNA studies, we now know a lot about the origins of the Ashkenazi Jews. It is now thought they originated in Southern Italy before next settling in Germany, around the year 800. At some point though, their numbers dwindled to around just 350 people, which led to what’s called a genetic bottleneck. Before this point,
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there was a good deal of intermarriage with non-Jews (particularly Southern Italians) but then after this point, the group mostly intermarried amongst themselves – resulting in the creation of a distinct ethnic group, called Ashkenazi Jewish, which has clear DNA markers that can show up on a DNA test. But take note, even though Ashkenazi Jews are at least partially European, a good amount of their DNA can still be traced all the way back to the Middle East,
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particularly along the male-only line. I should also note that while the Ashkenazi Jews originally settled in Germany, most of them ended up being pushed into Eastern Europe, which is where most of them lived until the twentieth century. Okay, so, in addition to Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews, there are also Mizrahi Jews, which is sort of a catch all term for Jews that never left the Middle East.
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Mizrahi Jews ended up assimilating a lot of Sephardic customs though (because, remember: many Sephardic Jews ended up back in the Middle East) so take note that nowadays, the Mizrahis are often lumped together with the Sephardi Jews. But again, before I move on, I want to emphasize that the Sephardi vs Ashkenazi division has nothing to do with denominations, nor with any theological differences. In Judaism, we have a concept called Minhag, which can be
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roughly translated as “customs”. Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews may have different minhag but they share the same religion. The best analogy from within the Christian framework would be to compare Catholics who use the Latin rite with those who use the Syriac rite. Their clothing and liturgy might be different but their theology is not. To this day, Ashkenazi Jews rely heavily on philosophical works developed by Sephardi Jews – and vice versa. One good example is Maimonides,
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who I mentioned earlier as being the one who developed the thirteen principles of faith. He was Sephardi but he’s just as important to Ashkenazis. In contrast, there’s Rashi, whose commentaries are included in all modern editions of the Talmud. He was Ashkenazi but is also considered authoritative by Sephardi. Now, before I move on to the modern branches of Judaism, I want to point out a book called the Shulchan Aruch. Written in 1565 by the Sephardic
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rabbi Joseph Karo, it also contains notes by the Ashkenazi rabbi Moses Isser-less. To this day, it’s kind of THE authoritative text for all things related to Jewish law. But it’s important to note that it is used by both Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi Jews, although when it comes to minhag, or customs, Ashkenazis follow the rulings of Rabbi Isser-less, whereas Sephardis follow the rulings of Rabbi Karo.
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Okay, so like I say, from 70 CE to around 1740 CE, there was pretty much just one Judaism, albeit with different customs depending on where you lived. But from 1740 onwards, this changed. Nowadays, it is said that Judaism (particularly in Western countries) has three main branches: -Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. So, before we continue down the tree, I want to explain the main differences between these three branches.
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At the end of the day, the difference boils down to just one thing and one thing only: their approach to Jewish law (which is called Ha-LA-khah) -Orthodox Jews see Ha-LA-khah as being binding and, for the most part, unchanging. Binding means you HAVE to follow it. Not in order to obtain salvation but simply because God says so. So, Orthodox Jews follow the law very carefully, in the same
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way that it’s been followed for over 2000 years. In contrast, Conservative Jews (known as Masorti Jews outside of North America) see Ha-LA-khah as being binding but not unchanging. In other words, the Law should evolve over time, in order to keep up with how human society has evolved. So, for example, -Orthodox Jews won’t drive a car on Shabbat because both combustion engines and electric engines involve lighting a fire and in the Torah, lighting a fire is considered work
