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Takfir (Arabic:تَكْفِير,romanized: takfīr) is anArabic andIslamic term which denotesexcommunication fromIslam of oneMuslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim of being anapostate.[1][2][3] The word is found neither in theQuran nor in theḥadīth literature; instead,kufr ("unbelief") andkāfir ("unbeliever") and other terms employing the sametriliteral rootK-F-R appear.[4]
Since according to the traditional interpretations ofIslamic law (sharīʿa) the punishment forapostasy is thedeath penalty,[3] and potentially a cause of strife and violence within theMuslim community (Ummah),[5] an ill-foundedtakfir accusation was a major forbidden act (haram) inIslamic jurisprudence,[6] with onehadith declaring that one who wrongly declares a Muslim an unbeliever is himself not an apostate but rather one who has committed a minorshirk.[7] In thehistory of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as theKharijites carried outtakfīr against bothSunnī andShīʿaMuslims, and became themain source of insurrection against the early caliphates for centuries.[8] Traditionally, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim akāfir are thescholars of Islam (Ulama), which affirm that all the prescribed legal precautions should be taken before declaringtakfīr,[9] and that those who profess the Islamic faith should be exempt.[5]
Starting in the mid-to-late 20th century, some individuals and organizations in theMuslim world began to applytakfīr accusations not only against those that they perceived as stray deviant and lapsed Muslims, but also governments and in some cases, societies as well.[3][10][11] In his widely influential bookMilestones, EgyptianIslamist ideologueSayyid Qutb preached that governments ruling the Muslim world had fallen into a state of collective apostasy orjahiliyyah (a state of pre-Islamic ignorance) several centuries ago, having abandoned the use ofsharīʿa law, without which (Qutb held) Islam cannot exist.[3][10] Qutb affirmed that since Muslim government leaders (along with being cruel and evil) were actually not Muslims but apostates preventing therevival of Islam, the use of "physical force" should be used to remove them.[3][10] This radical Islamist ideology, called "takfirism", has been widely held and applied by numerousIslamic extremists,terrorists, andjihadist organizations in the late 20th and early 21st-centuries, to varying degrees.[3][10][11]
Since the latter half of the 20th century,takfīr has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders of Islamic states"[12] who do not enforce sharia or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".[11] Politically motivated arbitrary declarations oftakfīr became a "central ideology" of Egyptian-based Jihadist organizations,[12] which were inspired by the ideas of the medieval Islamic scholarsIbn Taymiyyah andIbn Kathir, and those of the modern Islamist ideologuesSayyid Qutb andAbul A'la Maududi.[10][13][14] SomeSalafi jihadist insurgent organizations such asTakfir wal-Hijra,GIA,Boko Haram,[10][13] and theIslamic State,[3][10] have been engaged in radical Takfiri discourse. Their practice oftakfīr has been denounced as deviant by themainstream schools of Islam and various leaders such asHasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1977) andYusuf al-Qaradawi.[12]
The Arabic termskufr ("unbelief") andkāfir ("unbeliever"), alongside other terms employing the sametriliteral rootk-f-r, are found both in theQuran and theḥadīth literature, but the termtakfīr used to declare another Muslim askāfir is found in neither.[4] "The wordtakfīr was introduced in thepost-Quranic period and was first done by theKhawarij," according to J. E. Campo.[15]
The act which precipitatestakfīr is termedmukaffir. A Muslim who declares another Muslim to be anunbeliever orapostate is atakfīri ("excommunicational").[5]It is prohibited to do without court and 12 years of Islamic studies.
Legitimate authority and conditions that permit the issuance oftakfīr are major points of contention amongMuslim scholars. The declaration oftakfīr typically applies to a judgement that an action or statement by the accused Muslim indicates his/her knowing abandonment of Islam. In many cases an Islamic court or a religious leader, anʿālim must pronounce afatwa (legal judgement) oftakfīr against an individual or group.
