View source for Takfiri

{{short description|Term describing Muslims who engage in excommunication}}
{{italic title}}
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'''''Takfiri'''''{{hairspace}}{{efn|{{langx|ar|تَكْفِيرِيّ|takfīriyy|lit=[[Excommunication]]al}}}} is an [[Arabic language|Arabic]] and [[Glossary of Islam|Islamic term]] denoting a [[Muslim]] who excommunicates one of their coreligionists—i.e., who accuses another Muslim of [[Apostasy in Islam|being an apostate]], or {{Transliteration|ar|murtadd}}, 'one who turns back'.{{r|EoI|EoQ-Quran|Poljarevic 2021|FAS-2009}}

According to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law (''[[Sharia]]''), the punishment for apostasy is [[Capital punishment in Islam|death]].<ref name="Poljarevic 2021" /> Potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community (''[[ummah]]''),<ref name="Jo">Karawan, Ibrahim A. (1995). "Takfīr". In John L. Esposito. ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> an ill-founded accusation of ''[[takfir]]'' is considered a major forbidden act (''[[haram]]'') in [[Fiqh|Islamic jurisprudence]],<ref name="contend">{{cite book |last1=Moghadam |first1=Assaf |editor1= Michael E. Brown |editor2=Owen R. Coté Jr. |editor3=Sean M. Lynn-Jones |editor4=Steven E. Miller |title=Contending with Terrorism: Roots, Strategies, and Responses |date=2010 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts, US |isbn=9780262514644 |at=pp. 57–91; see p. 83 |language=en |chapter=Motives for Martyrdom: Al-Qaida, Salafi Jihad, and the spread of suicide attacks |oclc=648759765}}</ref> with one ''[[hadith]]'' declaring that one who wrongly declares another Muslim to be an unbeliever is themself an apostate.<ref name="maher-2016">{{cite book |last1=Maher |first1=Shiraz |author1-link=Shiraz Maher |title=Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0190651121 |title-link=Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea|page=75}}</ref> ''Takfirism'' has been called a "minority ideology" that "advocates the killing of other Muslims declared to be [[Infidel|unbelievers]]."<ref name="Badar-radical-2007">{{cite journal |last1=Badara |first1=Mohamed |last2=Nagata |first2=Masaki |last3=Tueni |first3=Tiphanie |date=June 2017 |title=The Radical Application of the Islamist Concept of ''Takfir'' |url=https://www.geopoldia.org/images/bedas-tueni2.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Arab Law Quarterly]] |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=134–162 |doi=10.1163/15730255-31020044 |issn=1573-0255 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190711093513/https://www.geopoldia.org/images/bedas-tueni2.pdf |archive-date=11 July 2019 |access-date=25 October 2021}}</ref>

The accusation itself, ''takfīr'', is derived from the Arabic word ''[[kafir]]'' ('unbeliever') and described as when "one who is a Muslim is declared impure".{{sfn|Kepel|2002|p=31}} In principle, in mainstream [[Sunni Islam]], the only group authorized to declare another Muslim a ''kāfir'' are the scholars of Islam (''[[ulama]]''); this is done only if all the prescribed legal precautions have been taken.{{sfn|Kepel|2002|p=31}} Traditionally, the declaration of ''takfīr'' was used against self-professed Muslims who denied one or more of the [[five pillars of Islam]]. Throughout the [[history of Islam]], Islamic denominations and movements, such as [[Shia Islam]] and [[Ahmadiyya]] Islam, have been accused of ''takfīr'' and labeled as ''kuffār'' ('unbelievers') by Sunni leaders, becoming victims of [[religious discrimination]], [[religious violence]], and [[religious persecution]].<ref name="Poljarevic 2021"/><ref name="Badar-radical-2007"/><ref name="Baele 2019">{{cite journal |author-last=Baele |author-first=Stephane J. |date=October 2019 |title=Conspiratorial Narratives in Violent Political Actors' Language |url=https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/10871/37355/2/ConspiratorialNarratives_MainArticle_Resubmit_FINAL_CLEAN%20.pdf |editor-last=Giles |editor-first=Howard |journal=[[Journal of Language and Social Psychology]] |publisher=Sage Publications |volume=38 |issue=5–6 |pages=706–734 |doi=10.1177/0261927X19868494 |doi-access=free |hdl=10871/37355 |hdl-access=free |issn=1552-6526 |s2cid=195448888 |access-date=3 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Rickenbacher 2019">{{cite journal |last=Rickenbacher |first=Daniel |date=August 2019 |title=The Centrality of Anti-Semitism in the Islamic State's Ideology and Its Connection to Anti-Shiism |editor-last=Jikeli |editor-first=Gunther |journal=[[Religions (journal)|Religions]] |location=Basel, Switzerland |publisher=MDPI |volume=10 |issue=8: "The Return of Religious Antisemitism?" |page=483 |doi=10.3390/rel10080483 |doi-access=free |issn=2077-1444}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last=Ghasemi |first=Faezeh |date=2020 |title=Anti-Shiism Discourse |publisher=[[University of Tehran]] |type=PhD |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342697889}}<br />{{bullet}}{{cite journal |first=Faezeh |last=Ghasemi |title=Anti-Shiite and Anti-Iranian Discourses in ISIS Texts |journal=Discourse |volume=11 |issue=3 |date=2017 |pages=75–96 |url=https://www.magiran.com/paper/1713990}}<br />{{bullet}}{{cite web |first=Toby |last=Matthiesen |title=The Islamic State Exploits Entrenched Anti-Shia Incitement |date=21 July 2015 |work=Sada |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/?fa=60799&lang=en}}</ref><ref name="Uddin 2014">{{cite book |author-last=Uddin |author-first=Asma T. |year=2014 |chapter=A Legal Analysis of Ahmadi Persecution in Pakistan |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k9TVCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA81 |editor-last=Kirkham |editor-first=David M. |title=State Responses to Minority Religions |location=Farnham, UK and Burlington, Vermont |publisher=Ashgate Publishing/Routledge |series=Ashgate Inform Series on Minority Religions and Spiritual Movements |pages=81–98 |isbn=978-1-4724-1647-6 |lccn=2013019344}}</ref> The term ''Takfiri'' has also been pejoratively deployed by [[Shia jihadism|Shia jihadist]] groups to demonise and justify violence against Sunnis.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Siegel |first=Alexandra |date=December 2015 |title=Sectarian Twitter Wars: Sunni-Shia Conflict and Cooperation in the Digital Age |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_262_Siegel_Sectarian_Twitter_Wars_.pdf |page=6 |website=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace |archive-date=3 May 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230503231059/https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_262_Siegel_Sectarian_Twitter_Wars_.pdf}}</ref>{{r|zekub-vocab-2014}}