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and you’re not supposed to work on Shabbat. However, -Conservative Jews have come to the conclusion that, in our modern world, being able to attend synagogues (which are often no longer within walking distance), is more important than following the original rule. So, Conservative rabbis have actually changed Jewish law to say that driving a car on Shabbat is permitted for this special circumstance. They have done similar things in terms of allowing women to
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become rabbis, and supporting LGBT rights. Now, before I move on, let me mention the principle of Pikuach nefesh, which is followed by every branch of Judaism. This law states that any other law can be broken in order to protect the life or health of a person. So, for example, if a person has a medical emergency on Shabbat, even the most Orthodox Jew WILL drive a car in order to get that person to the hospital as fast as possible. However, there are three exceptions:
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You can’t murder, you can’t worship idols, and you can’t commit a sexual sin. Okay, so finally, there are Reform Jews. Reform Jews see Ha-LA-khah as being neither binding nor unchanging. This means that each individual Jew can make up their own mind about how to follow Jewish Law. So, for example, the Torah says that Jews must not eat certain shellfish, such as prawns, but it says that beef is okay. However,
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in today’s world, due to climate change, it can be argued that eating beef is more problematic than eating prawns so some Reform Jews might decide to adopt a full pescitarian diet for ethical reasons instead of following traditional kosher rules. A lot of Reform Jews like to focus on the phrase Tikkun Olam which means “repairing the world” and therefore they tend to prioritize ethical mitzvot over ritual mitzvot. Now, these may seem like some pretty big
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differences but surprisingly, on the surface, these three groups can often look almost the same. The one exception to this is a subset of Orthodox Jews known as Haredi or Ultra-Orthodox (although note that the term Ultra-Orthodox is usually considered offensive). Haredi Jews can be broken down further into Hasidic and non-Hasidic. I’ll explain Hasidic Judaism in more detail in a moment but for now, note that these are the Jews that tend to be Jewish
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in very visible ways. They are the ones with big black hats and long side curls. Many Christians, when forming a mental picture of what a Jew looks like, will tend to think of a Hasidic Jew. Well, I just want to caution you against that stereotype because that would be like a Jew assuming that all Christians look like this. Even among Orthodox Jews, there are many who don’t really stand out as being Jewish in a highly visible way and are more integrated into the
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greater society. These non-Haredi Orthodox Jews are usually called “Modern Orthodox”. Okay, so how did all these various branches of modern Judaism come about? Well, let’s actually start with Hasidism. It was founded by the Baal Shem Tov, who lived in what is today Ukraine during the 1700s. Which is why I’ve shown the Hasidic movement as stemming from the Ashkenazis. However, take note that nowadays, some Sephardis have also adopted Hasidism.
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What a lot of non-Jews don’t realize about Hasidism is that it is actually a very mystical version of Judaism, in addition to being outwardly quite conservative. It relies heavily on Kabbalah, which is a mystical school of thought within Juday- ism that goes back to Isaac Luria in the 1500s and Moses de León in the 1200s and perhaps even further. The other thing you need to know about Hasidism is that each Hasidic group is centered around a single rabbinical
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dynasty that can be traced back to a specific Eastern European village. So, take for example, Chabad, which is one of the largest and most well-known Hasidic groups. It was originally based in a Russian village called Lyubavichi, which is why followers of Chabad are also known as Lubavitchers. The famous twentieth-century leader of this group, Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), was a descendant of Shneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad.