The medieval Islamic scholaral-Ghazali "is often credited with having persuaded theologians, in hisFaysalal-Tafriqa (The Criterion of Distinction between Islam and Clandestine Unbelief) thattakfīr is not a fruitful path and that utmost caution is to be taken in applying it."[16] In general, the officialMuslim clergy considers that Islam does not sanction excommunication of Muslims who profess their Islamic faith and perform theritual pillars of Islam.[5] This is due to the fact that takfir that successfully convinces thejudges (or Muslim vigilantes) of the accused being an apostate, traditionally leads to punishments of killing, confiscation of their property, and denial ofIslamic burial.[17]Ulamas often raise objections by asking rhetorical questions of who holds the right to excommunicate others, on what religious criteria it should be based, and what level of specialized knowledge in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is required for the qualification of authority.[5]
Some Muslims considertakfīr to be a prerogative only of eitherMuhammad — who does that through divine revelation and is no longer alive to do it — or of a state which represents the collectivity of theUmmah (the Muslim community).[18]
An example given of the reluctance of Muslims to takfir is the refusal of authorities atAl-Azhar University to takfirISIL/ISIS/Daesh in 2015 despite that groups notorious takfir atrocities; and the refusal of "many mainstream Muslims" to takfir theKharijites, despite this sects being "unanimously regarded as the arch-takfiris" by scholars.[19]
Examples of takfir spreading once takfir is accepted in a Muslim community include[editorializing]:
Traditionally, Islamic jurists did not formulate general rules for establishing unbelief, instead compiling sometimes lengthy lists of statements and actions which in their view were grounds for a takfir accusation.[22][Note 4] These could be wide-ranging and seemingly far removed from basic Islamic beliefs.
The manualsReliance of the Traveller, a 14th-century manual of theShafi'i school of jurisprudence (Fiqh),[24][25] andMadjma' al-Anhur by Hanafi scholar Shaykhzadeh (d. 1667)[26] include
(From Reliance):
(Selected characteristics fromMadjma' al-anhur):
Other examples from legal treatises devoted exclusively to verbal expressions (but also actions) of disbelief (known asalfaz al-kufr) included:
Al-Ghazali held that apostasy occurs when a Muslim denies the essential dogmas: monotheism, Muhammad's prophecy, and the Last Judgment.[28] He devoted "chapters to dealing with takfir and the reasons for which one can be accused of unbelief," in his workFayasl al-tafriqa bayn al-Islam wa-l-zandaqa.[29][30]
On the other hand, there are a number of ways a Muslim may avoid being found guilty of apostasy.
Giving pause to takfir accusations is the principle of fiqh (in Shafiʿi and othermadhhabs) that accusing or describing another devout Muslim of being an unbeliever is itself an act of apostasy,[31] based on the hadith where Muhammad is reported to have said: "If a man says to his brother, 'You are an infidel,' then one of them is right."[32]
In contrast to the manuals described above, Charles Adams and A. Kevin Reinhart state that some Islamic theologians maintain that Muslims may be guilty of error and wrongdoing without descending all the way to the level of kafir. For example, a Muslim denying a point of creed may be a hypocrite (munāfiq) but not a kāfir; merely corrupt (fasād) if their disobedience was not excessive; "errant Muslim sectarians ... astray (ḍāll),"; those whose Qurʿānic interpretation (taʿwīl) are faulty are in error and not unbelievers because their "citation of Qurʿān, however mistaken, established their faith"; and "according to some", anyone who is "a person ofqiblah" [prays towards theqiblah] cannot be a kāfir.[33]
Compensating for the numerous and potentially fatal possible transgressions mentioned above that had to be avoided were the requirements ("hurdles to jump through") for finding a Muslim guilty of apostasy. While not all Islamic scholars or schools of jurisprudence agree, some Shafi'i fiqh scholars—such as Nawawi and ibn Naqib al-Misri—state that to apply the apostasy code to a Muslim, the accused must:
Maliki scholars additionally require that the person in question has publicly engaged in the obligatory practices of the religion.[36][need quotation to verify] In contrast, Hanafi,Hanbali andJa'fari fiqh set no such screening requirements; a Muslim's history has no bearing on when and on whom to apply the sharia code for apostasy.[37]