In the history of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as the [[Kharijites]] carried out ''takfīr'' against both Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims, becoming a dominant source of intra-Islamic insurrection against [[Political aspects of Islam#Early Caliphate and political ideals|caliphates]] for centuries.<ref name="Izutsu 2006">{{cite book |last=Izutsu |first=Toshihiko |author-link=Toshihiko Izutsu |year=2006 |orig-date=1965 |title=The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology: A Semantic Analysis of Imān and Islām |chapter=The Infidel (''Kāfir''): The Khārijites and the origin of the problem |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PDxHG5MtLawC&pg=PA1 |location=[[Tokyo]] |publisher=Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies at [[Keio University]] |pages=1–20 |isbn=9839154702}}</ref> Since the latter half of the 20th century, ''takfīr'' has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders of [[Islamic state]]s"<ref name="OISO"/> who do not enforce [[Sharia]] or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".<ref name="Nedza 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Nedza |author-first=Justyna |year=2016 |chapter=The Sum of Its Parts: The State as Apostate in Contemporary Saudi Militant Islamism |editor1-last=Adang |editor1-first=Camilla |editor2-last=Ansari |editor2-first=Hassan |editor3-last=Fierro |editor3-first=Maribel |editor4-last=Schmidtke |editor4-first=Sabine |editor4-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |series=Islamic History and Civilization |volume=123 |doi=10.1163/9789004307834_013 |pages=304–326 |isbn=978-9004307834 |issn=0929-2403}}</ref> This arbitrary application of ''takfīr'' has become a "central [[ideology]]"<ref name="OISO">{{cite web |title=Takfiri |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117234531/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 17, 2013 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=18 December 2020}}</ref> of insurgent [[Wahhabi]]-[[Salafi jihadist]] extremist and terrorist groups,<ref name="Baele 2019"/><ref name="Badara 2017">{{cite journal |last1=Badara |first1=Mohamed |last2=Nagata |first2=Masaki |date=November 2017 |title=Modern Extremist Groups and the Division of the World: A Critique from an Islamic Perspective |journal=[[Arab Law Quarterly]] |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=31 |issue=4 |doi=10.1163/15730255-12314024 |doi-access=free |issn=1573-0255 |pages=305–335}}</ref><ref name="Jalal 2009">{{cite book |last=Jalal |first=Ayesha |author-link=Ayesha Jalal |year=2009 |chapter=Islam Subverted? Jihad as Terrorism |title=Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=239–240 |doi=10.4159/9780674039070-007 |isbn=978-0674039070 |s2cid=152941120}}</ref>{{sfn|Oliveti|2002}} particularly [[al-Qaeda]] and [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]] (ISIL),{{r|Poljarevic 2021|Baele 2019|Badara 2017}}<ref name="JulieRajan 2015">{{cite book |author-last=Julie Rajan |author-first=V. G. |year=2015 |chapter=Islamism, Al Qaeda, and ''Takfir'' |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pz5yBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 |title=Al Qaeda's Global Crisis: The Islamic State, Takfir, and the Genocide of Muslims |location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |series=Contemporary Terrorism Studies |pages=44–102 |isbn=978-1138221802 |lccn=2014031954}}</ref> which have drawn on the ideas of the [[medieval Islamic]] scholars [[Ibn Taymiyyah]] and [[Ibn Kathir]], and those of the modern Islamist ideologues [[Sayyid Qutb]] and [[Abul A'la Maududi]].{{r|Baele 2019|Badara 2017|Jalal 2009}} The practice of ''takfīr'' has been denounced as deviant by mainstream [[Islamic schools and branches|branches of Islam]] and Muslim scholars, such as [[Hasan al-Hudaybi]] (died 1977) and [[Yusuf al-Qaradawi]].<ref name="OISO"/>

==Issues and criticisms==
{{see also|Shia–Sunni relations|Sufi–Salafi relations|Capital punishment in Islam}}
Traditionally, Muslims have agreed that someone born a [[Muslim]] or converting to Islam who rejects the faith is deserving of [[capital punishment]],{{r|Poljarevic 2021}} 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]]'').<ref name="Lewis-229">{{cite book |last1=Lewis|first1=Bernard|title=The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years |date=1995 |publisher=Touchstone |isbn=978-0684832807 |page=229}}</ref>

Generally, Muslims agree that the declaration of ''takfīr'' 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 of apostasy.<ref name="Badar-radical-2007"/> There is also a belief shared by various Muslim scholars which assert that the practice of ''takfīr'' may be dangerous for the entire Muslim community (''[[ummah]]'');<ref name="Jo"/> they believe that if ''takfīr'' is "used wrongly or unrestrainedly", retaliation could lead down a slippery slope of "discord and sedition" to mutual excommunication and "complete disaster".{{sfn|Kepel|2002|p=31}} The Sunnī Islamist [[militant]] group and [[Salafi-jihadist]] terrorist organization ISIL ({{aka}} ISIS; IS; Daesh), for example, have declared ''takfīr'' not only upon Shīʿa Muslims and Sufi Muslims but also against rival insurgent Islamist groups (although they are also Salafi-jihadists) and all those who oppose its [[Slavery in Islam|policy of enslaving]] and [[Shia genocide|killing Shīʿa Muslims]] and non-Muslim religious minorities, [[Genocide of Christians by the Islamic State|particularly Christians]] and [[Genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State|Yazidis]].{{r|Poljarevic 2021|Baele 2019|Rickenbacher 2019|Badara 2017|what-isis-really-wants}}

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 the [[Ahmadiyya]] Muslim community—who are accused of denying the basic tenet of [[Prophethood (Ahmadiyya)|the Finality of Prophethood]]—the [[Ahmadiyya in Pakistan#After the creation of Pakistan and creation of Rabwah (Chanab Nagar)|Islamic Republic of Pakistan]] declares in [[Ordinance XX]] of the [[Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan|Second Amendment to its Constitution]], that Ahmadi Muslims are non-Muslims and deprives them of religious rights.<ref name="Uddin 2014"/><ref name="law.harvard.edu">[http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/khan.shtml "Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: An Analysis Under International Law and International Relations"]. ''Harvard Human Rights Journal'', vol. 16, September 2003. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090917163148/http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/khan.shtml|date=17 September 2009}}

* [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4317998.stm "Eight die in Pakistan sect attack"]. ''BBC News''. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4317998.stm]
* [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4131624.stm "Sect offices closed in Pakistan"]. ''BBC News''. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4131624.stm]</ref> All religious seminaries and ''[[madrasa]]s'' in Pakistan belonging to [[Islamic schools and branches|different sects of Islam]] have prescribed essential reading materials specifically targeted at refuting Ahmadiyya beliefs.<ref name="uoit.ca">Rahman, Tariq: [http://uoit.ca/sas/Articles/DAW.pdf "Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Survey of the Education System of Pakistan"]. ''Contemporary South Asia''. 2004. p. 15. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070616161323/http://uoit.ca/sas/Articles/DAW.pdf |date=16 June 2007 }}</ref> Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the [[Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan|political and religious persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan]] has sparked several large riots (the [[1953 Lahore riots]] and the [[1974 Anti-Ahmadiyya riots]]) and bombings (the [[2010 Ahmadiyya mosques massacre]]) which have targeted and killed hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims in the country.<ref name="Uddin 2014"/><ref name="law.harvard.edu"/>