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However, not all Ashkenazi Jews embraced Hasidism. Those who did not became known as Mit-NAHG-dim, meaning “opponents” although they would later become known as Litvaks because a lot of them were based in Lithuania. Around the year 1770, a major event occurred (mostly among the Mit-NAHG- dim) known as the HAS-kalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. It stemmed from and was very similar to, the general Age of Enlightenment that had occurred in Europe
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about a century earlier. Basically, it led to Judaism being re-examined using the lens of modern critical scholarship. But it was not all simply about new ideas. It was also about new freedoms. Around the same time as the HAS-kalah, Jewish emancipation was achieved throughout most of Europe, meaning that for the first time, Jews were given the same legal rights as Christians. At this point, some Jews simply became secular, whereas other Jews (particularly in Germany)
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sought to “reform” Judaism in order to bring it up to speed with what had been learned through science and textual criticism. Now, for the next little while I’m going to be talking exclusively about the United States. That’s because, other than Israel, this is where most of the world’s Jews currently live. But don’t worry, once I’m done, I will be talking about Israel and other countries as well. Note that it’s really only in the US (and in some
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similar countries like Canada and the UK) that Judaism can be divided into various denominations. So, let’s start with the migration of German Jews to the US between 1840 and 1860. Prior to this point, most Jews in America had actually been Sephardic. But pretty soon, most Jewish congregations were not only Ashkenazi but they were also leaning toward Reform. So, in 1873, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations was established in order to
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serve as the main organization for American Jews. This was followed by the founding of Hebrew Union College in 1875 as the main rabbinical school. However, while most American Jews were Reform at this point, some were not. Therefore, in 1886, some more conservative-leaning rabbis broke away from Hebrew Union College and established instead the Jewish Theological Seminary. However, please note that, these so-called “conservative” Jews were only
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conservative in comparison to Reform Jews. In the eyes of many Eastern European Jews, these so-called conservatives were actually quite liberal. What happened next was that many of those Eastern European Jews ended up migrating to the US between 1880 to 1925. They were even more conservative than the conservatives and thus became known as Orthodox. Thus, we ended up with three main branches within
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American Judaism. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations ended up being the main organization for Reform Jews (eventually changing its name to the Union for Reform Juday- ism); the United Synagogue of America, established in 1913, became the main organization for Conservative Jews (although it too that later changed its name to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism). Finally, the Orthodox Union, established in 1898, became the main organization for Modern Orthodox
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Jews. Now, even if you’ve never heard of any of these organizations, you’ve probably seen this symbol on various food packages. It means that the Orthodox Union has deemed that item to be kosher. I also want to point out Agudah, which is another Orthodox organization, separate from the Orthodox Union. It consists mostly of Haredi congregations, both Non- Hasidic and Hasidic (although notably, Chabad is not a member). Altogether, among those who attend synagogue in the US,
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approximately 50% are Reform, around 30% are Conservative, and 20% are Orthodox. I should also point out Reconstructionist (or Reconstructing) Judaism, which can be considered a fourth branch of modern Judaism. Founded by Mordecai Kaplan in the 1950s, it can be seen as a breakaway from Conservative Judaism. However, like Reform Judaism, it does not see Jewish Law as being binding. But in contrast to Reform Judaism, it tends to place
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more value on preserving old traditions and on maintaining a very distinct Jewish identity. So you can kind of think of Reconstructionist Judaism as being somewhat conservative on the outside but very liberal on the inside. There’s also Renewal Judaism, which is even more recent, having its roots in the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 70s. It too is a very liberal branch of Judaism but tends to incorporate more mystical elements,
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from Hasidic Juday- ism – which is why its followers are sometimes nicknamed “hippie Jews”. Now, one other thing I should make clear is that, in Judaism, denominational lines can be quite blurry, especially in areas where there aren’t many Jews. So, for example, I live in Canada and when I converted to Judaism, I did so through a Reform synagogue, although one of the teachers was a Reconstructionist. However,
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after one year of study and the approval of a beit din, I had a Hatafat Dam Brit performed by an Orthodox rabbi and I was immersed in a mikveh at the Orthodox synagogue. On top of this, the synagogue that my wife and I are most likely to attend, simply because it’s the closest one to our home, is actually Renewal. So, when people ask me which branch of Judaism I belong to, it’s a difficult question to answer. I usually just say that I’m a progressive Jew,
