While ISIS has generally been classified by outside observers as belonging to the tradition of “Salafī-Jihādism,” a term first coined in 2002, some, mainly Sunni (and often Salafī) Muslims themselves, have disputed such a label, and have instead advocated for the classification of ISIS as a “Khawārij” movement. Now, as a Shīʿī Muslim, I am going to offer my perspective on why it is incorrect to classify ISIS as Khawārij and why the term Salafī is indeed accurate when applied to them.
The main reason I take issue with calling ISIS a Khawārij movement is the nature of the term
khawārij itself. But what does it mean? Literally, it means ‘those who exit,’ first referring to those who deserted from the army of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib after his arbitration with Muʿāwiyah. Later, however, the term became much more general and much more polemical in its usage, and heresiographers began to use it to refer to any group of Muslims who rebelled against a Muslim ruler. This is similar compared to the evolution of the word
jihād. Originally, it had a very specific meaning, but now it is used generally to refer to any military action which is perceived as unjust or any act of terrorism perpetrated by self-declared Muslims. When we as Muslims are so careful with the word
jihād, and so quickly rush to condemn the usage of it to refer to senseless murder (the Arabic word for that is
istiʿrāḍ), then we should also be careful with our usage of the term
khawārij as well.
The Khawārij were not engaged in the senseless murder (
istiʿrāḍ) of which early Muslim heresiographers (namely Ibn Ḥazm) accused them, and frankly, neither is ISIS today. These groups acted and are acting according to a complex ideology and theology, which is obvious to anyone who has read al-Najī’s
Management of Savagery (
Idārat al-tawaḥḥush), but since this fact has already been explained by researchers much more knowledgeable and articulate than myself, I will not go into much detail about that. The simple reality is that these groups cannot truly be understood unless they are understood as rational actors, and it is in fact incorrect to portray them as irrational actors, as Michael Scheuer has pointed out in his book
Imperial Hubris (p. 114):
The term
khawārij, which, in the Muslim conscience, principally denotes a group on the path of
istiʿrāḍ, only contributes to furthering such a misunderstanding of the terrorist as a “madman, bloodthirsty, and irrational” (
Ibid., p. 110), ignoring not only the political context and motivations behind the terrorist act as well as the possible religious beliefs of the terrorist, which is especially accurate in this case. Moreover, we should be careful not to kid ourselves in saying, “ISIS has
nothing to do with Islam,” (or in a more general sense, that religious violence has
nothing to do with religion) since ISIS very much has a lot to do with Islam (and religious violence a lot to do with religion), and saying otherwise merely blinds us to the reality of the negative elements within this
ummah. For such elements cannot be purged and prevented from further arising unless identified as they are, unless we are willing to call a spade, a spade.
Now, of course, if you are defining Islam from a religious point of view as submission to God, then there is of course a sharp distinction between “true Islam” and heresy and innovation (
bidʿah), but from a critical, sociological perspective, such a definition does not work, since the researcher must be objective. ISIS certainly considers themselves as Muslims — in fact, as the only true Muslims (one reason for their classification as Khawārij) — but even from a religious standpoint, this definition is problematic within religious dialogue. To declare ISIS as Khawārij and therefore non-Muslim brings us to the problem of “Who is a Muslim?” which is yet to be truly resolved despite all efforts, and it also represents a tendency which is generally ascribed to the Khawārij. They, and ISIS, are infamous for their
takfīr, and it is said that since they engage in such a practice they are linked to the Khawārij. However, if you declare ISIS as non-Muslim, you are thereby engaging in an act of
takfīr yourself, even if they are engaged in clear-cut
kufr. Almost every sect of Islam holds themselves to be the only true Muslims, hence the prevalence of the famous ‘Hadith of the Seventy-three Sects,’ which predicts that the
ummah will divide into seventy-three principal sects of which only one will be saved. This is thus not an element unique to the Khawārij and the presence of such a characteristic within the theology of ISIS lends no credence to the Khawārij label. The very act of defining ‘Muslim’ according to any kind of definition stricter than “one who claims to be Muslim” is itself an act on the verge of
takfīr, which is the declaration of a self-professed Muslim to be a non-Muslim.
Thus, if ISIS does not represent the Khawārij anymore than they represent Muslims as a whole, as we should agree, then who do they represent? The simple answer is that they represent none other than who they claim to be — Salafī-Jihādīs, since their doctrines are by no means no innovation in a purely historical sense. They have extracted these ideas directly from the writings of scholars so eminent among the Salafīs as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and in fact criticise the Saudi government and modern self-proclaimed Salafīs in their publications for not taking these ideas to their logical end.
One cannot label ISIS as Khawārij unless one also labels Salafīs as Khawārij, since the main three elements of the Khawārij as noted by scholars such as al-Yaʿqūbī in his book Refuting ISIS, namely: (1)
khurūj (insurrection), (2)
takfīr (excommunication), and (3)
istiʿrāḍ (indiscriminate murder) are not unique at all to classified terrorist groups but prevalent among Salafīs of all stripes, particularly among the so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels and their armchair supporters in the West and elsewhere.
From their perspective, their rebellion against Assad is not an unlawful
khurūj against a Muslim ruler, since they do not believe Assad to be a Muslim ruler at all but rather an apostate (
murtadd), unbeliever (
kāfir), and polytheist (
mushrik), since Assad is from an Alawite family. Of course, by all indications, the Assad family does not hold any Alawite religious beliefs and are standard Sunnīs, and neither do many Syrian Alawites do to the ‘Sunnification’ project enacted by Hafez al-Assad. There are two problems, however: (1) Assad’s government is secular, and (2) he is nevertheless from an Alawite family and enjoys support from the majority of the Alawites in Syria. The Salafī rebels (including ISIS and al-Qaeda) have therefore declared him an apostate for his failure to implement the sharīʿah as the law of the land and have declared him guilty of shirk by reason of this and his association with the Alawite minority. Certain sects of the Khawārij had no different of a methodology. If a Muslim ruler was sinful, it was permissible to engage in
khurūj against him, and the simple proof of this is their own actions in supporting the murder of ʿUthmān and in rebelling against ʿAlī. Likewise, the Salafīs engage in
takfīr in claiming themselves to be the “saved sect” to the exclusion of all others, and their merciless violence and enmity towards the non-Sunnīs of Syria is well-known.
If, therefore, you desire to apply the label of Khawārij to ISIS, then you should also be comfortable in applying it to these Salafī-Takfīrīs, whose behaviour in Syria, where they actually back up their words with action unlike these armchair Salafīs in the West, is near-identical to that of the Khawārij as depicted by Muslim heresiographers.
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