==Modern political uses==
The importance of ''takfir'' in [[Political aspects of Islam|modern Islamic political thought]], insurgent [[Islamist]] groups, and [[Islamic terrorism|religiously-motivated terrorist attacks]] on civilians is underscored by the fact that as of 2017 (according to [[Anthony Cordesman]] and the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]] [CSIS]), "the overwhelming majority" of violent terrorist attacks had occurred in [[Muslim-majority countries]] and the [[Sectarian violence among Muslims|"primary victims" of these attacks were Muslims]].<ref>{{cite book |last1= Cordesman |first1=Anthony |date=2017 |title=Islam and the patterns in terrorism and violent extremism |publisher=Center for strategic and International Studies (CSIS) |url=https://www.csis.org/analysis/islam-and-patterns-terrorism-and-violent-extremism }}</ref>

Studying the largest [[Arab world|Arab]] country, [[Egypt]], Elie Podeh distinguishes between three groups: conservative Islamists, "[[jihadi]]" Muslims, and ''takfiri''. All three see the government and society sadly lacking in piety and in need of Islamification and restoration of ''Sharia'' law. Conservative Islamists do not support armed struggle against the secular government, whereas jihadist and takfiri groups do, and invoke the concepts of ''[[jahiliyya]]'' (regression of Muslims to pre-Islamic ignorance), ''al-hakimiyya'' (God's sovereignty), and ''al-takfir''. However, according to Podeh's formulation, takfiri [[Islamic extremism|groups are more extreme]], and regard not just some Muslims but the whole of Egyptian society as ''[[kafir]]'', 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Podeh |first1=Ellie |editor1=Bruce Maddy-Weitzman |editor2=Efraim Inbar |title=Religious Radicalism in the Greater Middle East |date= 2013 |publisher=Routledge |location=London; New York |isbn=978-0-7146-4769-2 |pages=43–61 |chapter=Egypt's Struggle against the Militant Islamic Groups |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CaYh0CVcoh8C&dq=takfiri&pg=PT48 }}</ref>

Some [[political scientist]]s and [[scholar]]s of [[Middle Eastern studies]] (such as Jacob Zenna, Zacharias Pier,{{sfn|Zenna|Pierib|2017|p=288}} and Dale Eikmeier)<ref name="(Eikmeier 2007: 89)">{{cite journal |last1=Eikmeier |first1=Dale |date=Spring 2007 |title=Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-fascism |journal=Parameters: U.S. Army War College Journal| page=89 |url=https://www.academia.edu/7384358 |access-date=10 March 2021}}</ref> argue that the accusation of ''takfir'' may serve as a sort of ingenious "legal [[loophole]]" for Islamist insurgents, allowing them to bypass the ''Sharia'' 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 enforcing ''Sharia'' is the insurgents ''[[wikt:raison d'être|raison d'être]]'', the prohibition against killing [[Muslims]] is a major impediment against taking power. But if the enemy can be made to be not Muslims but unbelievers claiming to be Muslims, the prohibition is turned into a religious [[obligation]].{{sfn|Zenna|Pierib|2017|p=288}}

Takfiris have also been classified by some scholars as violent offshoots of the [[Salafi movement]]. Although most Salafis oppose terrorism or violence within the Muslim community (''ummah''),{{sfn|Oliveti|2002|p=45}} Takfiris condone acts of violence as legitimate methods of achieving religious or political goals. [[Middle East]] expert [[Robert Baer]] has written that:<ref>{{cite book|last=Baer|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Baer|year=2008|title=The Devil We Know|publisher=Crown|location=New York|isbn=978-0307408648}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text={{nbsp}}... ''takfiri'' generally refers to a Wahabi Salafi who looks at the world in black-and-white; there are true believers and then there are nonbelievers, with no shades in between. A ''takfiri''{{'}}s mission is to re-create the [[Caliphate]] according to a [[Quranic literalism|literal interpretation]] of the Qur'an.}}

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 therefore apostate; this view closely mirrors [[Qutbism|Qutb's views]] on what he perceived as ''[[jahiliyyah]]'' in the [[Muslim world]]. As such, violence against such regimes is considered legitimate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Esposito |first1=John L. |title=Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam |date=2010 |orig-date=First published 2002, Oxford University Press |publisher=International Islamic Publishing House |location=Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |isbn=978-603-501-052-8 |pages=58–61 |url=https://archive.org/details/unholywarterrori0000espo_q7j9/page/58/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}</ref>

The term ''takfiri'' was brought to greater public prominence by the [[BBC]] investigative journalist [[Peter Taylor (journalist)|Peter Taylor]] in his 2005 [[BBC Television]] series ''The New Al Qaeda''.<ref>{{cite news |title=The New Al-Qaeda: Madrid bombings |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/4697707.stm |work=BBC News |date=21 July 2005}}</ref>

===Suicide===
{{broader|Islamic views on sin}}
Takfiri [[Religious views of suicide|views on suicide]] also differ significantly from those of [[Religious views of suicide#Islam|orthodox Muslims]]. In mainstream [[Islam]], suicide is considered a major sin, but Takfiris believe that one who deliberately kills himself whilst attempting to kill a religious enemy [[Martyrdom in Islam|is a martyr]] (''[[shahid]]'') and therefore goes straight to [[Jannah]] (paradise) without having to wait for the [[Judgement Day in Islam|Day of Judgement]]. According to this doctrine, all sins of the martyrs are absolved when they die in martyrdom, allowing ''[[carte blanche]]'' for the indiscriminate killing of [[civilian]]s and [[non-combatant]]s.{{sfn|Oliveti|2002|pp=47–48}}

==Historical background==
{{further|Apostasy in Islam}}
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"<ref name="Lewis-229"/> 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 the [[createdness of the Quran]], to translate the Quran, ... to pay respect to non-Muslims, to celebrate [[Nowruz]] the Iranian New Year", would make a Muslim an unbeliever.<ref name=shaykhzadeh>Shaykhzadeh, ''Madjma' al-anhur'' (1, pp. 629–637); cited in {{cite journal|last1=Peters |first1=Rudolph |last2=Vries |first2=Gert J. J. De |title=Apostasy in Islam |journal=Die Welt des Islams |year=1976 |volume=17 |issue=1/4 |pages=1–25 |doi= 10.2307/1570336 |jstor=1570336}}</ref> Nonetheless, those accused of apostasy were usually left "unmolested",<ref name="Lewis-229"/> and in general executions for apostasy were "rare in Islamic history",<ref name="ELLIOTT-3-26-2006">{{cite news|last1=Elliott|first1=Andrea|title=In Kabul, a Test for Shariah |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/weekinreview/26elliott.html|access-date=28 November 2015 |work=The New York Times|date=26 March 2006 |url-status=live |archive-date=11 January 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160111010040/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/weekinreview/26elliott.html?_r=0}}</ref> unless the violation was "extreme, persistent and aggressive".<ref name="Lewis-229"/>