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which basically encompasses everything other than Orthodox and, in North America at least, is the dominant type of Judaism. But even between Progressive Jews and Orthodox Jews, there is often a lot of mixing. While each set of rabbis might hold very different views, the actual members, might not. So, it’s not unusually for a Jew with Reform leanings to attend an Orthodox synagogue or a fully observant Orthodox Jew to attend a Reform synagogue. And then, of course, there
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are sometimes separate Sephardi congregations – they usually see themselves as being outside of the whole Reform-Conservative-Orthodox trichotomy. But then there’s also individual Sephardic Jews who DO see themselves as belonging to one of the three streams. So, it’s complicated. There are even Humanist Jews who do not even believe in God but still gather to celebrate certain holidays or rights of passage. Now, what about Messianic Jews? Well, Messianic
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Jews are really Christians so I actually talked about them already, on my series about Christian denominations. If you’re interested to hear my take on them, you can find it in Episode 8. Okay, so that was just how Judaism works in the US, and maybe a few other countries like Canada and the UK. In the UK there are actually two major Reform denominations: Liberal Judaism and the Movement for Reform Judaism. However, quite recently (in April of
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2023) they announced their intention to merge into a single organization. They also have a chief rabbi for their Orthodox Jews, who you might have seen in the news recently as he participated in the coronation of King Charles III. Let’s next look at how Judaism works in Israel, which now has a Jewish population that has surpassed that of the United States. Although Reform and Conservative synagogues do exist in Israel in small numbers,
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the Reform- Conservative-Orthodox trichotomy is far less important there. Instead, in Israel, Jews are usually classified into four main categories. First there are the Hiloni. These are secular Jews and they actually make up a full half of all the Jews in Israel. Next are the Masorti, who are “traditional”, meaning that they are only partially observant. They make up another quarter of the Israeli population. The final quarter consists of the Dati and
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Haredi. These are the fully observant Jews, with the Haredi (like I discussed earlier) being the most strictly observant. Now, I’m not going to address Zionism in this video because Zionism is more of a political thing than a religious thing. Individual Jews across the world have differing views on Zionism and the politics within Israel so it’s important to remember that just because someone is Jewish, that doesn’t mean that they support
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every single thing that the State of Israel does. But returning to the four categories of Israeli Jews, I want to make it clear that these are NOT four different denominations. For the most part, Israeli Jews are not really divided into denominations at all. Instead, anything to do with Jewish religious matters in Israel falls under the jurisdiction of the two Chief Rabbis – one of whom represents Ashkenazi Jews and the other who represent Sephardi Jews.
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This system is actually the one that is used in most countries in the world. Some countries, such as France, have just one Chief Rabbi, whereas others, like Argentina have two. Like with Judaism, Denominations in Islam aren’t as clear-cut as they are in Christianity. It’s not uncommon for people to hold a mix of beliefs from different denominations. The term denomination itself might not apply here very accurately. Let’s get into it and I’ll explain along the way.
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The first thing I would like to address is that most religions have multiple stories of their origins, typically there are one or more traditional accounts along with one or more academic accounts. For example, as Matt mentioned in his video on Judaism, while Jews believe their religion to have begun when Moses received the Torah, academic scholars believe it to have emerged out of a mix of Ancient Israelite, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian Religions.
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Similarly, for Islam, there’s a traditional account that states that Islam began with Adam, the first human, and subsequent prophets which include Noah, Moses, and Jesus, preached Islam but in a different form. Finally, it came into its current shape with Prophet Muhammad when he received the first revelation of the Qur’an in 610CE or so. However, academic scholars believe that Islam came out of the mixing of various religions which included the
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ancient Arabic pagan religious traditions and a group of people known as Jewish Christians, specifically, Ebionites & Nazarenes who upheld the Laws of Judaism but also believed Jesus to be a Massiah. They may have fled into Arabia to avoid persecution where they inspired the religion of Islam. Islamic Tradition mentions a group known as Hanifs who followed the true monotheism of Prophet Abraham which may or may not have been these Jewish Christians.
