Kharijites - Origin of Terror in Islam

Kharijites - Origin of Terror in Islam

 

Prelude

    After the death of Muhammad, his religion got divided into separate branches each of which homes several schools. The most famous four being the Ahlus Sunnah (which make up nearly 90% of current Muslim population including the Salafis), the Imamiyah (alternatively knows as the faction of Shiites who claim majority in Iran and Iraq), the Mutazilites - they went extinct - and the Kharijites. The last group is the subject of this discussion because they are assumed to be the precursors to modern terrorism, the first organized religiously-motivated active terror syndicate in the Islamic world. The story of origins of this movement in Islam is quite interesting as the foremost Kharijites emerged when most of the Sahabah (Companions) of the Apostle were still alive. Kharijites even murdered some of them!

Hashim-Umayyah Rivalry:

    Before the birth of the Arabian Prophet, who belonged to the family of Hashim, his tribe had engaged in a bitter rivalry and deep sense of animosity with its cousin family of Umayyah. Hashim ibn Abd Manaf and Umayyah ibn Abd Shams ibn Abd Manaf were uncle and nephew respectively, both belonged to the esteemed clan of Quraysh, the strongest and the most honored of all Arab clans in pre-Islamic and early post-Islamic Bedouin society. The reasons behind the familial adversity are unclear and mostly ascribe to legends i.e. Hashim provided food for the Meccans during a period of intensified draught and Umayyah, to prove his worth, imitated his uncle's attempts but failed. From that moment on, the two families grew distant from each other and the enmity became stronger when Muhammad claimed prophecy.

Umayyads under Islam:

    Umayyads were the initial oppressors of Muslims and severest suppressors of monotheism in Mecca. When Muhammad moved to Medina, Umayyads continued their anti-Mohammedan movement by attacking Medina on three major occasions. But Muhammad conquered Mecca in the end (eight years after his Hijrah [Migration, 622 AD]), resulting in an utter and complete downfall of the Umayyad aristocracy. However, they converted to Islam and were raised to important government and military posts in the early days of the Khilafah (Caliphate) when Abu Bakr appointed Yazid, the son of Umayyad tribal leader and Muhammad's former most dangerous political enemy Abu Sufyan, as a general. Yazid helped with the conquests in Syria and was made a governor of that province. Umar replaced Yazid with his brother Mua'wiyah after the governor's demise. Mua'wiyah gradually became a semi-autonomous ruler of Levant during the reign of Uthman, the third Caliph and a cousin of Mua'wiyah.
    Uthman used to favor the Umayyads, his family, and was criticized by prominent Companions who refused to tolerate being subjected to corruption and brutality by the former enemies of Islam. The Caliph was assassinated publicly in Medina and Ali ibn Abu Talib was installed by the people as their fourth Caliph. Now as this story seems more suited as a prelude to the tragedy of Karbala (680 AD), I wish to quicken my pace and reach the most significant political event which triggered the rise of these Kharijites.

Umayyads dream of Caliphate:

    During Ali's relatively brief tenue (656-661 AD) as compared to those of Umar and Uthman, he met with strong opposition from some of the leading figures of his time. Aishah, the daughter of Abu Bakr and widow of Muhammad, rebelled but was defeated in the Battle of the Camel. Talhah and Zubay, two of the most prominent Companions, were killed while they supported Aishah. Then Ali turned his attention towards the Syrian Governor who had already refused to acknowledge Ali as the legitimate successor of Uthman. He had accused Ali of supervising the murder of the third Caliph. So Ali encountered the Syrian troops at Siffin where a months-long series of skirmishes ended with the final clash of forces (one particular night was termed as Laylatul Harir [Bloody Night]), one of the earliest accounts of Muslims fighting against their own brethren.
    Ali had nearly won the Battle of Siffin when Amr ibn al-A's - Mua'wiyah's second-in-command and one of Uthman's open former critics - sensed the gravity of the situation and advised the Syrian soldiers to raise their manuscripts of Qur'an on lances in order to pretend they were ready to bring the Book of Allah as a judge between the two armies. While Ali had understood the true intentions behind the entire ruse, his soldiers were moved by the apparent faith of their enemies and they threatened to murder Ali if he failed to declare a truce. The truce was followed by a decision to appoint two separate individual as judges from both sides and let them select a method to end the Civil War. Mua'wiyah, obviously enough, nominated Amr, the man who was responsible for the entire drama, while Ali, who actually wished to appoint his cousin and student Abdullah ibn Abbas, had to bow down again before the Iraqis who wanted to see Abu Musa al-Ash'ari as the Alid judge.
Tahkim:
    Amr and Abu Musa agreed upon disposal of both Ali and Mua'wiyah from the office and declaration of new elections in Medina. Amr cunningly asked the naive Abu Musa to proceed with the public announcement of their mutually-decided electoral procedure. The announcement was made at Daumatah al-Jandal (the village Muhammad had sent Amr to invade after his conversion to Islam) and this event is historically known as Tahkim. Ali, Mua'wiyah and also some neutral personalities (Abdullah ibn Umar, for example) gathered one year after the Battle of Siffin to attend the great assembly. Abu Musa told people what he had actually agreed upon with Amr but Amr cheated and maintained Mua'wiayh as the only Caliph of the Muslim world. Ali refused to accept the decision and prepared to wage war against the Syrians on fresh basis. But Tahkim ended with the creation of a fringe movement within Islam that completely changed the course of Islamic history. Amr, unintentionally, provided grounds for the cultivation of a dangerous Muslim cult.

