United Submitters International

United Submitters International (also called the Submitters) is a reformist moderate Islamic religious community, and is a branch of Quraniyoon. It follows the teachings of Rashad Khalifa. Submission is a religion whereby one recognizes God’s absolute authority, and reaches a conviction that only God possesses all power; no other entity possesses any power that is independent of Him. The natural result of such a realization is to devote one’s life and one’s worship absolutely to God alone. This is the First Commandment common to all three scriptures: Old Testament, New Testament and Final Testament (The Quran).

The original group attended a mosque in Tucson, Arizona, which was founded by Dr. Rashad Khalifa in the United States. The Submitters can now be found throughout the world. Khalifa is regarded by some in this movement as God's messenger of the Covenant, who claims to be prophesied in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Quran. The majority of Muslims consider this view as heretical.

Dr. Khalifa was assassinated on January 31, 1990. On December 19, 2012, a jury found Glen Francis guilty of first-degree murder. Prior to the Francis trial, James William, a member of the extremist group Al-Fuqra', based in Pakistan and led by Sheikh, Gilani was convicted of conspiracy in the slaying.

Submitters describe themselves as Muslims who submit to God alone and follow Quran alone. A Submitter can be defined as a person who submits to the will of God. The state of Submission, which can only take place between the person and God Almighty, is considered to be the only acceptable form of worship by God. (3:19, 85). Therefore, Submission is not just a name of a religion; rather it describes one’s devotion to God alone.

Rashad Khalifa also translated the Quran in modern, easy to understand, English. His authorized English version of the Quran can be found online.

Academics and scholars in the Western tradition have long taken a jaundiced view of hadith (see hadith and sunnah, historiography of early Islam), believing that many of the "traditions" are later inventions. Khalifa was notable for being both a practicing Muslim and an absolutist rejector of hadith and sunnah. He argued foremost that hadith and sunnah were condemned by the Qur'an Alone ideology. He also argued that the hadith and sunnah were not credible, and that much of the elaborate structure of religious and family law, sharia, erected on the basis of the hadith, was not binding on Muslims. Indeed, he argued that the Qur'an alone was sufficient as a basis for Islam. His ideas have clearly had some influence, even outside his group of Submitters, but it would be difficult to quantify it. He promoted the slogan: The Qur'an, the whole Qur'an, and nothing but the Qur'an

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