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Anyhow, according to Islamic Tradition, Islam began with the revelation of the Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad around 610 CE. From then to his death around 632, the Prophet continued to receive revelations from Allah, the Arabic word for God, which were later compiled into a book format known as the *Qur’an* or Recitation. The Qur’an forms the core of Islam and is universally held up by Muslims as the highest authority on their religion. They might
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disagree on interpretations of the Qur’an but all Muslims hold it up above everything else. In 622, around 11 or 12 years after the first Revelation, the Prophet went into exile from his birth city of Mecca and formed a community in a city called Yathrib, which later came to be known as Madinah. This Emigration of the Prophet is known as the Hijrah and is considered a very important point in the history of Islam. So much so that this year marks
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the beginning of the Islamic Lunar Calendar. It also marks a changing point in the Qur’an. The Qur’an is divided into 114 Chapters known as the Surahs. The Meccan Chapters, which were revealed during the Prophet’s time in Mecca, focus more on, for lack of a better term, abstract concepts. To generalize, the Qur’an talks about things such as *Tawhid* or Monotheism, the oneness of God, the Day of Judgement or as it’s called in the Qur’an, the Hour, when the
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world will end and humanity will be resurrected to face the final judgment for where they’d spend eternity, Heaven or Hell. In other words, these chapters focused on Theology. However, after the Hijrah, the Qur’an started talking more about, again for lack of a better term, matters of the world. Because in Madinah, the Prophet wasn’t just a Prophet, he was a political leader so he had to arbitrate over disputes, go to war, do diplomacy, etc. So, the Qur’an also focuses
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on such matters at this point. In other words, these chapters focused on Jurisprudence or Law. This is important because in Islam there are two important distinctions when it comes to what one believes. The first is your Aqidah which deals with the theological nature of Islam while the second, the Fiqh deals with the judicial nature of Islam. Where the Fiqh deals with what to do with lawbreakers, the Aqidah deals with why someone becomes one. Where
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the Fiqh would say the punishment for someone who commits a particular sin is this or that, the Aqidah would ask whether the sinner has free will or whether everything is predestined. These two do overlap and the Aqidah does guide the Fiqh but not always. The Prophet Muhamad passed away in 632 and immediately, cracks began appearing in the community of the Believers. The first point of disagreement was, who
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would lead the community as its new political leader. Some senior followers of the Prophet elected his close friend Abu Bakr as the first *Khalifa* or Caliph. Caliph simply means successor or deputy. The Caliph was to be the new political leader of the Believers and was known as *Amir al-Muminin* or literally, Leader of the Believers. However, another party of followers of the Prophet wanted Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin
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and son-in-law of the Prophet to succeed him as Caliph. It’s tempting to call this decision as having laid the foundation of the division between Sunnis and Shias, the two largest sects of Islam. However, those two sects wouldn’t really crystalize till the 11th century so it would be better to call these two groups Proto-Shias and Proto-Sunnis. The division is often oversimplified by saying that the Proto-Sunnis were the ones who supported Abu Bakr while the Proto-Shias were the
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ones who supported Ali. Initially, this was the case, the division was merely about who would lead the community. However, over time, the division began to get more and more complex. This was because the community expanded really quickly. During the Prophet’s lifetime, he conquered and allied with much of the Arabian Peninsula. After him, the caliphs sent their armies into the Greater Middle East. Within a few decades,
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the Believers ruled everything between Tunisia and India. In the process, they defeated the Byzantine and the Sassanid Empires. As you might expect, this huge empire brought its own problems. The Caliphs had to make judgments and policies in political, social, and military matters. The Believers tried to follow the law laid down in the Qur’an, as it was and is the highest authority. With things that weren’t directly addressed in the Qur’an,
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the Believers looked at the examples laid down by the Prophet in his lifetime. These examples, along with his sayings, formed a canon of the Islamic Tradition known as the Sunnah of the Prophet. However, there were still many many things that had no direct parallels in the Qur’an or the Sunnah. How do we resolve that? This question divided the Muslims further. Let’s first look at how the Sunnis answered this question. Again, to grossly oversimplify,
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the Proto-Sunnis, who get their name from the Sunnah, believed that the examples of the Prophet can guide the Believers along with the opinions and comments of learned men and occasionally women, who came to be known as the Ulema, and who had spent considerable portions of their lives studying the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The Ulema weren’t exactly priests but they were not that dissimilar to Rabis. In fact, a lot of Islamic Jurisprudence has
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parallels with Jewish Law. Anyhow, among the Ulema there were some distinguished figures who are more venerated than the others who came to be known as Imams. While Sunni Imams were respectable figures who were considered authorities on the subject of jurisprudence, they weren’t infallible and they were merely educated human beings. However, the Proto-Shias believed that their Imams were infallible. They believed that the
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Imam has to be a descendant of the Prophet through his daughter Fatima and her husband, Ali ibn Abi Talib. The Proto-Shias believed that the Imam had divine guidance and was the sole authority on how to interpret the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet. Ali ibn Abi Talib is considered the first Imam and then his two sons, al-Hasan and al-Husayn are the second and third, respectively. The
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disagreement over Imams and their role in Islamic Society is perhaps the biggest distinction between the Sunnis and Shias, even today. Both have their own chains of Imams who are considered founders of their various schools of Islamic Jurisprudence and developed their own interpretations of Islamic Law known as the Shariah. However, It must be kept in mind that back in the day, this wasn’t a
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binary division, rather it was more of a spectrum where people could and did mix elements from both. Let’s look at the Sunnis first. Sunnis make up roughly around 90% of the Muslim population with the remaining 9% being Shia and the rest making up less than 1%. Among the Sunnis, there are four Schools of Jurisprudence or Fiqh. These are the Hanafi, which is the largest and is popular in India, Pakistan, Turkey, and parts of the Middle East. The Maliki which is popular in Africa
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and previously was also the predominant school in Muslim Spain. Then the Shafi’i and Hanbali, both of which are mostly common in the Middle East with the Hanbali being dominant in Saudi Arabia. There used to be a fifth one named Zahiri which was popular in Muslim Spain and North-Western Africa but it has since died out but recently, with the Islamic Revivalist movements it is starting to come back, we’ll talk about that in a moment.
