MUSLIMS: DOCTRINESthe Qur'an, and fear of Hell. They said a prayer to exorcise evil spirits
before reciting the Qur'an and they gave the pagan Arab themes of
bravery and heroism an Islamic, ascetic expression in their poetry.14
They stood for fiscal justice for all Muslims in the division. of booty
and the payment of stipends and were the first to appeal to equality
between mawalt and Arab Muslims. The first band of non-Arab ma-
wait became Khawarij at Kufa when al-Mughira ibn Shu<ba was gov-
ernor (661-70) for Mu<awiya.^15 They were also the first to really
respect the dhimmt status of non-Muslims and to apply Qur'anic
requirements toward them. Although they had a scrupulous regard
for the rights of non-Muslims, they regarded Muslims who disagreed
with them as unbelievers. Both attitudes are excellently illustrated by
the famous story of how the Naji Khawarij dealt with two natives of
the Sawad whom they found near Niffar. One of them was a Persian
Muslim dihqan called Zadhanfarriikh. When he told them that he
approved of <Ali and regarded him as the Commander of the Faithful,
they killed him as an unbeliever (Ar. kafir). But when his companion
told them that he was a dhimmt, they let him go because, as they said,
they had "no pretext against him."16 Some Khawarij are said to have
regarded as equal to Muslims those Jews and Christians who would
testify to the oneness of God with the qualification that "Mul)ammad
is the messenger of God to the Arabs and not to US."17
In the process of justifying the assassination of 'Uthman, the Kha-
warij were responsible for beginning the post-Qur'anic development
of the Islamic doctrine of sin and of the question of the position of a
sinner in the Islamic community. They said that 'Uthman had sinned
by violating his oath to follow the practice (Ar. stra) of Mul)ammad,
Abii Bakr, and 'Umar,18 and by failing to apply the prescribed Qur'anic
punishment for drunkenness to al-Walid ibn 'Uqba, the governor of
Kufa from 645 until 64 7. To the proponents of the literal interpretation
and application of the Qur'an, that was a sufficient pretext to dis-
qualify 'Uthman from being the leader of the community. They also
considered 'Ali to be wrong in his failure to support them totally and
generalized this to include any Muslim who sinned, especially by dis-
14 Saiem, Khawarij, p. 37; A. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed (Cambridge, 1932), p.
38.
1S Saiem, Khawarij, p. 14; Ya'qiibi, Ta'rtkh, Il, 262.
16 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I, 3423. This phrase seems to echo Qur'an, 4:90.
17 G. Levi Della Vida, "KhariQiites," EI(l), Il, 907; Saiem, Khawarij, p. 40.
18 Bravmann, Spiritual Background, pp. 125-28.