Takfiri[a] is anArabic andIslamic term denoting aMuslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being anapostate.[1][2][3][4]
Since according to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law (sharīʿa) the punishment forapostasy is thedeath penalty,[3] and potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community (Ummah),[5] an ill-founded accusation oftakfīr is considered a major forbidden act (haram) inIslamic jurisprudence,[6] with oneḥadīth declaring that one who wrongly declares another Muslim to be an unbeliever is himself an apostate.[7] Takfirism has been called a "minority ideology" which "advocates the killing of other Muslims declared to beunbelievers".[8]
The accusation itself is calledtakfīr, derived from the Arabic wordkāfir ("unbeliever"), and is described as when "one who is a Muslim is declared impure."[9] An apostate is amurtad. In principle, in mainstreamSunnī Islam, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim akāfir are the scholars of Islam (Ulama), and this is done only if all the prescribed legal precautions have been taken.[9] Traditionally, the declaration oftakfīr was used against self-professed Muslims who denied one or more of thebasic tenets of Islam. Throughout thehistory of Islam, Islamic denominations and movements such asShīʿa Muslims and theAhmadiyya Muslim Community have been accused oftakfīr and labeled askuffār ("unbelievers") bySunnī Muslims, becoming victims ofreligious discrimination,violence, andpersecution perpetrated against them over the centuries.[3][8][10][11][12][13] The termTakfiri has also been pejoritavely deployed byShia jihadist groups to demonise and justify violence againstSunni Muslims.[14][15]
In thehistory of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as theKharijites carried outtakfīr against both Sunnī and ShīʿaMuslims, and became themain source of insurrection against the early caliphates for centuries.[16] Since the latter half of the 20th century,takfīr has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders ofIslamic states"[17] who do not enforcesharia or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".[18] This arbitrary application oftakfīr has become a "centralideology"[17] of insurgentWahhabi-Salafi jihadistextremist andterrorist groups,[10][19][20][21] particularlyal-Qaeda andISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh,[3][10][19][22] who have drawn on the ideas of themedieval Islamic scholarsIbn Taymiyyah andIbn Kathir, and those of the modern Islamist ideologuesSayyid Qutb andAbul A'la Maududi.[10][19][20] The practice oftakfīr has been denounced as deviant by themainstream branches of Islam and mainstream Muslim scholars such asHasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1977) andYusuf al-Qaradawi.[17]
Traditionally, Muslims have agreed that someone born aMuslim or converting to Islamwho rejects the faith is deserving ofcapital punishment,[3] provided legal precautions have been taken (the accused being educated in their error, given a chance to repent, evaluated for mental soundness, etc.). This is true in the case of a self-professed apostates, or "extreme, persistent and aggressive" proponents of religious innovation (bidʻah).[23]
There is also agreement among Muslims in the case of declaringtakfīr upon orthodox, self-professed Muslims. Generally, Muslims agree that the declaration oftakfīr is "so serious, and mistakes therein are so grave", that great care is needed, and that if the accused is actually a believing Muslim, then the act of accusing makes the accuser themself guilty ofapostasy.[8] There is also a belief shared by variousMuslim scholars which assert that the practice oftakfīr may be dangerous for the entireMuslim community (Ummah);[5] they believe that iftakfīr is "used wrongly or unrestrainedly", retaliation could lead down a slippery slope of "discord and sedition" to mutual excommunication and "complete disaster."[9] The SunnīIslamistmilitant group andSalafi-jihadistterrorist organizationISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh, for example, have declaredtakfīr not only uponShīʿa Muslims andSufi Muslims but also against rival insurgent Islamist groups (although they are also Salafi-jihadists) and all those who oppose its policy ofenslaving and killingShīʿa Muslims and Non-Muslim religious minorities, particularlyChristians andYazidis.[3][10][11][19][24]