Still more requirements for convicting an alleged apostate are listed by other sources, including that the crime must be explained to them, and they must be given a chance to retract it, and that the accused must have been "aware of the "unilaterally and eternally binding nature" of accepting Islam", and been aware of the punishment for apostasy (or any other hadd crime) at the time of committing the crime of apostasy. (Asmi Wood)[38]
Judgement should be left to knowledgeable Muslims (according to Islam Question and Answer) not lay Muslims.[39]
There are disputes among different early schools of religious thought as to what constitutes sufficient justification for declaring takfir:
The orthodoxSunni position is that sins generally do not prove that someone is not a Muslim, but denials of fundamental religious principles do. Thus a murderer, for instance, may still be a Muslim, but someone who denies that murder is a sin is akafir if he is aware that murder is considered a sin in Islam.[citation needed] Ash'ari argued "that it is the belief in the heart that matters the most".[40] The founder of the Ashari school, Imam Al-Ash'ari[41] stated that "presumptuously declaring ... mortal sins, such as fornication or theft or the like, ... lawful and not acknowledging that it is forbidden," made the one declaring "an infidel".[41]
Kharijis orKharijites "are unanimously regarded as the arch-takfiris" in Islamic history,[19]known for their takfir and assassination of rashidun caliph Ali after he agreed to arbitration with his rival,Muawiyah I, to decide the succession to theCaliphate. (arbitration being a means for people to make decisions, while the victor in a battle was determined by God). Kharijites believed that Muslims had the duty to revolt against any ruler who deviated from their interpretation of Islam or failed to manage Muslim's affairs with justice and consultation[42] or committed a major sin.[43]
Murjites (Murjiʾah: "Those Who Postpone") believed that no one who once professed Islam could be takfired, even if they committed mortal sins. Judgment on whether those who committed serious sins were Muslims or kafir should be "postponed" (irjāʾ), and left to God alone.[44][45] This theology promoted tolerance ofUmayyads and converts to Islam who appeared half-hearted in their obedience.[46]It emerged as a theological school that was opposed to theKharijites on questions related to early controversies regardingsin and definitions of what is a true Muslim.[47][48]
As opposed to the Kharijites, Murjites believed revolt against a Muslim ruler could not be justified under any circumstances, and advocated passive resistance.[49]
TheMu'tazilites (followed by theZaidiyyahs) advocated what they saw as a middle way between Murjites and Khawarij, whereby who failed to sufficiently perform their obligations were demoted to sinners (fasiq), but not all the way to infidel.[50] On the other hand, "it has been argued" (according to Alam al-Dīn) that, "the general Mu'tazilite conception of īmān is the view that the acts of obedience are essential for belief and whoever neglects these acts is not a Believer".[51]
Non-Muslims can also be takfired, according to Fayiz Salhab and Hussam S. Timani, at least. An "example being" a hadith where Muhammad is quoted as saying
Turning the graves of prophets into places of worship is a "major kufr", and since an act of majorkufr qualifies someone to be a kaffir, and since this was showing "iman outwardly" yet committed (major)kufr inwardly, they were guilty of turning their back on their religion for unbelief.[53]
Some Muslims (such as MuhammadIbn Abd al-Wahhab, founder ofWahhabism) believe that one of the earliest examples oftakfir was alleged to have been practised by the firstCaliph,Abu Bakr.[54] In response to the refusal of certain Arab tribes to pay the alms-tax (zakat), he is reported to have said: "By God, I will fight anyone who differentiates between the prayer and the zakat. ... Revelation has been discontinued, the Shari'ah has been completed: will the religion be curtailed while I am alive. ... I will fight these tribes even if they refuse to give a halter. Poor-due (zakat) is a levy on wealth and, by God, I will fight him who differentiates between the prayer and poor-due."[55] Abu Bakr did not use the wordkafir though.