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Now, early on in its life, Islam came into contact with the Greeks and their way of thinking. So, there was a debate in the Islamic World about what way of thinking should be followed. Should we adhere rigidly to the Qur’an and the Sunnah or should a logical approach to rational thinking be developed for our worldly problems? This led to the creation of the Schools of Theology. The Athari are considered the Traditionalists who stick to the Qur’an and Sunnah while the
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Mu’tazilites are seen as those who follow reason and rational thinking much more. The Ash’ari and the Maturidi are somewhere in between, Although, the divisions between these schools, which are quite clear in theory, weren’t as neat in practice. For example, the Mu’tazilites, while claiming to be rationalists and progressive, were behind one of the biggest inquisitions in Islamic History. This inquisition also stopped Islam from having something of a Pope.
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A little bit about that inquisition, which is called the Mihna. It was during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun. The main question was about the nature of the Qur’an, whether it was created at the time of revelation to the Prophet or whether it had always existed. The implications of that were that if the Qur`an has always existed, since the beginning of time, then it is true for all times and its interpretations can not change or be updated over time. However,
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if it was created at the time of revelation, then it meant that the Qur’an applied only to that time and its meaning can be changed according to the times. Al-Ma’mun believed in himself as being the Imam and having the power to define Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence rather than the body of learned men and women known as the Ulema. The Mu’tazilites supported him while the most ardent opponent was Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the Hanbali School. People were forced
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to support al-Ma’mun’s doctrine of the created Qur’an and refusal led to imprisonment, torture, seizure of property, etc. When the inquisition failed, the Mu`tazilites fell into decline and eventually died out but recently, people have been claiming to be neo-Mu’tazilites and trying to revive the rationalist that is often imagined as being the core of their doctrine. Since the Mihna failed, Sunni Caliphs never again tried to have the power to define Islamic
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Theology and Jurisprudence directly. That is why Sunni Islam has no Head of Faith like the Pope. Over time, the schools of theology and the schools of jurisprudence came to be associated with each other. For example, the Hanbalis follow the Athari School while the Hanafis follow the Maturidi one. The Hanbalis stick to a more literal meaning of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, while the Hanafis, being a centrist school,
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do use some rational thinking as well, along with analogy and consensus to form judgments. However, for most Muslims, their schools of theology aren’t very clear. They usually identify with the Madhhab or School of Jurisprudence, more than the School of Theology. In fact, even Mosques can be named after the Madhhab of the people who manage them. Usually, in Muslim-majority countries, people tend to go to the mosque that is managed by people
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of their own Madhhab because mosques are primarily used for prayers and the way to pray also changes from Madhhab to Madhhab. However, in Western countries, people go to whatever mosque is available as long as it follows their sect, ie. the Sunni or Shia ones. In the 18th century, the Muslim world began to lose much of its power as the Ottoman and the Mughal Empires entered an era of decline and the Europeans began to take over. At
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this point, Muslims had to face the question of why this had happened. Many scholars came to the conclusion that Muslims had slid away from true Islam and had become sinful which led to this decline. As a result, many revivalist movements appeared in the Islamic World. The first one came from India under a man named Shah Wali Ullah Dehlawi in the early and mid-18th century. He advocated for Muslims to stop following medieval Imams such as the founders of the four Madhhabs
