Kharijites (Arabic Khawārij خوارج, literally "Those who Went Out"[1]; singular, Khariji) is a general term embracing various Muslims who, while initially supporting the caliphate of the fourth and final "Rightly Guided" caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, later rejected him. They first emerged in the late 7th century AD, concentrated in today's southern Iraq, and are distinct from the Sunnis and Shiites.
Whereas the Shiites believed that the imamate (leadership) was the sole right of the house of Ali, the Kharijites insisted that any pious and able Muslim could be a leader of the Muslim community. And whereas the Sunnis believed that the imam's impiousness did not, by itself, justify sedition, the Kharijites insisted on the right to revolt against any ruler who deviated from the example of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad and the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar. From this essentially political position, the Kharijites developed a variety of theological and legal doctrines that further set them apart from both Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Kharijites were also known historically as the Shurat (Ar: الشُراة), literally meaning "the buyers" and understood within the context of Islamic scripture and philosophy to mean "those who have traded the mortal life (aldunya) for the other life [with God] (alakhera), which, unlike the term "Kharijite", was one that many Kharijites used to describe themselves.
The only surviving group, the Ibāḍī of Oman, Zanzibar and North Africa, reject the "Kharijite" appellation and refer to themselves as ahl al-'adl wal istiqama (أهل العدل و الاستقامة) ("people of justice and uprightness"). One of the early Kharijite groups was the Harūriyya; it was notable for many reasons, among which was its ruling on the permissibility of women Imāms and that a Harūrī, Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam, was the assassin of ‘Alī.
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Ali
2007-08-26 10:31:00
not wajib said: The companions of the Prophet have agreed on the obligation (of the Khilafah), and there is no significance to the opposition of al-Futa (. Kharijite. ) and al-Asam (mu atazalite) when we have an Ijma of the Sahabah. . ...