What to do in a situation where self-professed Muslim(s) disagree with other Muslims on an important doctrinal point is more controversial. In the case of theAhmadiyya Muslim Community—who are accused of denying the basic tenet ofthe Finality of Prophethood—theIslamic Republic of Pakistan declares inOrdinance XX of theSecond Amendment to its Constitution, that Ahmadi Muslims areNon-Muslims and deprives them of religious rights.[13][25] All religious seminaries andmadrasas in Pakistan belonging todifferent sects of Islam have prescribed essential reading materials specifically targeted at refuting Ahmadiyya beliefs.[26] Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, thepolitical and religious persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan has sparked several large riots (in1953 and1974) and bombings (in2010) who have targeted and killed hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims in the country.[13][25]
The importance oftakfir inmodern Islamic political thought, insurgentIslamist groups, andreligiously-motivated terrorist attacks on civilians is underscored by the fact that as of 2017 (according toAnthony Cordesman and theCSIS), "the overwhelming majority" of violentterrorist attacks had occurred inMuslim-majority countries and the"primary victims" of these attacks were Muslims.[27][28]
Studying the largestArab country,Egypt, Elie Podeh distinguishes between three groups: conservativeIslamists, "jihadi" Muslims, andtakfiri. All three see the government and society sadly lacking in piety and in need of Islamification and restoration ofsharia law. Conservative Islamists do not support armed struggle against the secular government, whereas jihadist and takfiri groups do, and invoke the concepts ofjahiliyya (regression of Muslims to pre-Islamic ignorance),al-hakimiyya (God's sovereignty), andal-takfir (branding asapostate). However, according to Podeh's formulation, takfiri groups are moreextreme, and regard not just some Muslims but the whole of Egyptian society askafir, and consequently completely disengage from it. Podeh also points out that unlike jihadists, takfiri groups make no distinction between the regime and the ordinary population when employing violence.[29]
Somepolitical scientists andscholars ofMiddle Eastern studies (such as Jacob Zenna, Zacharias Pier,[30] and Dale Eikmeier)[31] argue that the accusation oftakfir may serve as a sort of ingenious "legalloophole" forIslamist insurgents, allowing them to bypass thesharia injunction against imprisoning or killing fellow Muslims. Since it is very difficult to overthrow governments without killing their (self-proclaimed) Muslim rulers and officials or any Muslim opposing the Islamists, and since enforcingsharia is the insurgentsraison d'être, the prohibition against killingMuslims is a major impediment against taking power. But if the enemy can be made to be not Muslims butunbelievers claiming to be Muslims, the prohibition is turned into a religiousobligation.[30]
Takfiris have also been classified by some scholars as violent offshoots of theSalafi movement. Although most Salafis oppose terrorism or violence within the Muslim community (Ummah),[32] Takfiris condone acts of violence as legitimate methods of achieving religious or political goals.Middle East expertRobert Baer has written that
"takfiri generally refers to aWahabiSalafi who looks at the world in black-and-white; there are true believers and then there arenonbelievers, with no shades in between. Atakfiri's mission is to re-create theCaliphate according to aliteral interpretation of theQur'an."[33]
Takfiris also reject the traditional Muslim duty to obey one's legitimate rulers in all manners that do not contradict the Sharia, as sedition is viewed as a great danger to a nation. However, takfiris consider all political authority that does not abide by their interpretation of Islam to be illegitimate and thereforeapostate; this view closely mirrorsQutb's views on what he perceived asjahiliyyah in theMuslim world.[34] As such, violence against such regimes is considered legitimate.
The termtakfiri was brought to a more public prominence by theBBC investigative journalistPeter Taylor in his 2005BBC television seriesThe New Al Qaeda.[35]
Takfiriviews on suicide also differ significantly from those oforthodox Muslims. In mainstreamIslam, suicide is considered a majorsin, but Takfiris believe that one who deliberately kills himself whilst attempting to kill a religious enemy is amartyr (shahid) and therefore goes straight toheaven without having to wait for theDay of Judgement. According to this doctrine, allsins of the martyrs are absolved when they die in martyrdom, allowingcarte blanche for the indiscriminate killing ofcivilians andnon-combatants.[36]