According to researcher Trevor Stanley, the precedent "for the declaration of takfir against a leader" came from the medieval Islamic scholar [[Ibn Taymiyya|Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah]] (1263–1328 CE), who supported the [[Mamluks]] in their jihad against the [[Mamluk#Mamluks and the Mongols|invading Central Asian Mongols]]. After the Mongols converted to Islam, another cause was sought for the jihad against them. In his famous [[fatwa]], Ibn Taymiyyah reasoned that since the Mongols followed their traditional [[Yassa]] law rather than Sharia (Islamic law), they were not really Muslims,<ref name=PWHCE>{{cite web|last=Stanley |first= Trevor|title=Kufr – Kaffir – Takfir – Takfiri|url= https://www.pwhce.org/takfiri.html|website=Perspectives on World History and Current Events|access-date=30 Dec 2013}}</ref> and since non-Muslims who called themselves Muslims were [[apostate]]s, 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."<ref name="Adang-2015-14">{{cite book |author1-last=Ansari |author1-first=Hassan |author2-last=Fierro |author2-first=Maribel |author3-last=Schmidtke |author3-first=Sabine |author3-link=Sabine Schmidtke |year=2016 |chapter=Introduction |editor1-last=Adang |editor1-first=Camilla |editor2-last=Ansari |editor2-first=Hassan |editor3-last=Fierro |editor3-first=Maribel |editor4-last=Schmidtke |editor4-first=Sabine |title=Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |series=Islamic History and Civilization |volume=123 |doi=10.1163/9789004307834_002 |pages=1–24 |isbn=978-9004307834 |issn=0929-2403}}</ref>

From the 19th century onwards, liberal, modernist, or reformist Muslims have complained that this capital punishment is a violation of the principle of [[no compulsion in religion]], and only those guilty of treason should be executed. Revivalist and conservative Muslims see the capital punishment as a matter of obedience to the [[Sharia|Islamic law]] (''sharīʿa'') and protection of the faith. Since the 20th century, capital punishment is seldom applied by the state in [[Muslim-majority countries]]; instead, it is frequently carried out by "vigilantes" who believe that they are executing their "individual duty".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Deringil |first1=Selim |title='There Is No Compulsion in Religion': On Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire: 1839-1856 |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |date=2000 |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=547–575 |doi=10.1017/S0010417500002930 |jstor=2696645 |issn=0010-4175}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Al-Rahim |first1=Ahmed H |title=Islam and Liberty |journal=Journal of Democracy |date=January 2006 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=166–169 |doi=10.1353/jod.2006.0002}}</ref>

=== Kharijites ===
{{Main|Khawarij}}

[[Islamic extremism]] dates back to the [[early history of Islam]] with the emergence of the [[Kharijites]] in the 7th century CE.<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/> The original schism between [[Kharijites]], [[Sunni Islam|Sunnis]], and [[Shia Islam|Shiʿas]] among [[Muslims]] was disputed over the [[Succession to Muhammad|political and religious succession]] to the guidance of the Muslim community (''ummah'') after the death of the [[Islamic prophet]] [[Muhammad]].<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/> From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims.<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/> Shiʿas believe [[Ali ibn Abi Talib]] is the true successor to Muhammad, while Sunnis consider [[Abu Bakr]] to hold that position. The Kharijites broke away from both the Shiʿas and the Sunnis during the [[First Fitna]] (the first Islamic Civil War);<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/> they were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to ''takfīr'' (excommunication), whereby they declared both Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims to be either [[Kafir|infidels]] (''kuffār'') or [[Munafiq|false Muslims]] (''munāfiḳūn''), and therefore deemed them [[Capital punishment in Islam|worthy of death]] for their perceived apostasy.<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/another-battle-with-islams-true-believers/article20802390/|title=Another battle with Islam's 'true believers'|last=Khan|first=Sheema|date=12 May 2018|website=The Globe and Mail|publisher=The Globe and Mail Opinion|access-date=19 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/the-balance-of-islam-in-challenging-extremism.pdf|title=The Balance of Islam in Challenging Extremism|last=Hasan|first=Usama|date=2012|website=Quiliam Foundation|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140802045255/http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/the-balance-of-islam-in-challenging-extremism.pdf|archive-date=2 August 2014|access-date=2015-11-17}}</ref>

The Islamic tradition traces the origin of the Kharijities to the [[Battle of Siffin|battle 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" ({{lang|ar|لاَ حُكْم إلَا لِلّهِ}}) became the slogan of these secessionists.<ref name="Izutsu 2006"/> They also called themselves ''al-Shurat'' ('the Vendors'), to reflect their willingness to sell their lives in [[Martyrdom in Islam|martyrdom]].<ref name="brown 2017">{{Cite book|last=Brown|first=Daniel|title=A New Introduction to Islam|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|year=2017|isbn=978-1118953464|edition=3rd|location=Oxford|pages=163–169}}</ref>

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 the [[Umayyad]]s, but only became a movement to be reckoned with during the [[Second 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.{{r|brown 2017}}

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 moderate [[Ibadi Islam|Ibadi]] Kharijites were longer-lived, continuing to wield political power in North and East Africa and in eastern Arabia during the [[Abbasid Caliphate|'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.
* First, they were principled egalitarians, holding that any pious Muslim ("even an [[History of slavery in the Muslim world|Ethiopian slave]]") can become Caliph and that family or tribal affiliation is inconsequential. The only requirements for leadership are piety and acceptance by the community.
* Second, they agreed that it is the duty of the believers to depose any leader who falls into error. This second principle had profound implications for Kharijite theology. Applying these ideas to the early history of the caliphate, Kharijites only accept Abu Bakr and 'Umar as legitimate caliphs. Of 'Uthman's caliphate they recognize only the first six years as legitimate, and they reject 'Ali altogether.

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 the [[Early Muslim conquests|Islamic 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.{{r|brown 2017}} The Ibadis are the only Kharijite group to survive into modern times.

=== Colonial era and after ===
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 to ''Sharia'') abolished as a crime punishable by death in state statutes of law<ref name=peters-apostasy-24>{{cite journal|last1=Peters |first1=Rudolph |last2=Vries |first2=Gert J. J. De |title=Apostasy in Islam |journal=Die Welt des Islams |year=1976 |volume=17 |issue=1/4 |page=24 |doi= 10.2307/1570336 |jstor=1570336}}</ref> (the West also encouraged establishing laws giving equal rights to women and non-Muslims in violation of ''Sharia''). 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.<ref>'Abd al-Qadir 'Awdah, ''al-tashri al-djina'i al-Islam muqaran bi-al-qanun al-wadi'', Bayrut: Dar al-Kitab al-'Arabi, n.d. 2 volumes; v. 1, pp. 535–538; quoted in {{cite journal|last1=Peters |first1=Rudolph |last2=Vries |first2=Gert J. J. De |title=Apostasy in Islam |journal=Die Welt des Islams |year=1976 |volume=17 |issue=1/4 |page=17 |doi= 10.2307/1570336 |jstor=1570336}}</ref>