The group known asKhawarij takfired and killed theRashidun caliphAli (601–661 CE),[56][57] after he agreed to arbitration with his rival,Muawiyah I, to decide the succession to theCaliphate. They believed that "judgement belongs to God alone", so that for human beings to arbitrate peacefully rather than wage war was making a decision rightfully belonging to God. In contrast, the victor of a battle was determined by God.[57][58]
In the wars between theUmayyad Caliphate and theKhawarijs, the latter's practice of takfir became the justification for their indiscriminate attacks on civilian Muslims; the more moderate Sunni view of takfir developed partly in response to this conflict.[citation needed]In the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods (roughly 661–800 CE), authorities "appear" to have defended Islam against apostasy "mostly" with "intellectual debates".[59]
During theMihna inquisition in theAbbasid Caliphate which was instituted by the rulingMu'tazilites, enemies of the Mu'tazila were considered heretics and disbelievers and were punished.[60] The Mihna lasted from 833 to 851 CE.[60]
In 922al-Husayn ibn Mansour al-Hallaj was killed on account of blasphemy.[61]
The celebrated Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammadal-Ghazālī (d. 1111) preached against the excessive takfīr among theologians.[62]
Maliki scholarQadi Ayyad (d. 1149) is said to have been the first scholar to call for the death penalty for "disseminating improprieties about Muḥammad or questioning his authority in all questions of faith and profane life" (according to Tilman Nagel), setting the pace for later scholars likeIbn Taymiyyah andTaj al-Din al-Subki (d.1355).[63]
In a study of 60 high-profile takfir cases in Egypt and Syria "tried before the qadis of the four Sunni schools of law" duringMamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). CE), historianAmalia Levanoni found "more than half" led to the execution of the accused. These individuals includedSufis,Rafidi, Shi'a, reverts from Islam, "alleged blasphemers and sorcerers, rebels, political rivals and others, with charges often being trumped up."[64](Executions became more common and political during times of unrest.)[65]
14th century scholarIbn Taymiyyah takfired a number of Muslims and Islamic groups—theMu'tazila,Shi'a Muslims,Sufis and the Sufi mystic,Ibn Arabi, etc. – he believed to have strayed from true Islam,[4] but he is perhaps best remembered for takfiring the Central Asian Mongols (Tartars) who had invaded the Middle East but also converted to Islam. In a fatwa he declared that Muslims should "combat ... those that place themselves outside the sharia", which the Mongols had done by continuing to follow their traditionalYasa law rather than sharia.[66] The fatwa was important because the Mongols continued to attack after their conversion and the fatwa gave legitimacy to the Mamluk Jihad against them by "rendering the Mongols apostate", not Muslims, and jihad against them obligatory.[67] "It is obligatory to fight them until they comply to all of the Sharia, even though they may utter theShahaadataayn" (i.e. the two declarations of faith – "There is no god except Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger").[68]
Living in a time when Islamic jurists tended towards docility in the face of injustice, Ibn Taymiyyah urged jihad against tyrants.[67]His fatwa created a precedent "for the declaration of takfir against a leader", (according to researcher Trevor Stanley),[67] and his fatwa was cited by at least one insurgent (Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj) as justification for killing Muslim leaders who did not follow sharia.[69]
Ibn Taymiyyah influenced/impressedIbn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350 AD) andMuhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792 AD), and all three "quoted frequently" by the media of the contemporary Takfiri group ISIS.[4]
18th century revivalistMuhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab cited Ibn Taymiyyah in his preaching and his followers slew many Muslims for allegedly kufr practices.[67] Wahhab alleged that many Muslim practices that had become mainstream traditions werebid'a (innovation of the religion) andshirk (polytheism), and consequently many self-professed Muslims were actually unbelievers.[67]
In the view of ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers (aka Wahhabis),
"shirk took many forms: the attribution to prophets, saints, astrologers, and soothsayers of knowledge of the unseen world, which only God possesses and can grant; the attribution of power to any being except God, including the power of intercession; reverence given in any way to any created thing, even to the tomb of the Prophet; such superstitious customs as belief in omens and in auspicious and inauspicious days; and swearing by the names of the Prophet, ʿAlī, the Shīʿī imams, or the saints.[70]
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's interpretation of Islam (akaWahhabism)became enormously influential throughout the Muslim world starting in the late 20th century, thanks in large part to the financial power of Saudi Arabia which spent tens of billions of dollars to propagate his movement.