In the "early times" of Islam, "charges of apostasy" were also "not unusual, and ... the terms 'unbeliever' and 'apostate' were commonly used in religious polemic"[23] in hopes of silencing the deviant and prodding the lax back to the straight path. Classical manuals of jurisprudence in Islam sometimes provided fairly detailed lists of practices and beliefs that would render a Muslim an apostate that went far beyond infractions of the basic tenets of Islam. For example,Madjma' al-Anhur by Hanafi scholar Shaykhzadeh (d.1667 CE), declared such misdeeds as "to assert thecreatedness of the Quran, to translate the Quran, ... to pay respect to non-Muslims, to celebrateNowruz the Iranian New Year", would make a Muslim an unbeliever.[37] Nonetheless, those accused of apostasy were usually left "unmolested",[23] and in general executions for apostasy were "rare in Islamic history",[38] unless the violation was "extreme, persistent and aggressive".[23]
According to researcher Trevor Stanley, the precedent "for the declaration of takfir against a leader" came from the medieval Islamic scholar Taqi al-DinIbn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 CE), who supported theMamluks in their jihad against theinvading Central Asian Mongols. After the Mongols converted to Islam, another cause was sought for the jihad against them. In his famousfatwa, Ibn Taymiyyah reasoned that since the Mongols followed their traditionalYassa law rather thanSharia (Islamic law), they were not really Muslims,[39] and since non-Muslims who called themselves Muslims wereapostates, the Mongols should be killed. Ibn Taymiyya wrote that he "was among the strictest of people in forbidding that a specific person be accuse of unbelief, immorality or sin until proof from the Messenger[to this effect] has been established", yet he "regularly accused his opponents of outright unbelief and has become a source of inspiration to many Islamist and even takfiri movements."[40]
Islamic extremism dates back to theearly history of Islam with the emergence of theKharijites in the 7th century CE.[16] The original schism betweenKharijites,Sunnis, andShiʿas amongMuslims was disputed over thepolitical and religious succession to the guidance of theMuslim community (Ummah) after the death of theIslamic prophetMuhammad.[16] From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims.[16] Shiʿas believeAli ibn Abi Talib is the true successor to Muhammad, while Sunnis considerAbu Bakr to hold that position. The Kharijites broke away from both the Shiʿas and the Sunnis during theFirst Fitna (the first Islamic Civil War);[16] they were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach totakfīr (excommunication), whereby they declared both Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims to be eitherinfidels (kuffār) orfalse Muslims (munāfiḳūn), and therefore deemed themworthy of death for their perceivedapostasy.[16][41][42]
The Islamic tradition traces the origin of the Kharijities to thebattle between 'Ali and Mu'awiya at Siffin in 657 CE. When 'Ali was faced with a military stalemate and agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration, some of his party withdrew their support from him. "Judgement belongs to God alone" (لاَ حُكْم إلَا لِلّهِ) became the slogan of these secessionists.[16] They also called themselvesal-Shurat ("the Vendors"), to reflect their willingness to sell their lives inmartyrdom.[43]
These original Kharijites opposed both 'Ali and Mu'awiya, and appointed their own leaders. They were decisively defeated by 'Ali, who was in turn assassinated by a Kharijite. Kharijites engaged in guerilla warfare against theUmayyads, but only became a movement to be reckoned with during theSecond Fitna (the second Islamic Civil War) when they at one point controlled more territory than any of their rivals. The Kharijites were, in fact, one of the major threats to Ibn al-Zubayr's bid for the caliphate; during this time they controlled Yamama and most of southern Arabia, and captured the oasis town of al-Ta'if.[43]
The Azariqa, considered to be the extreme faction of the Kharijites, controlled parts of western Iran under the Umayyads until they were finally put down in 699 CE. The more moderateIbadi Kharijites were longer-lived, continuing to wield political power in North and East Africa and in eastern Arabia during the'Abbasid period. Because of their readiness to declare any opponent as apostate, the extreme Kharijites tended to fragment into small groups. One of the few points that the various Kharijite splinter groups held in common was their view of the caliphate, which differed from other Muslim theories on two points.
By the time that Ibn al-Muqaffa' wrote his political treatise early in the 'Abbasid period, the Kharijites were no longer a significant political threat, at least in theIslamic heartlands. The memory of the menace they had posed to Muslim unity and of the moral challenge generated by their pious idealism still weighed heavily on Muslim political and religious thought, however. Even if the Kharijites could no longer threaten, their ghosts still had to be answered.[43] The Ibadis are the only Kharijite group to surivive into modern times.
