Kharijism
A tradition no longer extant within Islam. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
Kharijism is recorded within Islam and is no longer extant. Also written Khawarij, al-Muhakkima, al-Shurat (self-designation).
Origin
Founding date given as 657. Encyclopaedia Iranica: the movement arose from the conflict between 'Ali b. Abi Talib and Mu'awiya b. Abi Sufyan when their armies met at Siffin in 657; a faction of 'Ali's forces withdrew allegiance when he accepted arbitration, declaring 'no judgment but God's' (la hukm illa li-llah). They decamped first to Harura' and then to Nahrawan, where 'Ali's army attacked and, in Iranica's words, 'virtually annihilated them'. No named founder: the movement is defined by an act of secession, not by a person.
Continue reading this article
Sign in free to read in full. Become a member to join the discussion without limits.
Sign in free to read- ✓Read every article
- ✓Comment and reply (up to 100 words, 10/month)
- ✓Browse the community
- ✓Reader badge
- ✓
Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “Kharijism.” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-kharijism.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-kharijism-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {Kharijism},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-kharijism},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.