Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, ed., The Women 

of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses 

in Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press, 

2005); William C. Chittick, ed., A Shiite Anthology

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981); Far-

had Daftary, A Short History of the Ismailis (Edinburgh: 

Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Heinz Halm, Shia 

Islam: From Religion to Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Mar-

cus Wiener Publishers, 1997); S. H. M. Jafri, The Origins 

and Early Development of Shia Islam (London: Long-

man, 1979); Etan Kohlberg, ed., Shiism (Burlington, 

Vt.: Ashgate, 2003); Reinhold Loeffler, Islam in Prac-

tice: Religious Beliefs in a Persian Village (Albany: State 

University of New York Press, 1988); Moojan Momen, 

An Introduction to Shii Islam: The History and Doctrines 

of Twelver Shiism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University 

Press, 1985); Matti Moosa, Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat 

Sects (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1988); 

Sayyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali 

Reza Nasr, eds., Shiism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spiritual-

ity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); 

Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam 

Will Shape the Future (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007).

shirk

Shirk is the heretical act of accepting other deities 

in addition to God. Shirk is the worst form of dis-

belief in i

slam

 because the 

shahada

, which is the 

most important statement of belief (i.e., “There is 

no God but God, and m

Uhammad

 is the messenger 

of God”), affirms the Muslim notion of the one 

and only God. The talbiya, recited typically during 

the 

haJJ

, reinforces this idea, “You have no associ-

ate.” The q

Uran

 contains five occurrences of shirk

and, in only two of these cases, the word is used in 

terms of forbidding people to ascribe partners to 

God (Quran 31:13 and 35:14). In the other three 

(Quran 34:22; 35:40; 46:4), the Quran rejects the 

belief that any other deities were God’s partners 

during creation.

Two types of people to whom the quranic proc-

lamations on shirk were directed were polytheists 

(primarily those living in the Arabian Peninsula 

during the seventh century) and Christians. The 

pre-Islamic polytheists may have worshipped hun-

dreds of deities arranged around the k

aaba

 and, 

according to Muslims, they were one group toward 

which Islam’s message of God’s unity and universal 

sovereignty was directed. On the surface, it would 

seem that the Quran’s antipolytheistic message may 

have also been directed toward Christians, although 

this case is more ambiguous. For instance, accord-

ing to the Quran there are disbelievers who say 

God is the “third of three” (5:73) and that “God 

is the Christ, son of Mary” (5:72), while these dis-

believers worship J

esUs

 and m

ary

 as two deities in 

addition to God (5:116). Yet, the Quran identifies 

Christians as one of the p

eople

 

oF

 

the

 b

ook

 who 

received God’s message before Muhammad, and, as 

such, Muslims recognize Christians as monothe-

ists, whose worldview teeters dangerously close 

to polytheism. Finally, members of the Wahhabi 

movement, Islamists with roots in the worldviews 

of  m

Uhammad

 

ibn

  a

bd

 

al

-W

ahhab

 (1703–92), 

expanded the notion of shirk to include as heretics 

Sufis, the Shia, those who supported Western inter-

ests, and virtually anyone else who disagreed with 

the Wahhabi’s interpretation of Islam. Shirk and 

related notions of God’s oneness continue to be 

central in Islamic belief and practice.

See also  c

hristianity

 

and

  i

slam

; 

idolatry

; 

Jahiliyya

; s

UFism

; W

ahabbism

.

Jon Armajani