Some killings or executions of apostates from the 19th century up to 1970 listed by Rudolph Peters and Gert J. J. De Vries include the strangling of a female apostate in Egypt sometime between 1825 and 1835, an Armenian youth beheaded for reverting to Christianity in 1843 in the Ottoman Empire. Moslems in Afghanistan who converted toAhmadiyyah condemned to be stoned in 1903 and 1925.[71]
According to Hussam S. Timani, both apostasy among Muslims and the number of Muslim groups "adopting the concept of takfir" have increased in recently (as of 2017). Timani states that Muslim scholars blame this on "the decline of Islamic values and the loss of solidarity among the people after centuries of colonialism and foreign domination".[72]
Takfir has become "a central ideology of militant groups" such as those in Egypt, "which reflect the ideas" ofSayyid Qutb,Abul A'la Maududi and others, according to the Oxford Islamic Studies Online website.[73] It is rejected by Islamic scholars and leaders such asHasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1977) andYusuf al-Qaradawi and by mainstream Muslims and Islamist groups.[12]
In his highly influential 1964 bookMilestones (Ma'alim fi al-Tariq),Sayyid Qutb embraced the principle of the fatwa of Ibn Taymiyyah that Muslims who do not follow Sharia are not really Muslims, and extended it to argue that Islam was not just in need of revival but had actually fallen back into a state ofpagan ignorance" known asjahiliyyah and been "extinct" for "a few centuries".[74] While he did not specifically takfir or call for the execution of those governing non-sharia governments (he wroteMilestones in prison), he emphasized that "the organizations and authorities" of the putatively Muslim countries were irredeemably corrupt and evil[75] and would have to be abolished by "physical power and Jihad",[75] by a "vanguard"[76] movement of true Muslims.[77]
Takfir has been used against theAhmadiyya, (a sect of self-described Muslims who believe themahdi of Islam has arrived in the form ofMirza Ghulam Ahmad (died 1908)) who many Muslims and Islamic scholars believe reject the doctrine ofKhatam an-Nabiyyin, i.e. the belief that Muhammad was the last and finalProphet and Messenger of God, after whom there can be no other Prophet or Messenger. In 1974 Pakistan amended its constitution to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims. In 1984, GeneralMuhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the then military ruler of Pakistan, issued Ordinance XX,[78][79] forbidding Ahmadis to call themselves Muslim. As a result, they are not allowed to profess the Islamic creed publicly or to call their places of worship mosques,[80] to worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer-rooms, to perform the Muslim call to prayer, to use the traditional Islamic greeting in public, to publicly quote from theQuran, to preach in public, to seek converts, or to produce, publish, and disseminate their religious materials.
Localulama (Islamic scholars) have declared takfir on another group in Pakistan, theZikri of Makran inBalochistan. The Zikri believe that SyedMuhammad Jaunpuri (born in 1443) was theMahdi (redeemer) of Islam. In 1978 the ulama founded a movement (Tehrik Khatm-e-Nabuat) to have the Pakistan state declare the Zikris as non-Muslims, like the Ahmadis.[81]
In 1981,President Anwar El Sadat was assassinated (along with six diplomats) by Islamists who had infiltrated a military parade he was reviewing.[82] While it was assumed by many (especially in the Western world) that the killers must have been motivated by anger over Sadat's making peace with Israel, a document found by police spelled out a different motivation.Al-Farida al-gha'iba (The Neglected Duty) byMuhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj the theorist of the group (Tanzim al-Jihad movement), proclaimed that jihad would enable Muslims to rule the world and to reestablish the caliphate,[83] but the document explained that the specific reason Sadat had to be killed was that his government (along with all Muslim majority country governments) did not rule according to sharia. Faraj cited as justification the fatwa ofIbn Taymiyyah (mentioned above) takfiring Mongols for not ruling by sharia -- "combat ... those that place themselves outside the sharia";[84] And also verse 5:44 of the Quran: "And whoever did not judge (yahkum) by what Allah revealed, those are the unbelievers" (later copied by Osama bin Laden).[84][85]
The case ofSalman Rushdie provides an example oftakfir that featured prominently in Western media. Rushdie went into hiding afterAyatollah Khomeini issued afatwa in 1989, officially declaring him akafir who should be executed for his bookThe Satanic Verses, which isperceived by many Muslims to contain passages that draw into question the basis of Islam. Similar cases have occurred in Egypt: for example,Nasr Abu Zayd was accused of apostasy following his work on Islamic sources, describing the Qur'an as a historical document.[86]
