Home›Abrahamic (Monotheistic)›Denominations›KharijitesDenominationKharijitesIslamPractitioner SystemVerifiedOrigin from 657The earliest sect to break from the main body of Islam, emerging in 657 CE when a group left the camp of the caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib after rejecting his agreement to arbitrate with Mu'awiya. They held that leadership of the Muslim community belonged to the most pious believer regardless of tribe or lineage, and that a Muslim who commits a grave sin ceases to be a Muslim. The main line was destroyed by the 9th century; Ibadism, its sole surviving moderate branch, continues today.FactsLearn MoreKharijitesConnectionsSourcesEssays About This Entity (1 essay)Comments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOriginsOrigin PeriodWell-attestedfrom 657 1Its own already-recorded origin-period reads "657 CE, following the Battle of Siffin", already paired with an end-year of 657, a punctual founding.Origin PeriodWell-attestedto 657 1Origin PeriodWell-attested657 CE, following the Battle of Siffin 1Place of OriginWell-attestedKufa, Iraq 1FounderWell-attestedNo single founder. Emerged in 657 CE from a group who left Caliph Ali's camp after rejecting his arbitration agreement with Mu'awiya. 2Origin of the NameWell-attestedArabic kharaja, to go out or exit, referring to their withdrawal from Ali's camp 3PracticeLiturgical LanguageWell-attestedClassical Arabic 1An early Islamic sect, matching five other Islamic denominations already carried as classical-arabic.OrganisationGovernanceWell-attestedAn imam or caliph elected by the community or its electors 1Its own record states leadership "belonged to the most pious believer regardless of tribe or lineage", matching Ibadism, its sole surviving branch, already carried as elected-imamate.OrdinationWell-attestedNo ordination; authority rests on learning or on the whole body 2An early Islamic sect; matches five other Islamic denominations already carrying this fact (Sunni, Salafism, Ibadism, Zaidiyyah, Shia Twelver).StatusStatus TodayWell-attestedLiving tradition, practised today 3Practice Status DetailWell-attestedThe main Kharijite line was destroyed by the 9th century; Ibadism, its sole surviving moderate branch, continues today chiefly in Oman, Zanzibar, the Mzab valley of Algeria, Jerba in Tunisia and the Nafusa mountains of Libya 3ObservanceObservance NoteWell-attestedIbn Muljam, a Kharijite, assassinated Ali ibn Abi Talib in 661 CE in reprisal for the Nahrawan massacre 1HistorySeparation or DivergenceWell-attestedRejection of the arbitration between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Mu'awiya after the Battle of Siffin, 657 CE 1BeliefDefining Doctrinal PositionWell-attestedLeadership by the community's election of the most qualified, without descent 3Doctrinal Position DetailWell-attestedHeld that the caliphate should pass to the most pious and capable Muslim regardless of tribe or lineage, against Sunni and Shia claims tied to Quraysh or Ali's descendants; taught that a Muslim who commits a grave sin ceases to be a Muslim 3DisputedContested or Appropriated Modern UseScholarly debateWhether Kharijite names a precise historical sect or a broader modern label 4Kharijite is used both as a precise historical name for the 7th century secessionists and, more loosely and often pejoratively, for any modern militant group accused of declaring fellow Muslims apostate. Scholars caution against collapsing the two uses, since the historical Kharijites also produced the moderate, enduring Ibadi tradition that the modern polemical usage tends to obscure.Learn MoreSecession at Siffin In 657 CE the caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib faced the Umayyad governor of Syria, Mu'awiya, at the Battle of Siffin, fought over responsibility for the murder of the previous caliph, Uthman. As Ali's forces gained the upper hand, Mu'awiya's side raised pages of the Quran on their spears, calling for the dispute to be settled by arbitration rather than continued combat, and Ali, under pressure from part of his own army, agreed. A substantial faction within his camp regarded this as a betrayal of principle, arguing that judgement belonged to God alone, expressed in the slogan la hukma illa lillah, no judgement but God's, and that submitting the caliphate to human arbitration was itself an act of unbelief. This faction withdrew from Ali's army, earning the name Kharijites, those who go out, and encamped separately, from where they began raiding and denouncing both Ali and Mu'awiya as illegitimate. Ali marched against the main Kharijite force and crushed it at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658 CE, but the movement was not eliminated. A surviving Kharijite, Ibn Muljam, assassinated Ali in Kufa in 661 CE, striking him with a poisoned sword while he prayed, in direct reprisal for Nahrawan, an act that left a permanent mark on Sunni and Shia memory of the first Islamic civil war alike.Doctrine, Suppression and the Ibadi Survival Kharijite political theology was, by the standards of its time, strikingly egalitarian. Where Sunni tradition looked to the tribe of Quraysh for legitimate leadership and Shia tradition to the line of Ali's descendants, the Kharijites held that any pious, capable Muslim could lead the community, including, in principle, a freed slave, and that an unjust or sinning