====Sayyid Qutb====
{{Main|Sayyid Qutb}}

[[Sayyid Qutb]] could be said to have founded the actual movement of radical Islam.<ref name="Moussalli 2012">{{cite book |author-last=Moussalli |author-first=Ahmad S. |year=2012 |chapter=Sayyid Qutb: Founder of Radical Islamic Political Ideology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D-LfCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 |editor-last=Akbarzadeh |editor-first=Shahram |title=Routledge Handbook of Political Islam |location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |edition=1st |pages=9–26 |isbn=978-1138577824 |lccn=2011025970}}</ref><ref name="Cook 2015">{{cite book |last=Cook |first=David |author-link=David Cook (historian) |year=2015 |orig-date=2005 |chapter=Radical Islam and Contemporary Jihad Theory |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqE2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 |title=Understanding Jihad |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |edition=2nd |pages=102–110 |isbn=978-0520287327 |jstor=10.1525/j.ctv1xxt55.10 |lccn=2015010201}}</ref> Unlike the other Islamic thinkers that have been mentioned above, Qutb was not an [[Apologetics|apologist]].{{r|Cook 2015}} He was a prominent leader of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and a highly influential Islamist ideologue,{{r|Moussalli 2012|Cook 2015}} and the first to articulate these anathemizing principles in his magnum opus ''Fī ẓilāl al-Qurʾān'' (''In the shade of the Qurʾān'') and his 1966 manifesto ''Maʿālim fīl-ṭarīq'' (''[[Milestones (book)|Milestones]]''), which lead to his execution by the Egyptian government.<ref name="Cook 2015"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Haddad |first=Gibril Fouad |date=Winter 2017 |title=Quietism and End-time Reclusion in the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth: Al-Nābulusī and His Book Takmīl al-Nuʿūt within the ʿuzla Genre |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages= 91–124 |issn= 1929-9435 |journal= Islamic Sciences |url= https://www.academia.edu/37991326}}</ref> Other Salafi movements in the [[Middle East and North Africa]] and across the [[Muslim world]] adopted many of his Islamist principles.{{r|Moussalli 2012|Cook 2015}} According to Qutb, the Muslim community has been extinct for several centuries and reverted to ''[[jahiliyah]]'' (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance) because those who call themselves Muslims have failed to follow the [[Sharia|''Sharia'' law]].{{r|Moussalli 2012|Cook 2015}} In order to [[Islamic revival|restore 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 for ''[[jihad]]'' against what he perceived as ''jahili'' government and society, and overthrow them.{{r|Moussalli 2012|Cook 2015}} [[Qutbism]], the radical Islamist ideology derived from the ideas of Qutb,{{r|Moussalli 2012}} was denounced by many prominent Muslim scholars as well as other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, like [[Yusuf al-Qaradawi]].

==Late 20th and early 21st century==
===Qutb and insurgents===
By the mid 1990s, one list of Qutb-inspired groups included ''[[Egyptian Islamic Jihad|al-Jihaad al-Islami]], [[Takfir wal-Hijra]], Jund Allah, al-Jihaad, Tanzim al-Faniyyah al-Askariyyah''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moussalli |first1=Ahmad S. |title=Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: the Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb |date=1992 |publisher=American University of Beirut |location=Beirut, Lebanon|url=https://archive.org/details/radicalislamicfu0000unse/page/244/mode/2up |page=244 |url-access=registration }}</ref>{{efn|''Al-Jihaad al-Islami''; ''Jama'a al Jihaad''; and ''al-Takfir wa al-Hijrah'' were Egyptian terrorist groups. There was a ''Jund Allah'' in Egypt<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ruthven |first1=Malise |title=Islam in the world |date=1984 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth, UK |isbn=978-0-14-022356-9 |page=315 |url-access= registration |url= https://archive.org/details/islaminworld0000ruth_b6b0/page/314/mode/2up}}</ref> and in Lebanon.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sivan |first1=Emmanuel |title=Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics |date=1985 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticutt, US |isbn=978-0-300-03263-5 |page=85}}</ref>}}

While Qutb declared that the Islamic world had "long ago vanished from existence"{{sfn|Qutb|1964|p=167}} and that true Muslims would have to confront "arrogant, mischievous, criminal and degraded people" in the struggle to restore Islam,{{sfn|Qutb|1964|p=25}} he had not specifically stated that the self-professed Muslim "authorities of the ''jahili'' system" were apostates (or whether they should all be killed).{{sfn|Kepel|2002|p=31}}

[[Ayman al-Zawahiri]], "jihad's main ideologist," (originally of ''al-Jihaad al-Islami'' aka [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]]), and the leader of [[al-Qaeda]] from 2011 until his death in 2022, paid homage to Qutb in his book ''Knights under the Prophet's Banner'' (2001).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kepel |first1=Gilles |translator=Pascale Ghazaleh |title=The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West |date=2004 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts, US; London |isbn=978-0-674-01575-3 |pages=74, 79, 98}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sageman |first1=Marc |title=Understanding terror networks |date=2004 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia, US |isbn=978-0-8122-3808-2 |page=63}}</ref> Al Qaeda is commonly described as seeking to overthrow the "apostate" regimes in the Middle East and replace them with "true" Islamic governments,<ref name="Byman-2015">{{cite web |last1=Byman |first1=Daniel L. |title=Comparing Al Qaeda and ISIS: Different goals, different targets |url=https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/comparing-al-qaeda-and-isis-different-goals-different-targets/ |website=Brookings Institution |access-date=18 December 2020 |date=29 April 2015}}</ref><ref name="words 2008">{{cite book |editor-last1=Kepel |editor-first1=Gilles |editor-last2=Milelli |editor-first2=Jean-Pierre |last1= Lacroix |first1=Stéphane |translator=Pascale Ghazaleh |title=Al Qaeda in Its Own Words |date=2008 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |at=pp. 147–170; see p. [https://archive.org/details/al-qaeda-in-its-own-words-gilles-kepel-jean-pierre-milelli/page/154/mode/2up 155] |isbn=978-0674028043 |url= https://archive.org/details/al-qaeda-in-its-own-words-gilles-kepel-jean-pierre-milelli/page/n13/mode/2up |access-date=18 December 2020|chapter=Introduction to Part III: Ayman al-Zawahiri, Veteran of Jihad}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=CabsOugrUIgC&dq=kepel+apostate+regime&pg=PA155 Via] – Google Books.</ref> and having a "habit" of denouncing Muslims who did not "accept a narrow interpretation" of Sunni Islam as "non-believers and legitimate targets".<ref name="FAS-2009"/>

Shukri Mustaf, founder of ''[[Jama'at al-Muslimin]]'' (known to the public as ''Takfir wal-Hijra'') had been in prison with Qutb and was a disciple of his.{{r|pbs FL}}

The Takfir of [[Islamic State]] may be more [[Ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant#Wahhabi|rooted in Wahhabism]] and [[Ibn 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'".<ref name="daesh-2016-102">{{cite book |last1=al-Qarawee |first1=Harith Hasan |editor1-last=Giusto |editor1-first=Hedwig |title=Daesh and the terrorist threat: from the Middle East to Europe |date=2016 |publisher=FEPS – Foundation for European Progressive Studies |location=Belgium |page=102 |url=https://wb-iisg.com/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/4850/Daesh-and-the-Terrorist-Threat_2016-daguzan-feps-islamic-terrorism.pdf |access-date=20 December 2020 |chapter=The Media, Methods and Messages of the Islamic State's Communication Strategy}}</ref> Iranian Shia researcher [[Jamileh Kadivar]] writes that the "roots" of ISIL's "takfiri" ideology "can be found in the Khawarij's view, and in the writings of [[Ibn Taymiyyah]], [[Ibn Abd al-Wahhab]], and [[Sayyid Qutb]]."<ref name="Kadivar-2020">{{cite journal |last1=Kadivar |first1=Jamileh |date=May 18, 2020 |title=Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh's Media |journal=Contemporary Review of the Middle East |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=259–285 |doi=10.1177/2347798920921706 |s2cid=219460446 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Egypt===
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,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kepel |first1=Gilles |translator=Jon Rothschild |title=Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh |date= 1985 |publisher=University of California Press |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-520-05687-9 |pages=92–94 |id=(Translated from the French) |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/muslimextremismi0000kepe_c6p0/page/92/mode/2up}}</ref> as part of a plan to kill President [[Anwar El Sadat]] and other top Egyptian officials.

