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Kharijites (Arabic '''''' خوارج, literally "Those who Go Out" {Link without Title} ) is a general term embracing a variety of Islamic sects which reject the Caliphate of Ali as invalid. They first emerged in the late 7th century AD, concentrated in today's southern Iraq, and are distinct from the Sunni s and Shiite s. The only surviving group, the Ibāḍī of Oman , Zanzibar and the Maghreb , consider themselves distinct from the other sects and reject the designation "Kharijite". ORIGIN The origin of Kharijism lies in the . The third Caliph , Uthman Ibn Affan , was killed by mutineers in 656 AD, and a struggle for succession ensued between Ali , the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and Muˤāwiyya , Governor of Damascus. (The core of ˤAlī's followers later became Shiites .) In 658 , ˤAlī's forces met Muˤāwiyya's at the Battle Of Siffin ; at first, the battle went against Muˤāwiyya, but then he hit upon the idea of having his army hoist Qur'āns on their lances, proclaiming that he wanted to have the decision of who should be Caliph arbitrated using it. Most of ˤAlī's army was favorable to the idea, and he agreed to have the question decided by two arbiters. Some in his army, however, regarded this as a betrayal; a large group of them (traditionally 12,000, mainly from the Bani Hanifah and Banu Tamim tribes) repudiated his cause, citing the verse, "No rule but God's", leaving to fight both sides. In their opinion, the right of arbitration was God's alone, and the choice of caliph should not be questioned by mere mortals. Thus they opposed both Muˤāwiyya for his rebellion and ˤAlī for submitting to the arbitration. They became known as Kharijites : Arabic plural ''Khawārij'', singular ''Khārijī'', derived from the verb ''kharaja'' "come out, leave the hold''. It is said that ˤAlī agreed to the arbitration in a clever scheme of his, so that he could identify the sect that the Prophet had warned him from. It is reported that the Prophet said to ˤAlī warning him of a future sect in Islam: :"Coming after me will be a sect that hurts me in my posterity. They will keep breaking away from the Muslims and opposing them. Kill them O ˤAlī, kill them, for they will be the supporters of the Antichrist." (See the entry on Ad-Dajjal for Muslim belief in the Antichrist.) The Kharijites fit the Prophet' description. So ˤAlī hurridly divided his troops and ordered them to catch the dissenters before they reach major cities and disperse among the population. A few decades later, the Kharijites used Taqīyah "dissimulation" and assimilated and posed as the Shia of ˤAlī, especially that after ˤAlī's death and the death of his son Hussain 20 years later, most of the Ṣahāba "Companions" who supported ˤAlī had already died too either by age or on the hands of the Kharijites themselves so that they could not be identified, and then to seek protection from persecution which though started by ˤAlī but neverthless continued unabated by the Umayyads . Abdullah Ibn Abbas is said managed to persuade a number of them to return to ˤAlī. ˤAlī defeated the remaining military rebellion in the Battle Of Nahrawan in 658, but the Kharijites survived and, in 661, assassinated ˤAlī. They had supposedly organized simultaneous attempts against Muˤāwiyya and ˤAmrū (one of the arbitrators at the Battle Of Siffin ), in their view the other main sources of strife within the Muslim community. It is said that the bulk of the population who invited Hussein to come to them in Kufah were from those Kharijites' original tribes of Eastern Arabia (namely Banu Hanifa of Iraq and Ihsa'a up to ad-Dumat al-Jandal west). Banu Hanifa (compared to Quraysh who dominated western Arabia west of ad-Dumat al-Jundul before Islam. Those Banu Hanifa were not happy with Muhammad of the Quraysh controliing all Arabia , while they were the heroes of Dthi-Qar . They tried to assassinate Muhammad. Another man criticized the Prophet for being unjust (incident for the above Hadith). Later a false prophet came out of them Musailemah , and they constituted all the Kharijites. These days they still live in south Iraq and Ihsaa as Shia of south Iraq . BELIEFS AND PRACTICES Kharijite theology was a form of radical fundamentalism, preaching uncompromising observance of the teachings of the was not even necessary; they insisted only that if one were chosen, he should be elected by the entire community of believers. Their communities expelled from their midst those who committed 'grave sins', defined as any action contrary to the Qur'an . Perhaps not surprisingly, the various Kharijite communities were constantly divided (sources enumerate up to fifteen separate sects) and the movement remained politically fragmented throughout its existence. The Kharijites' relations with other Muslims were generally hostile, though this tendency waned with time. The most extreme were the ''Azraqī'', founded in Persia in 685 by Nāfiˤ ibnu l-Azrāq. These pronounced '' Takfir '' on all other Muslims, considering them to be '' Mushrik '' ('unbelievers' or 'idolators') who could be killed with impunity. Their distinctive and terrifying practices included:
