Also 7–9 Sunnee (7 Sonnj, 8 Sooni, -ey), 9. Sonnee, (Soonee, Soonnee, Suni). [a. Arab. sunnī lawful, f. SUNNA.] collect. The orthodox Mohammedans, who accept the Sunna as of equal authority with the Koran. Also sing. an orthodox Mohammedan, a Sunnite.
1626. [see SHIAH 1].
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 159. The Turkes … call … themselues Sonnj, and Mussulmen, which is truly faithfull.
1753. Hanway, Trav. (1762), II. IV. ii. 106. The sect of Sunni comprehends the Turks, the Tartars, the subjects of the Moghol, with some other nations of less note. Ibid., V. ii. 134. I am a Sunni, as my ancestors were.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., p. xxiii. Two Sects, the one of whom assumed the Title of Sooney (or Orthodox), and who branded the opposite Party with the opprobrious Epithet of Shiah (or Heterodox).
1836. Partington’s Brit. Cycl. Lit., etc., III. 769/2. The Mohammedans [in Sinde] are all Soonees, and most of them of the sect of Haneefee.
1913. W. Maxwell, in 19th Cent., May, 1157. Both Shiahs and Sunnis have been known to lend at usury.
b. attrib. or as adj.
1827. Buckingham, Trav. Mesopot., II. 487. The inhabitants he [sc. a Dervish] described as mostly Mohammedans, and of the Soonnee sect.
1833. A. Crichton, Hist. Arabia, I. vii. 334. Pillars of the Sonnee faith.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. India, XII. iii. II. 651. The Sunni religion.