In the colonial and post-colonial Muslim world the influence and pressure of Western powers meant that not only was apostasy rare in practice, but that it was (contrary tosharia) abolished as a crime punishable by death in state statutes of law[44] (the West also encouraged establishing laws giving equal rights to women and non-Muslims in violation ofsharia). Some Muslims (such as the cleric 'Adb al-Qadir 'Awdah) responded by preaching that if the state would not kill apostates then it had "become a duty of individual Moslems" to do so, and gave advice on how to plead in court to avoid punishment after being arrested for such a murder.[45]
Sayyid Qutb could be said to have founded the actual movement of radical Islam.[46][47] Unlike the other Islamic thinkers that have been mentioned above, Qutb was not anapologist.[47] He was a prominent leader of theMuslim Brotherhood and a highly influential Islamist ideologue,[46][47] and the first to articulate these anathemizing principles in his magnum opusFī ẓilāl al-Qurʾān (In the shade of the Qurʾān) and his 1966 manifestoMaʿālim fīl-ṭarīq (Milestones), which lead to his execution by the Egyptian government.[47][48] Other Salafi movements in theMiddle East and North Africa and across theMuslim world adopted many of his Islamist principles.[46][47] According to Qutb, the Muslim community has been extinct for several centuries and reverted tojahiliyah (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance) because those who call themselves Muslims have failed to follow thesharia law.[46][47] In order torestore Islam, bring back its days of glory, and free the Muslims from the clasps of ignorance, Qutb proposed the shunning of modern society, establishing a vanguard modeled after the early Muslims, preaching, and bracing oneself for poverty or even death as preparation forjihad against what he perceived asjahili government/society, and overthrow them.[46][47]Qutbism, the radical Islamist ideology derived from the ideas of Qutb,[46] was denounced by many prominent Muslim scholars as well as other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, likeYusuf al-Qaradawi.
By the mid 1990s, one list of Qutb-inspired groups includedal-Jihaad al-Islami,Takfir wal-Hijra, Jund Allah, al-Jihaad, Tanzim al-Faniyyah al-Askariyyah—all of which were fighting violent insurgencies.[49]
While Qutb declared that the Islamic world had "long ago vanished from existence"[50] and that true Muslims would have to confront "arrogant, mischievous, criminal and degraded people" in the struggle to restore Islam,[51] he had not specifically stated that the self-professed Muslim "authorities of thejahili system" were apostates (or whether they should all be killed)[9]—but his followers have.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, "jihad's main ideologist," (originally ofal-Jihaad al-Islami akaEgyptian Islamic Jihad), and the current leader ofal-Qaeda, paid homage to Qutb in his bookKnights under the Prophet's Banner[52][53] Al Qaeda is commonly described as seeking to overthrow the "apostate" regimes in the Middle East and replace them with "true" Islamic governments,[54][55] and having a "habit" of denouncing Muslims who did not "accept a narrow interpretation" of Sunni Islam as "non-believers and legitimate targets."[4]
Shukri Mustaf, founder ofJama'at al-Muslimin (known to the public asTakfir wal-Hijra) had been in prison with Qutb, and was a "disciple" of his.[56]
The Takfir ofIslamic State of Iraq and the Levant may be more rooted inWahhabism andIbn Abd al-Wahhab than Qutb, but "one famous quote" from him "has been seen written on walls and has also appeared repeatedly in IS texts: 'Whoever does not pay the price of jihad, shall pay the price of abstention'".[57] Another source writes that the "roots" of ISIL's "takfiri" ideology "can be found in the Khawarij's view, and in the writings ofIbn Taymiyyah,Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, andSayyid Qutb."[28]
In Qutb's home country of Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s many authorities of "the jahili system" were attacked and killed (along with non-Muslims such as tourists and Christians) by extremists.
In 1974, 100 members of the "Islamic Liberation Organization", led by one Salih Sirriya, stormed the armory of the Military Technical College in Cairo, seizing weapons and vehicles,[58] as part of a plan to kill PresidentAnwar El Sadat and other top Egyptian officials.
In 1977, the groupJama'at al-Muslimin (known to the public asTakfir wal-Hijra for its strategy of takfiring Muslim society and going into psychological hijra/exile from it), kidnapped and later killed an Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi. The group's founder, Shukri Mustaf—who had been imprisoned withSayyid Qutb, and was now one of Qutb's "most radical" disciples[56]—believed that not only were the Egyptian President and his government officialsapostates, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".[59] Hundreds of members of the group were arrested and Shukri Mustafa was executed but (according to journalist Robin Wright), the group reorganized with thousands of members.[60] Later its ex-members went on to help assassinate Anwar Sadat,[61] and be involved in theAlgerian Civil War and Al-Qaeda.[62]
In 1981,President Sadat was successfully assassinated (along with six diplomats) by members of the Tanzim al-Jihad movement.[63]
During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated byAl-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, targeted police, government officials (but also civilians including tourists). In one particularly bloody year (1993), 1106 persons were killed or wounded, and "several senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes."[64]
But in addition to the authorities of the jahili system, civilians also were targeted. Unlike the scholars of classical Islam, extremists not only expanded the definition of what constituted an apostate, but enforced its penalty. Along with other traditional socio-economic-ethnic-military-personality factors of insurgency, takfir played a part in the bloodshed of extremist violence.