Birth of Kharijites:

    When the soldiers who had previously forced Ali to call off arms and nominate Abu Musa as their judge found that they had been fooled by the Syrians, they declared: No Judge but God. They assumed it was a mistake to appoint judges for Qur'an only can serve that purpose. Hence, they repented and wished to see Ali do the same. But Ali vehemently opposed the very notion that he had ever done anything wrong, arguing that he never even believed for one second that Syrians actually had submitted before God or Abu Musa would make the correct decision. He also contradicted the repented soldiers' doctrine regarding judgement and argued: When Qur'an has asked couples to appoint two judges during marital problems, how is it illegal to do it when the entire fate of the Muslim ummah (community) is at stake? But the soldiers accused Ali of disbelief and left the army. They were deemed as Kharijites or the ones who had gotten separated.

Artistic description of the Battle of Siffin

Ali kills Kharijites:

    Kharijites accused not just Ali but also Mua'wiyah, Amr and anyone who supported those three guys as an infidel whose blood was worthy to be spilled ruthlessly. They acted strangely for they never hurt a non-Muslim or even destroy their properties (pork, alcohol etc.) but murdered any Muslim who, when asked, rejected their belief system. They believed that only Kharijites were true Muslims and all other Muslims, as they had reverted from the true religion of God, must be killed with haste. Their killing spree was noticed by Ali who arranged discussions with them. When they killed his ambassador, Ali found the perfect excuse to attack that terrorist organization. In the Battle of Nehrwan, all the Kharijites whom Ali assaulted got killed with only nine people escaping the field. On the other hand, Ali had not lost even nine soldiers. This event marks the first ever government policy against Kharijites and Ali's attempts to remove that criminal group became a role model for the future kings who deemed it permissible to kill active Kharijites after Ali's example. Kharijites kept emerging during Umayyad and Abbasid regimes. Even Mua'wiyah had to deal with some of them for Kharijites believed that it was their holy duty to militarily oppose a sinful Caliph. There are just a few examples of Caliphs being immune from the disease of the Kharijite extremity one of which was Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, the pious Umayyad ruler, whose two and a half year long reign is often included among the series of Pious Caliphate - the tenure of Abu Bakr to Ali (sometimes to Hasan ibn Ali [the fifth Caliph of Islam]).

Kharijites kill Ali:

    In 611 AD, the Ramadan of the fourtieth Arab-Islamic lunar year, Ali was offering Fajr (Morning) Prayers at the Mosque of Kufah, his administrative and milutary capital, when a Kharijite name Abdur Rahman ibn Muljim al-Muradi stroke his poisoned sword on the Caliph's head. The Caliph passed away from the blow two days later and Ibn Muljim was executed by his successor Hasan. Ibn Muljim and his friends had swore inside the cubicle of Ka'bah that they would murder three worst people on earth: Ali, Mua'wiyah and Amr. The assassins who went to murder Mua'wiyah and Amr were unsuccessful. Ali fell victim to the conspiracy because he kept no secuity guards with him.
Omanian Kharijites:
    Kharijites believed that Uthman went astray after six years of Caliphate so his murder was lawful. They accused Ali of sinning in the Battle of Siffin and murdering their brethren at Nehrwan so they deemed his blood lawful as well. They were strict regarding the implimentation of shari'ah (Kharijites, Salafis and Akhbaris are among the Puritans in Islam) and considered a sinful Muslim outside the pale of Islam. All subsects among Kharijites dissolved with the passage of time with the exception of some lenient groups one of which is the Ibadiyah Kharijite belief system of Oman and Zanzibar. The Caliph at Muscat - currently a Qabus ibn Sa'id ibn Taymur al-Sa'id - rules these Omanian Ibadis. Though Ibadis are trying to shake off their Kharijite identity, their school is named after Abdullah ibn Ibad, a seventh century Kharijite leader who studied under Ibn Abbas and narrated hadiths from the great jurist. But Ibadis consider Abu al-Sha'tha Jabid ibn Zayd al-Azdi, a contemporary of Ibn Ibad, as the true founder of their ideology. Unlike other Kharijites, Ibadis reject all kinds of extremism and terrorism. They do not perform takfir (declare someone an infidel) of other Muslims. But they condemn Uthman and Ali and the latter's killing of the Kharijites, also holding the view that a leader is not always necessary for the Muslim community (while Sunnis and Shiites consider it obligatory to have a Caliph [political leader] and Imam [religious leader] respectively). Ibn Battutah, the famous Muslim traveler, recounts his meeting with different Islamic groups one of which were the Ibadis whom he found blessing Abu Bakr and Umar but not Uthman and Ali. There are Ibadis living in Africa as well. You can search about them on Wikipedia. They are considered to be the members of the third largest Muslim denomination after Sunnis and Shiites.

Qabus ibn Sa'id

Epilogue

    The original spiritual successors of ancient Kharijites are the terrorists i.e. Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIL and other fundamentalist groups. There are numerous hadiths ascribed to the Messenger who called Kharijites "the hounds from hell". He reportedly predicted the uprising of a sect within Islam that would deem it permissible to kill Muslims and would possess little knowledge of Qur'an. Murdering Muslims on petty issues, heavy-laiden prayer rituals with truncated belief in the spirit on Islam and constant battles were the characterstic traits of Kharijites and they all can be found in the Muslim terrorists of today.
    May God help us eradicate the vice of terrorism from the face of planet earth. Amen!