They regarded the territory occupied by other Muslims as part of Dar Al-Kufr , the territory of unbelief where it was licit to attack both people and goods—but also a territory from which one must exile oneself, as Muhammad had exiled himself from Mecca to escape the unbelievers there. Less brutal was the Sufrī sect, founded by Ziyād ibnu l-Asfar in an environment hostile to Kharijism. These condemned political murder, admitted the practice of Taqiyya (dissimulation of one's faith in order to escape danger), and rejected the massacre of the unbelievers' children. They considered Sura 12 to be not truly part of the Qur'an . A third sect, the Ibādī , developed further than the others. Founded by ˤAbdullāh ibn-Ibād, they maintained attitudes of political intransigence and moral rigorism. They were, however, more flexible in their dealings with other Muslims; for example, they would not attack without first extending an invitation to join. The branch founded by Habib ibn-Yazīd al-Harūrī held that it was permissible to entrust the imamate to a woman if she was able to carry out the required duties. The founder's wife, Ghazāla Al-Harūriyya , commanded troops; in this she followed the example of Juwayriyya, daughter of Abu Sufyan , at the Battle Of Yarmuk . In one battle, she put the famous Umayyad general Hajjāj ibn-Yūsuf to flight. Three of the main Kharijite sects were named by color: the "white" Ibādī , the "blue" Azraqī and the "yellow" Sufrī . However, this is probably a coincidence, as they are said to be named after their respective founders. HISTORY The high point of the Kharijites' influence was in the years 690-730 around Basra in south Iraq, which was always a center of Sunni theology. Kharijite ideology was a popular creed for rebels against the officially Sunni Caliphate , inspiring breakaway states and rebellions (like Maysara's) throughout the Maghreb and sometimes elsewhere. The Azraqī revolted against the Caliphate in 685 after separating from the Ibādī near Basra and departing for Fars . They were suppressed by Abd Al-Malik 's armies, under the command of Amir al-Hajjaj; their leader was killed, and by 699 they had vanished. Another revolt occurred in 695 ; Sunni traditions underline the massacre of Muslims at a mosque in Kufa as an example of Kharijite fury and brutality. Agitations such as these fatally weakened the Ummayad caliphate and paved the way for its overthrow by the Abbasid s. From the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Maghrib , the Kharijites sent representatives to join the local Berber population. The Berbers, used to a communal system of government and opposed to Arab domination, found in Kharijism an ideological framework for rebellion. In the last years of the Umayyad dynasty, the western part of the Islamic empire escaped from the central authority; Spain came under the rule of the Umayyad amirs of Cordoba, while several independent states were founded in the Maghreb. A Sufrī community from southern Tunisia captured Kairouan in 755 , at the price of fearful Massacre s. The Ibādī of Jebel Nafusa , outraged by the excesses of their rival sect, took the city and wiped out its Sufrī population. They proclaimed an imamate c. 757 , founding a state which would cover parts of Tripolitania and Ifriqiya before it was conquered by Abbasid armies in 761 . Among the leaders of this state was Abd Ar-Rahman Ibn Rustam , a Persian convert who would later found the Rustamid dynasty at Tahert . Around the same time, a Sufri kingdom was founded in Tlemcen (western Algeria). Berber Sufrī from the tribe of Meknasa established the Midrarid state at Sijilmassa on the eastern slope of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco . Abū Qurra, a Sufrī of the Ifren tribe of Tlemcen, reconquered Ifriqiya from the Arabs in 771 . The region stabilized in 778 , when ibn Rustam made a peace treaty with the Abbasid governor of Kairouan, and remained so until the arrival of the Fatimid s in 909 . MODERN TIMES The Ibadi s have survived into the present day, though they now reject the designation "Kharijite". They form a significant part of the population of Oman (where they first settled in 686), and there are smaller concentrations of them in the Mzab of Algeria , Jerba in Tunisia , Jebel Nafusa in Libya , and Zanzibar . In modern times, Islamist writers have sometimes branded terrorist groups which emphasize the practice of '' Takfir '' as neo-Kharijites; notable examples of groups described as such include the Groupe Islamique Armée of Algeria and the Takfir Wal-Hijra group of Egypt . EXTERNAL LINKS |
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