During theAlgerian Civil War of 1991–2002 theIslamist insurgent group the GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) under amir Antar Zouabri issued a manifesto in 1996 entitledThe Sharp Sword, presenting Algerian society as resistant to jihad and lamented that the majority of Algerians had "forsaken religion and renounced the battle against its enemies". Zouabri at first took care to deny that the GIA had ever declared takfir on Algerian society itself.[87] But during the month of Ramadan (January–February 1997) hundreds of civilians were killed in massacres,[88] some with their throats cut. The massacres continued for months and culminated in August and September when hundreds of men women and children were killed in the villages ofRais,Bentalha and Beni Messous. Pregnant women were sliced open, children were hacked to pieces or dashed against walls, men's limbs were hacked off one by one, and, as the attackers retreated, they would kidnap young women to keep as sex slaves.[89] The GIA issued a communiqué signed by Zouabri claiming responsibility for the massacres and justifying them—in contradiction to his manifesto—by declaring impious (takfir) all those Algerians who had not joined its ranks.[90] While the GIA had been the "undisputed principal Islamist force" in Algeria two years earlier,[91] the slaughters drained it of popular support and led to the end of "organized jihad" in Algeria.[90] (The issue became complicated by evidence that security forces cooperated with the killers in preventing civilians from escaping, and may even have controlled the GIA.[90])
Osama bin Laden takfired the government of Saudi Arabia, his home country, in his "Declaration of War" (part I, October 12, 1996), for example, declared the Saudi government apostate based on verse 5:44 of the Qur'an[92] because in his view the Saudi 'don't apply the Shari'a'[93][85]
TheIslamic State has been heavily criticized for applying takfir to Muslims who oppose its rule.[94] According to journalistGraeme Wood in mid-2015,
Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks.[95]
The tendency of the group to target Shia Muslims with suicide bombings is due to the fact that the group considers them apostates.[96]
Shiraz Maher specifies that the majorSalafi jihadist theorists likeAbu Hamza al-Masri,Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi,Omar Abdel-Rahman, andAbu Basir al-Tartusi ask to exercise caution while doing takfir, as declaring a Muslim unbeliever wrongly makes the one who accuses to himself get out of the religion of Islam and become an apostate himself.[7]
Theconstitution of Tunisia (passed after theTunisian Revolution of 2011), criminalized takfir by placing a ban onfatwas that promote takfir.[97]
But, added al-Ghazali, that applies only to Muslim apostates, and one commits apostasy only when one denies the essential dogmas: monotheism, Muhammad's prophecy, and the Last Judgment.
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, 'When a person calls his brother (in Islam) a disbeliever, one of them will certainly deserve the title. If the addressee is so as he has asserted, the disbelief of the man is confirmed, but if it is untrue, then it will revert to him.'
`Abd al-Wahhab was also fond of citing a precedent in which Abu Bakr reportedly burned so-called hypocrites to death ... most scholars in the Islamic tradition who studied the purported Abu Bakr precedent concluded that the claim that Abu Bakr accused people of hypocrisy who upheld the five pillars and fought them is without support or foundation.
Takfir[:] Pronouncement that someone is an unbeliever (kafir) and no longer Muslim. Takfir is used in the modern era for sanctioning violence against leaders of Islamic states who are deemed insufficiently religious. It has become a central ideology of militant groups such as those in Egypt, which reflect the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, Mawdudi, Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn Kathir. Mainstream Muslims and Islamist groups reject the concept as a doctrinal deviation.Leaders such as Hasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1977) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi reject takfir as un-Islamic and marked by bigotry and zealotry.
The Zikris, who form a large proportion of the population of Makran, are the followers of Syed Muhammad (b.1443) who they consider to be a Mahdi. ... In their drive to implement Shariat law the 'ulama founded the Tehrik Khatm-e-Nabuat ... in Balochistan in 1978. Their intention was to demand that the state should declare the Zikris to be non-Muslims, like the Ahmadis earlier.
'To establish the non-Islamic – hence, apostate - character of the Saudi regime, bin Ladin quotes the same verse that Faraj used against Sadat: "And whoever did not judge (yahkum) by what Allah revealed, those are the unbelievers"' (Q 5:44)
"...And those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are 'truly' the disbelievers." Dr. Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran
The Islamic State claims religious legitimacy for its actions. This is based on an extreme salafist/takfiri interpretation of Islam that essentially means that anyone who opposes its rule is by definition either an apostate (murtad) or an infidel (kafir). Although much of the Muslim Middle East is salafist, takfirism is widely considered a step too far, and the absolutism of The Islamic State has already attracted criticism, even from ideologues who support al Qaeda.
The Sunni jihadist group has frequently attacked security targets and Shia Muslims, whom it considers apostates.
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.
