MUSLIMS: DOCTRINESremained Muslims and there was hope that God would pardon them.
Such people held a concept of a community based more on self-as-
cription (public profession of faith) than on behavior.
The use of irja' to oppose revolt seems to have emerged at Basra in
association with the revolts of Ibn al-Ash'ath from 699 until 701 and
of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in 720. The irja' of al-I:Iasan al-Basri lay in
his refusal to support either of these rebels or the Commander of the
Faithful. When he was asked to join the revolt of Ibn al-Ash'ath, he
is said to have paraphrased Sura 7:87: "Have patience until God judges
and He is the best of judges."49 AI-I:Iasan is said to have only hated
the I:Iariiri's, but Ibrahim an-Nakha'i at Kufa said that he feared the
Murji'a more than the Azariqa because of their numbers and that he
hated the Murji'a even more than non-Muslims (Ar. ahl al-kitab).50
These different attitudes toward sin seem to come from the different
stands taken by Muslims on political issues in the late seventh and
early eighth centuries, and from the way they used Qur'anic principles
to justify those stands. The term irja' came from Sura 9:106, which
speaks of those who await God's decree, whether He will punish them
or forgi~e them. The declaration that "In whatsoever you differ, the
verdict therein belongs to God" (Sura 42: 10) was an original and
integral part of the program of the Khawarij. AI-I:Iasan al-Bal?ri's use
of Sura 7:87 is also important and needs to be put into its context.
This quotation comes from the dispute between Shu'ayb and the
Midianites, in which Shu'ayb tells them that "if there is a party of
you which believes in that with which I have been sent, and there is
a party of you which believes not, then have patience until God judges
between us. He is the best of all who deal in judgment."
However, this may have been a matter of Qur'anic justification for
the use of concepts already existing among local non-Muslims. Post-
poning judgment in order to justify accepting existing authority was
also known to Nestorians. The.Synod of Dadhisho' in 424 had es-
tablished that bishops had no right to take their complaints about
their patriarch to the western patriarchs. Everything that could not
be resolved in his presence was to be reserved for the judgment of
Christ.^51 The contrast between the militant exclusiveness of the Kha-
warij and the more tolerant attitude of irja' is paralleled by the situation
49Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VII(I), 119-20. For the same argument based on other ex-
amples, see Cook, Dogma, pp. 80-81.
so Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VI, 191-92; VII(I), 127.
SI Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 51,296.