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and instead focus on learning for themselves what the Qur’an and the Sunnah teach. He and his son translated the Qur’an into Persian & Urdu respectively, which were the two dominant languages among Indian Muslims at the time, to make Qur’an more accessible to the people. Towards the end of the 18th century, another reformer was active in what is today Saudi Arabia. His named was Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. He also advocated for a similar disassociation
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with the Medieval Imams and their schools and for reevaluating the Qur’an and Sunnah. Over time, his doctrine, known as Wahhabism, came to become dominant in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis are often put in the same box as the Ahl-e-Hadith who were born in India. The two movements might’ve inspired each other. They’re both Ghair-Muqalid meaning they claim to not adhere to any medieval school but in fact, they do kinda adhere
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to the Hanbali one. They call themselves Salafi after the Salafi Movement which advocated for a return of Muslims to the ways of the Aslaf or the Elders, meaning the First Generation of Muslims. Wahaabis are more… fundamentalist, if you will, while the Ahl-e-Hadith are a bit more moderate. The Ahl-e-Hadith came from the followers of Shah Wali Ullah along with the Deobandis who followed Shah Wali Ullah but also adhered to the Hanafi Madhhab.
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They, along with the Barelvis, are the majority of the Muslims in India and Pakistan. The Barelvis are kinda Hanafis mixed with a lot of Sufism. So, while the Ahl-e-Hadith, the Wahaabis, and the Deobandis, don’t like Sufism, the Barelvis do. Quite a lot, actually. Speaking of the Sufis, we’re not gonna be talking about them in detail here because they’re very complicated. Sufism is a mystical form of Islam and they have many orders and brotherhoods
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that believe in a range of religious traditions. Some are strictly Shia, some are strictly Sunni while the rest are somewhere in between. Then we have the Shias. We have another video on the lines of the Shia Imams so be sure to watch that one to get a better understanding of their individual lines. But anyhow, Shias believe in the infallible Imams from the descendants of the Prophet. While these Imams were alive,
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they didn’t need to form schools of Jurisprudence in the same way that Sunnis had to but eventually, they did as well. I think an interesting point of how flexible the Shia-Sunni Split was early on is that the founder of the Hanafi school, the biggest school of the Sunnis, was a student of Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq, the founder of the biggest Shia school. Among the Shias, the main three sub-sects are the Zaydis who believe in the Imamate of Zayd ibn Ali
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and believe that the Imams must also fight for the Caliphate. They’re mostly found in Yemen. Then we have the Isma’ilis and the Twelvers. The Twelvers are the majority of the Shias today at around 85%. Both the Isma’ilis and the Twelvers, who are also known as the Imamiyyas, follow the teachings of Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq. Generally speaking, the Shias do believe in the Sunnah of the Prophet as well but they only take parts of
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the Sunnah that are narrated by Companions of the Prophet who sided with Ali. These parts of the Sunnah are then interpreted by the Imams whose teachings are followed, then, by the Shias. There was also another sub-sect known as the Seveners who are now considered extinct. All three of these Ja’fari sub-sects were divided over the succession to Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq. Again, watch the other video. The Isma’ilis were a much more active group in
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the 9th and 10th centuries. They formed their own caliphate in Egypt in 969 and considered their caliphs to be Imam as well. As a result, their Jurisprudence also has teachings from the Fatimid Imams along with those of Imam Ja’far. They became further divided over succession. However, there were some groups of the Isma’ilis that rejected the Fatimid Caliphate and formed their own sub-sects. All of these are now extinct
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but the most popular are the Qarmatians who are universally reviled by Muslims because they sacked the city of Mecca in 930 and stole the sacred black rock. From the Fatimids, eventually appeared a group of people known as the Druze, who aren’t considered Muslim and are a major religious group in Syria today. Their theology is quite secretive and unknown to most outsiders. One of the things they believe in is the Reincarnation of the Soul.