In the brutal 1991–2002Algerian Civil War between the Algerian Government and various Islamist rebel groups, takfir was known to be declared by the hardline Islamist GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria). Starting in April 1998, a series of massacres in villages or neighborhoods killed tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians without disregard to the age and sex of victims.[65] Although the government had infiltrated the insurgents and it is thought by many that security forces as well as Islamists were involved in massacres,[66] the GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres (Rais andBentalha massacres), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks.[67] He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death,"[68] Between 100,000 and 200,000 were ultimately killed in the war.[69]
In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly ShiaHazara non-combatants inMazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. The Taliban indicated revenge, or ethnic hatred may have been a motivation for the slaughter, but comments by Mullah Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and newly installed governor, also indicated thattakfir may also have been a motive. Niazi declared in a number of post-slaughter speeches from Mosques in Mazar-i-Sharif: "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi’a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. ... You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. ...".[70]
Ironically, the Taliban seemed to have backed off the "Hazaras are not Muslim" approach and were later denounced by the ISIS for their tolerance of Shia. The 13th issue of the ISIS magazineDabiq (19 January 2016) attacked the Taliban for "considering theRāfidah [a slur for Shia] to be their brothers and publicly denouncing those who target the Rāfidah:"[71]Dabiq quoted "Abdullāh al-Wazīr, the official correspondent of the nationalist Taliban media committee":
The Shī’ah are Muslims ... Everyone who says there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's Messenger is a Muslim. The sects are many and Allah will decide between them on Judgment Day.[71]
as evidence of Taliban wrongdoing.
Al Qaeda shared some of the takfir beliefs of ISIS, with, for example senior leaderAyman al-Zawahiri denigrating Shi’a as "a religious school based on excess and falsehood", but al-Zawahiri (and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi)[28] also opposed attacks on Shia as a distraction from the more important goal of defeating the "far enemy", the United States. Attacks "on ordinary Shi’a, their mosques, and the mausoleum of their Imams" would "lift the burden from the Americans by diverting the mujahedeen to the Shi’a".[72][73] What did provoke it to takfir and "legitimize targeting" was the fighting by Muslim soldiers as the allies of the West against Muslims.[28]
From its inception in 2013 to 2021, directly or through affiliated groups, ISIS (alsoDaesh orIslamic State of Iraq and the Levant), "has been responsible for 27,947 terrorist deaths". The majority of these have been Muslims[Note 1] "because it has regarded them as kafir".[28]
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who foundedJama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in Iraq in 1999, is said to have turned "an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunnicivil war".[74] He saw himself as fighting not just the occupying United States military, but what he called "the sects of apostasy" (i.e. Shia Muslims).[75] In September 2005 he declared "all-out war" onShi'ites in Iraq after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town ofTal Afar.[76]
The 13th issue of the ISIS magazineDabiq dedicates "dozens of pages" were devoted "to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the labelRafidah.
Initiated by a sly Jew, [the Shia] are an apostate sect drowning in worship of the dead, cursing the best companions and wives of the Prophet, spreading doubt on the very basis of the religion (the Qur’ān and the Sunnah), defaming the very honor of the Prophet, and preferring their "twelve" imāms to the prophets and even to Allah! ...Thus, the Rāfidah are mushrik [polytheist] apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rāfidī walks on the face of earth, even if the jihād claimants despise such...[71]
In addition to takfiring Shia, from about 2003 to 2006 al-Zarqawi expanded "the range of behavior" that could make large number of self-proclaimed Muslims apostates: including "in certain cases, selling alcohol or drugs, wearing Western clothes or shaving one's beard, voting in an election—even for a Muslim candidate—and being lax about calling other people apostates".[24]
Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006 the successor of theJama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad—theIslamic State of Iraq and the Levant, aka ISIL or Daesh, expanded takfir still further. ISIL not only called for the revival of slavery of non-Muslims (specifically of theYazidi minority group), but takfired any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.
Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in theSinjar operations ... Enslaving the families of thekuffar and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam.[24]
Starting in 2013, the ISIL began "encouraging takfir of Muslims deemed insufficiently pure in regard oftawhid (monotheism)". The Taliban were found "to be "a 'nationalist' movement, all too tolerant" of Shia.[77] In 2015 ISIL "pronouncedJabhat al-Nusrat—then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria—an apostate group."[77]
One of ISIL's "most infamous large-scale killings" was the June 2014Camp Speicher massacre in Iraq, "when the group murdered more than 1,500 Shi’a army cadets inTikrit".[78] In a film made by ISIL about the Camp Speicher massacre, a narrator states: "All are apostates who have come from cities of apostates to kill Sunnis here, we have more than 2,000 of them."[79]
Along with Shia, ISIL and to a lesser extent Al-Qaeda havetakfired Sufi Muslims, considering their the shrines and these living saints a violation of monotheism.[80] The deadliest attack by ISIL on Sufis, and "the worst terrorist attack in Egypt's modern history",[80] occurred on 24 November 2017, when approximately 40 gunmenattacked the al-Rawda mosque (associated with the Jaririya Sufi order)[81] near El-Arish Sinai during Friday prayers. 311 people were killed and at least 122 injured. While no group claimed responsibility for the attack,[82] theIslamic State'sWilayat Sinai branch was strongly suspected.[83] On 25 November, the Egyptian public prosecutor's office, citing interviews with survivors, said the attackers brandished theIslamic State flag.[84][85] In an interview in the Islamic State magazineRumiyah (January 2017 issue five) an insurgent Islamic State commander condemned Sufi practices and identified the district where the attack occurred as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that Islamic State intended to "eradicate."[86]
Writing in 2014, Aaron Y. Zelin and Phillip Smyth argue that the combatants in theSyrian Civil War have used sectarian language to "cast one another" as non-Muslims/infidels, dehumanizing the enemy and intensifying the bloodshed and mayhem. The ShiaHizbollah, for example had successfully "tarred all shades of the opposition, and indeed sometimes all Sunnis", with the brush of "takfiri". The Sunnis and Shiites antagonism has spread from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, so that "there have been incidents in Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, and Egypt".[87][88][89]Well-known clericYusuf al-Qaradawi, often branded as "moderate," declaredNusayris (aka Alawiyya) of Syria bigger infidels than even the Jews or Christians in a conference in June 2013 in Cairo (a conference that called for jihad in Syria and was attended by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar).[87] Indications that executions of the enemy may have religious motivation came from an October 2013 video clip[90] where Shiite Islamist fighters executed alleged captured Syrian rebels with the claim by one of the shooters that: "We are performing our taklif [religious order] and we are not seeking personal vengeance."[87]
According to researchers Jacob Zenna and Zacharias Pier, takfir has been a major part of the focus ofBoko Haram under the leadership ofAbubakar Shekau.
after 2010 ... Shekau, believed that jihad was obligatory and that not actively joining his jihad was tantamount to apostasy. This did not mean Shekau actively killed anyone after he announced jihad and renamed the group "JAS" in 2010. Rather, there was a "priority scale" with Christians, the government, and publicly anti-JAS Muslim preachers targeted first. This also meant any Muslims killed collaterally were not a concern since they were "guilty" for not having joined his jihad. ... [by] October 2010, ... assassinations targeting Muslim religious leaders, especially Salafists who opposed JAS's religious interpretation, as well as civil servants, became an almost weekly occurrence in northeastern Nigeria. In addition to this, prisons, banks, churches and beer halls also were common targets of attack[91][92]
The policy led to a schism in the group, and after Shekau ordered an "urban invasion" inKano in 2012 where "up to 200 people" were killed,[93] a splinter group called "Ansaru" left, complaining of the excessive killing of Muslims.[94]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Another popular term used by Shiite jihadis for their Sunni enemies has been "takfiri"
By framing its fight as a preemptive attack ontakfiris—those who declare other Muslims to be apostates—Hizbollah has tarred all shades of the opposition, and indeed sometimes all Sunnis, with the same radicalising brush. It has exaggerated, and thereby exacerbated, the sectarianism of the Syrian opposition as well as its own domestic opponents
those they provocatively and [pejoratively] brand "the Takfiris"
The dictionary definition oftakfiri at Wiktionary