leader, whatever his lineage, could and should be removed. This was paired with an uncompromising view of sin, that a Muslim who commits a grave wrong ceases to be a Muslim at all and becomes a legitimate target of judgement, a doctrine that in its most extreme forms, notably among the Azariqa sub sect, justified violence against fellow Muslims who declined to join the movement. This severity brought sustained warfare with the Umayyad and later Abbasid states, which suppressed one Kharijite revolt after another through the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century the main militant line had been effectively destroyed. One branch, the Ibadiyya, had broken away early from the movement's more violent wing and adopted a considerably more moderate, quietist political stance, and it alone survived. Ibadi communities continue today chiefly in Oman, where Ibadism remains the majority tradition, along with Zanzibar, the Mzab valley of Algeria, the island of Jerba in Tunisia and the Nafusa mountains of Libya, the last living inheritors of a movement that began as the first sect within Islam.KharijitesFilter Results1 entryPlace of OriginAllHejaz (1)ScripturesAllAl-Istibsar (1)Al-Muwatta (1)Buyruk (1)Da'a'im al-Islam (1)Hadith (1)Jami at-Tirmidhi (1)Jami' al-Rabi' (1)Kitab al-Kafi (1)Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih (1)Musnad al-Imam Zayd (1)Sahih al-Bukhari (1)Sahih Muslim (1)Sunan Abu Dawud (1)Sunan an-Nasa'i (1)Sunan Ibn Majah (1)Tahdhib al-Ahkam (1)The Quran (1)Where PractisedAllAksum (1)Anatolia and Asia Minor (1)Arabia (1)Assam (1)Bengal (1)Bihar (1)Borneo (1)Buganda (1)Central Asia (1)Central Asian Steppe (1)Deccan (1)East Africa (1)Egypt (1)Gujarat (1)Holy Land (1)Iberia (1)Iberia and Southern France (1)Iraq (1)Judea (1)Karnataka (1)Kashmir (1)Kerala (1)Lake Victoria (1)Macedonia (1)Mecca (1)Mesopotamia (1)Moab (1)Near East (1)North Africa (1)Persia (1)Punjab (1)Samaria (1)Southeast Asia (1)The Caribbean (1)The Guianas (1)The Levant (1)Turkey (1)Uttar Pradesh (1)West Africa (1)West Africa and the Caribbean (1)West Bank (1)Yorubaland (1)Origin EraAll610 (1)Conception of the DivineAllMonotheistic: one God (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (1)Establishment StatusAllVaries by Province (1)Closed Practice StatusAllPartly restricted: some elements are closed to outsiders (1)Giving Obligation EnforceabilityAllCodified Obligation With Consequences (1)Usury PositionAllInterest of any kind on a loan is forbidden (1)Marriage PositionAllMarriage may licitly be polygynous (1)Sexuality PositionAllSame-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation (1)Kind of TraditionAllAbrahamic (Monotheistic) (1)Show ResultsIslamKharijitesConnectionsAssociated WithKharijites (Wikipedia), Sources Well-attested This source names Kharijites directly: "own dedicated article on the Kharijites."Source Kharijites (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorstier 3Rashidun Caliphate, Empires & Polities Well-attested The Kharijites broke from Ali over the arbitration after Siffin in 657, and one of them killed him in 661.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Shi'r al-Khawarij, Library Catalog Record (ECSSR), Sources Well-attested This source names Kharijites directly: "al-Khawarij" (Poetry Anthology of the Kharijites), compiled and edited by Ihsan Abbas, published by Dar al-Shorouk, Beirut, 1982, fourth edition expanded and revised, 323 pages, part of a named..."Source Shi'r al-Khawarij, Library Catalog Record (ECSSR)Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research library catalog stafftier 1Umayyad Caliphate, Empires & Polities Well-attested Kharijite revolts recurred across Iraq and Arabia throughout the period on the principle that a sinful ruler forfeits authority.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Belongs to TraditionIslam, Religions Well-attested Branch OfIslam, Religions Well-attested ConductedThe Kharijite Rebellions (685 to 699 CE), Wars & Conflicts Well-attested More specific than the entity's own belongs-to-tradition Islam: the rebellions were conducted by Kharijite groups themselves.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Contrasts WithMurji'a, Doctrines Well-attested CritiquedIsmah (The Protection of the Imams From Error), Doctrines Well-attested Critiqued HereKharijite doctrine denied any hereditary or protected leadership, holding that the imamate belongs to the most pious Muslim whoever he is and lapses the moment he sins gravely.Source God's Rule: Government and Islam. Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political ThoughtPatricia Cronetier 1Derived from ThisIbadism, Denominations Well-attested Ibadism broke early from the movement's more violent wing and is the only Kharijite branch to survive into the present.Source Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill), 2nd and 3rd editionsP. Bearman et al. (eds.)tier 1Governed By PolityElected Imamate Polity, Doctrines Well-attested Held DifferentlyCaliph, Religious Roles & Titles Well-attested Held DifferentlyThe Kharijites held that any qualified Muslim may be caliph regardless of descent or tribe, and that a caliph who sins gravely forfeits the office and may be fought. Both halves put them against the Sunni and the Shia positions at once.