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The Twelvers became the dominant group in Iran during the Safavid Empire’s reign. They themselves had a disagreement that led to what can be called their own Madhhabs, the Usuli and the Akhbari. The Akhbari form the majority of the Twelver Shias and believe in only using the traditional teachings to form judgments while the Usulis believe that reasoning can and should be used as well. One branch of the Twelvers eventually became the Alawites who primarily live in Syria and
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Turkey. They’re not considered Muslim by most other sects of Islam. They’re often confused with the Alevis who are in a similar Islamhood-disputed situation but they’re probably more of a Sufi order than a Shia sub-group. Finally, the Babist and Baha’i faiths also came from the Twelver Shias. While they’re certainly not Muslims, they do hold on to a lot of things from the Shias. In Episode 6 of Matt’s
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Christian Denominations Family Tree Series, he talked about the Millerites who believed that Jesus would be returning in the year 1844. The lack of Jesus’ return led to the event known as the Great Disappointment among his followers. However, some Baha’i believe that Christ did return in 1844 as Baha’ullah, the founder of the Baha’i faith declared himself to be the Mahdi, a Messianic figure who is to return, according to both Shias and Sunnis, around the end of
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time. Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on The Office (US) is a member of the Baha'i faith. The third major sect of Islam is popularly known as the Kharijites. However, we’ve used the term Muhakkima here. Okay, I won’t go into too much detail, you can check out my videos on Al Muqaddimah for that, but there was a civil war between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan known as the First Fitna. Ali was the Caliph and
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Mu’awiyah was the governor of Syria who refused to recognize Ali as Caliph. They went to war and faced each other in the Battle of Siffin where there was so much bloodshed that the two sides agreed to arbitrate instead of fighting. Some of the people on Ali’s Side, which by the way, were called the Shia tul-Ali, that’s where the name Shia comes from, decided that this was wrong. They believed that Mu’awiyah had, by fighting the caliph, gone against Islam and so he must
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be fought until he was defeated. Arbitration, they said, was against the Law of God. They left Ali’s camp and formed a third side, known as the Kharijites, or those who left. They were the very first actual division in the Believers community. The Kharijites followed a very rigid and extreme interpretation of Islam and stuck to a our-way-or-death approach. However, these days, the Kharijites are said to be extinct, rather a more moderate version of
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them called Ibadis can be found in countries like Oman. They prefer not to be called Kharijites and claim to have nothing to do with them which is why they are both shown here as having branched off from the Muhakkima rather than from each other. The Muhakkima is the term used for the people who left Ali’s camp. There were other offshoots of the Kharijites as well throughout history but most of them have gone extinct over the centuries and the Ibadis are pretty much
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the only major group of this branch left. They’re found as the majority of the population in Oman. Finally, we have two groups of people that call themselves Muslims but their Muslimhood is disputed. First are the Ahmadis. They were founded by a man named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in India. Almost all other groups of Muslims accuse the Ahmadis of uplifting Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to the level of a prophet and hence call them non-Muslims because according to Islam,
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Prophet Muhammad is the last Prophet, and claiming that anyone after him is a Prophet is going against the very fundamental beliefs of Islam. Hence other than the Ahmedis, no one considers them Muslims. This goes so far that I’m sure there will be people in comments telling us that we shouldn’t even mention that in a video about Muslims at all because they’re not Muslim. Then we have the Nation of Islam. Founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad, the Nation of
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Islam is popular in the US, specifically among Black Americans. Like the Baha’i, the members of the Nation of Islam claim that the founder Wallace Fard Muhammad was the Mahdi and perhaps even Divine to some extent. Some of its most famous members are Elijah Muhammad, who succeeded Fard Muhammad, and Malcolm X, who left the Nation of Islam in 1964 to follow more mainstream Islam. Elijah Muhammad’s son Wallace took the Nation of Islam in the direction of
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becoming more mainstream and hence, closer to Sunni Islam. Eventually, he dissolved the old Nation of Islam. However, Louis Farrakhan revived it and so, it still exists today.
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