In 1977, the group ''[[Jama'at al-Muslimin]]'' (known to the public as ''[[Takfir wal-Hijra]]'' for its strategy of takfiring Muslim society and going into psychological ''hijra''{{snd}}exile from it), kidnapped and later killed an Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi. The group's founder, Shukri Mustaf{{snd}}who had been imprisoned with [[Sayyid Qutb]], and was now one of Qutb's "most radical" disciples<ref name="pbs FL">{{Citation|mode=cs1 |type=Transcript |work= Frontline |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/script.html|title=Al Qaeda's New Front |publisher=PBS}}</ref>{{snd}}believed that not only were the Egyptian President and his government officials apostates, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".<ref name=Mili-29-6-2006>{{cite journal|last1=Mili|first1=Hayder|title=Jihad Without Rules: The Evolution of al-Takfir wa al-Hijra|journal=Terrorism Monitor|date=June 29, 2006|volume=4|issue=13|url=http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=822&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=181&no_cache=1#.VnQ8MNKrTq4|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wright |first1=Robin |title=Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam |date=1986 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-671-62811-6 |page=181 |url=https://archive.org/details/sacredragewratho00wrig/page/180/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}</ref> Later its ex-members went on to help assassinate Anwar Sadat,<ref name="Rabasa">{{Cite book|first=Angel|last=Rabasa|title=Radical Islam in East Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x96UabsFz4AC&pg=PA70|year=2009|publisher=Rand Corporation|page=70|isbn=978-0833046796}}</ref> and be involved in the [[Algerian Civil War]] and Al-Qaeda.<ref name="Dalacoura">{{cite book |last1=Dalacoura |first1=Katerina |title=Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge; New York |isbn=978-1-139-07690-6 |page=113 |url-access=subscription |url= https://archive.org/details/islamistterroris0000dala/page/113}}</ref>

In 1981, [[Assassination of Anwar El Sadat|President Sadat]] was successfully assassinated (along with six diplomats) by members of the Tanzim al-Jihad movement.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.onwar.com/aced/data/echo/egypt1981.htm |title=Armed Conflict Year Index |publisher=Onwar.com |access-date=2015-07-11}}</ref>

During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated by [[Al-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."<ref>Murphy, Caryle ''Passion for Islam : Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience'', Scribner, 2002, pp. 82–83</ref>

===Algerian Civil War===
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 1991–2002 [[Algerian 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.<ref>{{cite book |language=fr |first1=Nesroullah |last1=Yous |others=In collaboration with Salima Mellah |title=Qui a tué a Bentalha? Algérie: chronique d'un massacre annoncé |publisher=La Découverte |location= Paris |date=2000|isbn=978-2707133328 |trans-title=Who Killed in Bentalha? Algeria: Chronicle of a Foretold Massacre}}</ref> Although the government had infiltrated the insurgents and it is thought by many that security forces as well as Islamists were involved in massacres,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20050401070834/http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1543&l=2 "Entre menace, censure et liberté: La presse privé algérienne se bat pour survivre"]. ''International Crisis Group''. 31 March 1998. {{in lang|fr}}</ref> the GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres ([[Rais massacre|Rais]] and [[Bentalha massacre]]s), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks.{{sfn|Kepel|2002|pp=272–273}} He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death".<ref>''[[El Watan]]'',{{full citation needed|date=April 2025}} 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996{{full citation needed|date=April 2025}})</ref>{{full citation needed|date=April 2025}} Between 100,000 and 200,000 were ultimately killed in the war.<ref name=Ajami-2010>{{cite magazine|last1=Ajami|first1=Fouad|title=The Furrows of Algeria|magazine=New Republic|date=27 January 2010|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/the-furrows-algeria|access-date=4 June 2015}}</ref>

===Afghanistan===
In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly Shia [[Hazaras|Hazara]] non-combatants in [[Mazar-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 that [[takfir]] 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. ...".<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.hrw.org/report/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif|title=The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif|website=www.HRW.org|date=November 1, 1998 |access-date=25 December 2020}}</ref>

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 magazine ''[[Dabiq (magazine)|Dabiq]]'' (19 January 2016) attacked the Taliban for "considering the [[Rāfidah]] [a slur for Shia] to be their brothers and publicly denouncing those who target the Rāfidah:"<ref name="Pillalamarri-why-hate-29-1-2016">{{cite news |last1=Pillalamarri |first1=Akhilesh |title=Revealed: Why ISIS Hates the Taliban |url=https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/revealed-why-isis-hates-the-taliban/ |access-date=26 December 2020 |agency=The Diplomat |date=29 January 2016}}</ref> ''Dabiq'' quoted "Abdullāh al-Wazīr, the official correspondent of the nationalist Taliban media committee:<ref name="Pillalamarri-why-hate-29-1-2016"/>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
as evidence of Taliban wrongdoing.

===Al Qaeda===
Al Qaeda shared some of the takfir beliefs of ISIS, with, for example senior leader [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] denigrating Shi’a as "a religious school based on excess and falsehood", but al-Zawahiri (and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi)<ref name="Kadivar-2020"/>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=November 2025}} 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".{{sfnp|Al-Zawahiri|2005}}<ref>Stewart, S. (9 March 2017). [https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/can-islamic-state-and-al-qaeda-find-common-ground "Can the Islamic State and Al Qaeda find common ground?"] ''Stratfor World View''.  Cited in: {{cite journal |last1=Kadivar |first1=Jamileh |title=Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh's Media |journal=Contemporary Review of the Middle East |date=May 18, 2020 |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=259–285 |doi=10.1177/2347798920921706 |s2cid=219460446 |doi-access=free }}</ref> What did provoke it to takfir and "legitimize targeting" was the fighting by Muslim soldiers as the allies of the West against Muslims.<ref name="Kadivar-2020"/>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=November 2025}}

