Followers of the Hanafi school are called Sunni Muslims and constitute a 90% majority of the believers. They are considered to be main stream traditionalists. Because they are comfortable pursuing their faith within secular societies, they have been able to adapt to a variety of national cultures, while following their three sources of law: the Qur'an, Hadith and consensus of Muslims. Followers of the Jafri school are called Shi'ite Muslims and constitute a small minority of Islam. They split from the Sunnis over a dispute about the successor to Mohammed. Their leaders, Imams promote a strict interpretation of the Qur'an and close adherents to its teachings. They believe in 12 heavenly Imams (perfect teachers) who guide the faithful from their locations in Paradise.

There are over 70 other groups which originated within Islam and broke away from the Sunni and Shi'ite faith communities:

• Sufism: a mystic tradition in which followers seek inner knowledge directly from God through meditation and ritual and dancing. They developed in the 7th century CE as an ascetic reaction to the formalism and laws of the Qur'an.
• Baha'i World Faith: This is an attempt to integrate all of the world religions. It was originally a break-away sect from Islam but has since grown to become a separate religion.
• Ahmadis: Followers of the Ahmadiyya Movement believe that God sent Ahmad as a Messiah, "a messenger of His in this age who has claimed to have come in the spirit and power of Jesus Christ. He has come to call all people around one Faith, i.e. Islam..." The movement's founder was Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908). He was born in Qadian, India. He felt that he had a mandate from God to correct a serious error within Christianity. Most Christians believe that Jesus is a member of the Godhead. "...because Jesus, whom God sent as a Messiah to the Israelites was taken for a God, Divine jealousy ordained that another man [Ahmad] should be sent as Messiah so that the world may know that the first Messiah was nothing more than a weak mortal."

After his death, the community elected a series of Khalifas (successors). The current and "Fourth Successor (Khalifatul Masih IV), to the Promised Messiah was chosen in the person of Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad" on 1982-JUN-10. The Ahmadiyya Community currently has more than 10 million members worldwide. They are very heavily persecuted in Pakistan.