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Caliphate, Religious Organization & Structure Well-attested Held DifferentlyThe Kharijite position was that any qualified Muslim may hold the office whatever his lineage, and that a ruler who sins gravely forfeits it, against the descent condition of classical Sunni theory.Objects and Practices of This TraditionA Muslim Who Commits a Grave Sin Ceases to Be a Believer, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Alcohol and intoxicants are forbidden, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Fasting from dawn to dusk in Ramadan, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Imam Ali (TV Series), Screen Works Well-attested ConnectedThe series dramatizes the Kharijites' emergence from Ali's camp after the Siffin arbitration and their military suppression at Nahrawan as explicit episodes within its narrative of Ali's caliphate, without this being a work produced by or affirming the Kharijite movement itself.Source Shaheed-e Kufa (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorstier 3Imamate, Doctrines Well-attested The Kharijites held that leadership of the Muslim community belonged to the most pious believer regardless of tribe or lineage, an elective view later preserved in a moderate form by Ibadism.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Leadership by the most qualified elected imam, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Meat must be slaughtered halal, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Pork is forbidden (haram), Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Shi'r al-Khawarij (Poetry of the Kharijites), Literary Works Well-attested This anthology collects verse composed by the Kharijites' own poets, foremost Imran ibn Hittan, rather than poetry written about them by outsiders, and is formally catalogued under the subject heading Kharijites in Arabic poetry.Source Shi'r al-Khawarij, Library Catalog Record (ECSSR)Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research library catalog stafftier 1Takfir, Doctrines Well-attested The Kharijites held that a Muslim who commits a grave sin ceases to be a Muslim, an early and expansive use of takfir that classical Sunni scholarship came to condemn.Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watttier 1Tawhid, Doctrines Well-attested The Kharijites affirmed the oneness of God as understood across the early Muslim community they broke from over the question of leadership, not doctrine.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1The Quran, Scriptures & Texts Well-attested The Kharijites held the Quran as scripture in common with the early Muslim community they broke from over the question of leadership after Uthman's death.Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Usury (riba) is forbidden, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested OpposesKaba'ir and Sagha'ir, Doctrines Well-attested Rejected HereKharijite doctrine collapses the distinction between grave and lesser sins in the respect that matters to it: any grave sin unrepented puts a person outside the faith, so the division does not carry the different consequences the doctrine attaches to it.Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watttier 1Originated InIraq, Regions Well-attested Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedytier 1Position OnIman, Doctrines Well-attested Iman is affirmed in Kharijite doctrine in the movement's founding form: faith and act are inseparable, so the grave sinner has left the faith. This is the position the whole later argument about iman was conducted against.Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watttier 1Prophecy, Doctrines Well-attested Prophecy is affirmed in Kharijite doctrine.Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)tier 1Sharia, Doctrines Well-attested Kharijite doctrine holds the sharia binding, and the movement's rigour on it is what its name for itself, the people who go out, was staked on.Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)tier 1Shirk, Doctrines Well-attested Shirk is affirmed in Kharijite doctrine.Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)tier 1Uses Liturgical LanguageClassical Arabic, Languages Well-attested Sources1. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Centurytier 1Hugh Kennedy, Routledge, 2016Originated In: Iraq, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: Kufa, IraqView the Source2. God's Rule: Government and Islam. Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thoughttier 1Patricia Crone, Columbia University Press, 20043. Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill), 2nd and 3rd editionstier 1P. Bearman et al. (eds.), Brill, Leiden, 2005View the Source4. The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islamtier 1Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press, 1974Islamic Creeds: A Selectiontier 1W. Montgomery Watt, Edinburgh University Press, 1994View the SourceThe Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editiontier 1P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Brill, 2005View the SourceEssays About This Entity (1 essay)One Set of Stances Maps the Splits in IslamHolds a different account: office open to any qualified Muslim, forfeit on grave sinRead the EssayComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearChoose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.YearPresent657Show This Year