===War in Iraq (2013–2017) and aftermath===
From its inception in 2013 to 2021, directly or through affiliated groups, ISIS (also ''Daesh'' or [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]]), "has been responsible for 27,947 terrorist deaths".{{efn|Reported by Jamileh Kadivar, citing:<ref name="Kadivar-2020"/>
{{refbegin}}
* {{citation|mode=cs1|publisher=The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)|date=2019 |title=Global Terrorism Index 2019 |ref=none |url= https://ghdx.healthdata.org/record/global-terrorism-index-2019}}
{{refend}}
}} The majority of these have been Muslims{{efn|According to Jamileh Kadivar, who cites the following in support:<ref name="Kadivar-2020"/>
{{refbegin}}
* {{citation|mode=cs1|publisher=National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism |title=Global Terrorism Database (GTD) |date=2020 |url=https://www.start.umd.edu/research-projects/global-terrorism-database-gtd |ref=none}}
* {{cite news |last1=Herrera |first1=Jack |title=Most Terrorist Victims Are Muslim |url=https://psmag.com/news/most-terrorist-victims-are-muslim/ |work=Pacific Standard |date=18 March 2019 |ref=none}}
* {{cite report|author1=((Human Rights Office of the UNHCHR)) |publisher=United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq |author2=((UNAMI Human Rights Office)) |date=2014 |title=Report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict in Iraq: 6 July – 10 September 2014 |url= https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report_FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf |url-status=live | archive-date=9 April 2025 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20250409114737/https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report_FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf |ref=none}}
* {{cite news |last1=Ibrahim |first1=Raymond |title=Why Does ISIS Kill Muslims? |url=https://www.meforum.org/the-jihad-on-sufism |work=Middle East Forum |date=27 November 2017|id=(First published under the title "The Jihad on Sufism" in ''Front Page Magazine'') |ref=none}}
* {{cite news  |first1=Dean |last1=Obeidallah |title=ISIS's Gruesome Muslim Death Toll |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/isiss-gruesome-muslim-death-toll/ |work=The Daily Beast |date=7 October 2014 |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{cite news |first1=Dean |last1=Obeidallah |title=Muslims Hate ISIS Most of All |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/muslims-hate-isis-most-of-all/ |work=The Daily Beast |date=16 November 2015 |language=en |ref=none}}
{{refend}}
}} "because it has regarded them as kafir".<ref name="Kadivar-2020"/>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=November 2025}}

====Anti-Shia====
[[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]], who founded [[Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad]] in Iraq in 1999, is said to have turned "an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni [[Iraqi Civil War (2006–2009)|civil war]]".<ref name="mystery-NYRoB">{{cite journal|last1=Anonymous|title=The Mystery of ISIS|journal=New York Review of Books|date=August 13, 2015|volume=LXII|issue=13|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/aug/13/mystery-isis/|access-date=October 29, 2015}}</ref> He saw himself as fighting not just the occupying United States military, but what he called "the sects of apostasy" (i.e. Shia Muslims).{{sfnp|Al-Zarqawi|2004}} In September 2005 he declared "all-out war" on [[Shia Islam|Shi'ites]] in Iraq after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of [[Tal Afar]].<ref name="aljazeera">{{cite news|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/archive/2005/09/200849143727698709.html|work = [[Al Jazeera Arabic|Al Jazeera]]|title = Al-Zarqawi declares war on Iraqi Shia|date = September 14, 2005|access-date=October 22, 2009}}</ref>

The 13th issue of the ISIS magazine ''Dabiq'' dedicates "dozens of pages" were devoted "to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the label ''[[wikt:Rafidah|Rafidah]]''.

<blockquote>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...<ref name="Pillalamarri-why-hate-29-1-2016"/></blockquote>

====Broader takfir====
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".<ref name="what-isis-really-wants">{{cite magazine |last=Wood |first=Graeme |author-link=Graeme Wood (journalist) |title=What ISIS Really Wants |magazine=The Atlantic |location=Washington, D.C. |date=March 2015 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216095910/https://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ |archive-date=16 February 2015 |url-status=live |access-date=10 September 2020}}</ref>

Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006 the successor of the [[Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad]]—the [[Islamic 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 the [[Yazidi]] minority group), but takfired any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.

<blockquote>Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the [[Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)|Sinjar operations]]... Enslaving the families of the [[kuffar]] 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.<ref name="what-isis-really-wants"/></blockquote>

Starting in 2013, the ISIL began "encouraging takfir of Muslims deemed insufficiently pure in regard of ''tawhid'' (monotheism)". The Taliban were found "to be "a 'nationalist' movement, all too tolerant" of Shia.<ref name=infighting-2019/> In 2015 ISIL "pronounced [[Jabhat al-Nusrat]]—then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria—an apostate group."<ref name=infighting-2019>{{cite journal|journal=Perspectives on Terrorism |volume=13 |issue=1 |last1=Bunzel |first1=Cole |title=Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State |date=February 2019 |pages=12–21 |jstor=26590504 |access-date=17 December 2020 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26590504}}</ref>

One of ISIL's "most infamous large-scale killings" was the June 2014 [[Camp Speicher massacre]] in Iraq, "when the group murdered more than 1,500 Shi’a army cadets in [[Tikrit]]".<ref>{{cite news | last1=Shaheen|first1= K. |date=30 August 2016 |title= Up to 15,000 ISIS victims buried in mass graves in Syria and Iraq – survey |work=The Guardian |url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/30/up-to–15000-bodies-may-be-buried-in-mass-graves-in-syria-and-iraq-survey}}</ref> 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."<ref name="Vice">{{cite news |title=Islamic State Releases New Footage Showing Scenes From Massacre of 1,700 Iraqi Troops |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/islamic-state-releases-new-footage-showing-scenes-from-massacre-of-1700-iraqi-troops/ |access-date=18 December 2020 |work=Vice News |date=12 July 2015}}</ref>

====Attacks on Sufis====

Along with Shia, ISIL and to a lesser extent Al-Qaeda have [[Sufi–Salafi relations|takfired Sufi Muslims]], considering their the shrines and these living saints a violation of monotheism.<ref name="Specia-24-11-2017"/> The deadliest attack by ISIL on Sufis, and "the worst terrorist attack in Egypt's modern history",<ref name="Specia-24-11-2017">{{cite news |last1=Specia |first1=Megan |title=Who Are Sufi Muslims and Why Do Some Extremists Hate Them? |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/world/middleeast/sufi-muslim-explainer.html |access-date=19 December 2020 |date=24 November 2017}}</ref> occurred on 24 November 2017, when approximately 40 gunmen [[2017 Sinai attack|attacked]] the al-Rawda mosque (associated with the Jaririya Sufi order)<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://aa.com.tr/en/africa/death-toll-in-egypt-mosque-attack-rises-to-309/981391|title=Death toll in Egypt mosque attack rises to 309|website=Anadolu Agency|access-date=2017-11-28}}</ref> near El-[[Arish]] Sinai during Friday prayers. 311 people were killed and at least 122 injured. While no group claimed responsibility for the attack,<ref name="CNNHunt">{{Cite news |url= https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/24/africa/egypt-sinai-mosque-attack/index.html|title=Egypt hunts for killers after mosque attack leaves at least 235 dead|first1=Ian |last1=Lee |first2=Laura |last2=Smith-Spark |first3=Hamdi |last3=Alkhshali|work=CNN|access-date=24 November 2017}}</ref> the Islamic State's [[Sinai Province (Militant Group)|Wilayat Sinai]] branch was strongly suspected.<ref name="AP_200">{{cite news|title=The Latest: Egypt says death toll in mosque attack up to 200|url=https://www.apnews.com/fd358a6c4e3f4955a57809266408a9ad/The-Latest:-Egypt-says-death-toll-in-mosque-attack-up-to-200|access-date=24 November 2017|work=Associated Press|date=24 November 2017|archive-date=1 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201035746/https://www.apnews.com/fd358a6c4e3f4955a57809266408a9ad/The-Latest:-Egypt-says-death-toll-in-mosque-attack-up-to-200|url-status=dead}}</ref> On 25 November, the Egyptian public prosecutor's office, citing interviews with survivors, said the attackers brandished the [[Islamic State flag]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-security/suspected-militants-target-mosque-with-bomb-gunfire-in-egypts-north-sinai-witnesses-idUSKBN1DO1AN|title=Gunmen in Egypt mosque attack carried Islamic State flag, prosecutor says|work=Reuters|access-date=25 November 2017}}</ref><ref name="FahmyMarke">{{Cite news|author1=Omar Fahmy |author2=Patrick Marke|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-security/gunmen-in-egypt-mosque-attack-carried-islamic-state-flag-prosecutor-says-idUSKBN1DO1AN|title=Gunmen in Egypt mosque attack carried Islamic State flag, prosecutor says|date=25 November 2017|work=Reuters}}</ref> In an interview in the Islamic State magazine ''[[Rumiyah (magazine)|Rumiyah]]'' (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."<ref name="WALSH-nyt">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/world/middleeast/mosque-attack-egypt.html|title=Militants Kill 305 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt's Deadliest Terrorist Attack|last1=Walsh|first1=Declan|date=24 November 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|last2=Youssef|first2=Nour}}</ref>

