Sunni Islam facts for kids

Islam by country. The countries with more than 5% Muslims in the total population are shown. Sunnis are shown in shades of green, Shiites in shades of red. Shiites may be under-represented, because they do not always show up in statistics. The same applies to other Islamic movements.

Sunni women from countries like Saudi Arabia wear this kind of dress, called an abaya (see Hijab).

Sunni Islam (Arabic: أهل السنة) is the largest branch of Islam. They are the branch of Islam that came through the Rashidun Empire, which started with Abu Bakr and ended by Ali ibn Abi Talib. Sunni beliefs are based on the Qu'ran and the Kutub al-Sittah. Sunnis make up around 75% of all Muslims. With approximately 1.8 billion followers, it is the largest religious denomination of any religion in the world. Catholicism is the second-largest. There are four sub-groups within Sunni Islam; Malikis, Hanafis, Hanbalis and Shafi'is.

Adherents of Sunni Islam are Sunnis or Sunnites. The word Sunni comes from the word sunna (سنة), which means the tradition of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. Sunnis are also called ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة), which means people of tradition and congregation; this means that the Sunnis are united.

Related pages

• Shia Islam
• Sunnah

Images for kids

• 

  The calligraphic representation of religious Sunni Islamic figures, such as Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman, Ali, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali, along with Allah (God).

• 

  The Kaaba mosque in Mecca is the largest and most important mosque in the world.

• 

  Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

• 

  The Great Mosque of Kairouan (also known as the Mosque of Uqba) in the city of Kairouan, Tunisia, was, particularly from the 9th—11th century, an important center of Islamic learning with an emphasis on the Maliki Madh'hab.

• 

  Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

See also

In Spanish: Sunismo para niños