شِيعَةٌ

Full Definition

شِيعَةٌ A separate, or distinct, party, or sect, of men: this is the primary signification: so called from their agreeing together, and following one another: or, accord. to some, the ى is originally و, and it is from شُوَّعَ قَوْمَهُ, which means “ he collected his people or party: ” the followers and assistants of a man: any people that have combined in, or for, an affair: accord. to Az, persons who follow, or conform with, one another, [though] not all of them agreeing together: and any assistant and partisan of a man: [for] the word is applied to one and to two and to a pl. number and to the male and to the female, without variation: the pl. is شِيَعٌ and أَشْيَاعٌ, the latter a pl. pl.; and the former is applied to any people, or party, whose affair, or case, is one, who follow one another's opinion. The saying, in the Kur [xxxiv. last verse], كَمَا فُعِلَ بِأَشْيَاعِهِمْ مِنْ قَبْلُ means As was done with the likes of them, of the same persuasion as they, of the peoples that have gone before: and similar to this is the saying in the Kur liv. 51.
2 Afterwards, الشِّيعَةُ became a name of A particular party [or sect]; being predominantly applied to all who took as their friends, or lords, 'Alee and the people of his house: those who followed 'Alee, saying that he was the [rightful] Imám after the Apostle of God, and believing that the office of Imám should not depart from him and his descendants: they are an innumerable people, who are innovators; the extravagant zealots among them are the Imámeeyek, who revile the Two Sheykhs [Aboo-Bekr and 'Omar]; and the most extravagant of them call the Two Sheykhs disbelievers: some of them rise to the pitch of [that misbelief which is termed] الزَّنْدَقَة [q. v.]. [It is also applied to A single person of this party, or sect; agreeably with what has been said above; and such a person is likewise called شِيَعِىٌّ : see 5.]

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Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon

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