Khariji

A derogatory name used in modern Muslim societies to designate a radical Islamist who attacks fellow Muslims, Khariji, along with terms such as jihadi and takfiri (one who excommunicates fellow Muslims), became part of the discourse associated with national and transnational Islamist violence and the global war on terror.

Khariji is the Arabic singular form of the plural Khawarij (typically rendered in English as Kharijites), the name of a seventh-century sectarian movement that defined itself over and against what became the two dominant sects in Islamic tradition, Sunnī and Shi'a. The Kharijites rebelled in 657 against the then leader of the nascent Islamic empire, Ali b. Abi Talib. They were infamous for judging fellow Muslims as nonbelievers (pronouncing the takfir on them), thus rendering them apostates from the faith and subject to death. Islamic historical sources are replete with bloody and seemingly random paroxysms of Khariji violence. Ali was himself killed by a Khariji in 661.

The Kharijites were also known for their egalitarian customs, which allowed any Muslim man to become the leader of the community. The Sunnī and Shi'i had specific qualifications for this position. As an actual movement, the Kharijites were active until the mid-10th century, by which time their uprisings had been quelled. But the name Kharijite, in the Islamic literary tradition, came to symbolize anyone who rebelled against legitimate Muslim political authority.

It is this symbol that was reawakened in modern countries such as Egypt and Syria to anathematize Islamists who took up arms against the government and fellow Muslims or whose activities seemed to threaten state interests and the political status quo. In Egypt, discussions about the Kharijites have been prominent—starting in the [Page 661]1950s and continuing into the 1990s—in newspapers, magazines, and television; in book-length studies of Islamists, comparisons with Kharijites became common. One of the earliest accusations of being a Khariji was directed at Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sayyid Qutb, the ideological successor to al-Banna in the brotherhood, had the label attached to him extensively after he was implicated in a plot to assassinate Nasser; his militant treatise Maalim fi'l-Tariq (Milestones) was thought to be a Khariji-inspired work because it accused fellow Muslims of the kind of sinfulness (jahiliyyah) that required either (re)conversion to Islam or death. The label Khariji in Egypt has been attached to every militant Islamist group that has emerged after or as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Takfir wa al-Hijra, al-Gamm'a al Islamiyah, and Jihad.

Since the September 11 attacks, Muslim moderates around the world have engaged in debates about neo-Khariji activities and have used the label to condemn radical Muslim behavior, including the terrorist acts carried out by al Qaeda. The name Khariji has also received attention in the West as governments, militaries, and the media try to understand and counter the threat posed by Muslim radicals.

The global surge in Khariji references and discourse attests to both the growth in acts of Muslim violence that are religiously justified and the desire among moderate Muslims to counter this violence with an alternate vision of Islam. It also attests to modern society's continuing dependence on religion to legitimize and safeguard otherwise secular political values.

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