Recently the non-Muslim world has forcibly learned that Islam is divided into two sects, Shia and Sunni, but there is so little material in languages other than Arabic and Persian on the Shia side of the issue that real understanding is all but impossible. This is the consequence of the historical accident that Western contact with Islam was almost entirely with Sunni communities, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ottoman Turkey, most of Muslim India, etc. The present work corrects this imbalance in a most extraordinary way, for the case for Shi'ite Islam is argued and supported virtually entirely from orthodox Sunni sources. The political, juridical, and spiritual legitimacy of the Shi'ite position has been argued and documented in the English language, and from sources that the West has largely overlooked.
