The Khārijites
This chapter begins with a brief history of the Umayyad caliphate. After `Alī's assassination by a Khārijite, Mu`āwīya of the Banu 'Umayya became Caliph as recognized by the majority of Muslims, although the Shī`ites believed the Caliphate should have been transferred to `Alī's son Ḥasan. After Mu`āwīya, his son Yazīd became Caliph, although a number of people who had accepted Mu`āwīya's rule rejected him. It was during Yazīd's rule that Ḥasan's brother Ḥusayn was assassinated at Karbala, the tragic incident that finally gave the Shī`ite movement a center to hold on to. It was also during Yazīd's rule that Ibn al Zubayr rebelled and established his own kingdom, covered the Ḥijaz, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt at its height. Only under the Marwanid branch of the Umayyads was the empire re-united and a new phase of expansion initiated, all of which ended in AD 750 when the black banners of the `Abbāsids overthrew the Umayyads Caliphate.
Ibn al Zubayr's rule was supported by two branches of the Khārijites because of his rebellion against the perceived injustice of the Umayyads. Watt argues that their theological ideas played an important indirect role in the history of Islam.
The Azraqites, led by Nafī` ibn al Azraq, initially controlled Basra, but fled to the eastern mountains and opposed Ibn al Zubayr once he captured the city. They took the Khārijite position to its logical extreme. Since, they held, they were the only group of true Muslims who had adhered thoroughly to the core of the message of the Qur'an by not committing any sin, therefore any Muslim who did not make the hijra to their own camp was thus denying his / her own membership in the community of Muslims, and was thus a legitimate target of violence. The Azraqites were thus known for their violent acts of terror.
The Najdites were from central Arabia and helped Ibn al Zubayr capture Mecca. Unlike the Azraqites who were a free-roaming group spreading violence, they remained in charge of a vast portion of Arabia until their suppression by the Umayyads. Their interpretation of the central Khārijite doctrine was not as unyielding or absolute as the Azraqites', perhaps due to the difficulties of strictly applying Khārijite doctrine while governing a large territory. While they believed, just as the Azraqites did, that the community of Muslims was a common brotherhood that ought to be governed according to Islamic rules, they differed from the hardline Azraqites in that:
(1) they permitted Khārijites living in non-Khārijite territory to practice taqiyya
(2) they regarded Muslims who chose not to join them as hypocrites (munāfiqūn), but did not deny their Muslimhood the way the Azraqites did
(3) they made a novel distinction between those actions that were fundamental to the practice of Islam and those that were not, and only expelled those individuals from the community who had persisted in violating the fundamental practices.
The Najdite interpretation of the basic Khārijite doctrine thus gave them some flexibility in administering a large community.
In addition to these two groups, there was a community of politically neutral Khārijites living in non-Khārijite Basra. Living among people whom they considered non-Muslims, these Khārijites practiced taqiyya, but also gradually softened their rigid distinction between the 'people of Paradise' (defined initially as membership within the Khārijite community) and the 'people of Hell'. This softening happened in two ways: First, the initially unforgiving Khārijite position on social immorality was slackened, meaning that people were not cast out of the community for isolated acts seen as sinful. Second, a new group within the Khārijites arose, known as the Wāqifites, who chose to "suspend judgement" on whether Muslim non-Khārijites were wrongdoers who deserved to be excluded from the community. Watt argues that the Khārijites, and the Wāqifites in particular, had taken the pre-Islamic Arab notion of tribal membership and communitarian responsibility and extended it to the entire Muslim community; in effect, they had unified the Muslim Arabs into a single tribe, while shifting away to some extent from the Qur'ānic attitude of individual responsibility. In effect, the individual's responsibility was towards actions sanctioned by the Qur'ān as right, and his / her practice of such actions would guarantee salvation because they guaranteed membership within the community of Muslims.
Watt also has this to say about the Khārijites:
"Perhaps the most important contribution of the Khārijites to the development of Islamic thought and Islamic civilization was their insistence that the life of the community and the decisions of its rulers must be based on the Qur'ān. Presumably many Muslims agreed with this in theory, but the Khārijites were prepared to stand up to the government authorities in defence of their view. Had they not felt so strongly about this, the empire might well have gone back to pre-Islamic principles and developed into a secular Arab state. The point was eventually accepted by the whole community in the form of the doctrine that all social and political life must be based on the Sharī`a or revealed divine law." (p. 12)
The Khārijites eventually faded out, leaving behind a few fragmentary communities in Oman based on the Ibāḍite doctrine (not that Watt discusses this doctrine in any detail). These groups reject the name "Khārijite", perhaps due to the associations it has with rebellion and violence, and prefer to describe themselves simply as Ibāḍites.
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