Oumma

Oumma or Umma (RTL rear أمّة, community; nation --- even etymology that rear RTL أمّ, mother ) indicates the community of the Musulman S beyond their nationality, of their blood bonds and the splitting up of the political powers which control them. It is born with the Hégire in 622, at the moment when the first faithful ones give up the clannish organization which prevails until there for a community of faith. The concept of oumma does not manage however always to transcend cleavages due to the Hétérodoxie S and the ethnic and political competitions.

The first rupture of Umma goes back to 910 when the fatimide “Ubayd Allah Al-Mahdi proclaimed Caliph against the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. Two logics of succession are opposed then: on a side at the fatimides, the caliph must be downward of Ali and Fâtima (aristocratic school), other those which want a caliph downward of the clan Quraychite. This division recovers exactly the older rupture between Shiite and sunnites at the time to appoint the first caliph: on a side Ali adoptive son-in-law and wire of the prophet Mahomet, and other Abû Bakr father-in-law of the prophet, but rather remote relative. In this quarrel the kharijites refused any dynastic character under caliph, this one having to be selected (elected) like the best among the Moslems.

The caliphate was maintained until in 1926 in the form of the Othoman caliphate , until Mustafa Kemal Atatürk dissolves it. This Turkish caliphate was badly supported by the Arabs but maintained a unit of frontage in the Muslim world.

Today the term of Oumma is largely taken again by movements panislamic politico-monks like the Muslim brothers.

Since the beginning of the XXe century, the Oumma term was taken again by different the nationalisms from the Arab Monde to indicate the Nation, while removing its religious origin here to him.

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