===Syrian civil war===
Writing in 2014, Aaron Y. Zelin and Phillip Smyth argue that the combatants in the [[Syrian Civil War]] have used sectarian language to "cast one another" as non-Muslims (infidels), dehumanizing the enemy and intensifying the bloodshed and mayhem. The Shia [[Hizbollah]], 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".<ref name="zekub-vocab-2014">{{Cite web |first1=Aaron Y. |last1=Zelin |last2=Smyth |first2= Phillip |date=29 January 2014 |title=The Vocabulary of Sectarianism |url=https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/vocabulary-sectarianism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220201071024/https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/vocabulary-sectarianism |archive-date=1 February 2022 |website=The Washington Institute for Near East Policy|quote=Another popular term used by Shiite jihadis for their Sunni enemies has been 'takfiri'.}} Republished from:
* {{cite news |last1=Zelin |first1=Aaron Y. |last2=Smyth |first2=Phillip |title=The Vocabulary of Sectarianism |ref=none |url= https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/29/the-vocabulary-of-sectarianism/ |work=Foreign Policy |date=29 January 2014 |url-access=subscription|author1-mask=0|author2-mask=0}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title=Lebanon's Hizbollah Turns Eastward to Syria |url= http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Lebanon/153-lebanon-s-hizbollah-turns-eastward-to-syria.pdf | website=International Crisis Group| access-date=15 September 2014| quote=By framing its fight as a preemptive attack on ''takfiris''—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| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021094218/http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Lebanon/153-lebanon-s-hizbollah-turns-eastward-to-syria.pdf| archive-date=21 October 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url= https://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/meeting-hezbollah-fighting-dying-confused/687 |publisher= ITN |last= Miller |first=Johnathan| title= Inside Hezbollah: Fighting and dying for a confused cause |date=April 2014 |work= Channel 4 News| access-date= 18 September 2014|quote={{nbsp}}... those they provocatively and pejoratively brand 'the Takfiris'. This is their term for extreme Sunni jihadis, prepared to kill anyone who doesn't see the world as they see it.}}</ref>
Well-known cleric [[Yusuf al-Qaradawi]], who was often considered moderate, declared [[Nusayri]]s (Alawites) 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), for their worship of [[Ali]] rather than [[God]].{{r|zekub-vocab-2014}} Indications that executions of the enemy may have religious motivation came from an October 2013 video clip<ref>{{ cite video |title= Hizballah Executing Syrian Prisoners? – Analyzing the Video |website=Brown Moses Blog |url=https://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/10/hizballah-executing-syrian-prisoners.html |date=14 October 2013 }}</ref> 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."<ref name=zekub-vocab-2014/>

===Boko Haram in Nigeria===
According to researchers Jacob Zenna and Zacharias Pier, takfir has been a major part of the focus of [[Boko Haram]] under the leadership of [[Abubakar Shekau]].{{sfn|Zenna|Pierib|2017|p=294}}{{sfn|Watts|2015|p=196}}
{{blockquote|{{nbsp}}...after 2010{{nbsp}}... 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.}}

The policy led to a schism in the group, and after Shekau ordered an "urban invasion" (the [[January 2012 Northern Nigeria attacks]]) in [[Kano (city)|Kano]], where "up to 200 people" were killed,<ref name="Abubakar 2012: 97">Abubakar, Aballahhi. 2012. "The media, politics and Boko blitz". ''[[Journal of African Media Studies]]'', 4(1): 97.</ref> a splinter group called "Ansaru" left, complaining of the excessive killing of Muslims.{{sfn|Zenna|Pierib|2017|p=295}}

==See also==
{{portal|Islam|Religion}}
* [[Deobandi]]
* [[Islamofascism]]
* [[Wahhabism]]

==References==
=== Explanatory notes ===
{{Notelist}}
{{reflist|group=Note}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="EoI">{{multiref2|1={{cite encyclopedia |author1-last=Hunwick |author1-first=Ed |author2-last=Hunwick |author2-first=J. O. |year= 2000 |title=Takfīr |editor1-last=Bosworth |editor1-first=C. E. |editor1-link=Clifford Edmund Bosworth |editor2-last=van Donzel |editor2-first=E. J. |editor2-link=Emeri Johannes van Donzel |editor3-last=Heinrichs |editor3-first=W. P. |editor3-link=Wolfhart Heinrichs |editor4-last=Lewis |editor4-first=B. |editor5-last=Pellat |editor5-first=Charles |editor5-link=Charles Pellat |editor6-last=Bearman |editor6-first=P. J. |editor6-link=Peri Bearman |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|edition=2nd, EI2 |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=10 |doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1154 |isbn=978-9004161214 |title-link=Encyclopaedia of Islam#2nd edition, EI2 |ref=none }} |2={{cite encyclopedia |last1=Heffening |first1=W. |title=Murtadd |publisher=Brill |edition=New Online – EI-2 |url=https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/EIEO/SIM-5554.xml |editor= P. J. Bearman |volume=7 |doi= 10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5554 |url-access=limited |language=en |encyclopedia =Encyclopaedia of Islam |ref=none}}}}</ref>
<ref name="EoQ-Quran">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Adang |author-first=Camilla |year=2001 |title=Belief and Unbelief: Choice or Destiny? |editor-last=McAuliffe |editor-first=Jane Dammen |editor-link=Jane Dammen McAuliffe |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān]] |volume=I |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |doi=10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00025 |isbn=978-90-04-14743-0}}</ref>
<ref name="Poljarevic 2021">{{cite book |author-last=Poljarevic |author-first=Emin |year=2021 |chapter=Theology of Violence-oriented Takfirism as a Political Theory: The Case of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) |editor1-last=Cusack |editor1-first=Carole M. |editor1-link=Carole M. Cusack |editor2-last=Upal |editor2-first=M. Afzal |editor2-link=Afzal Upal |title=Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |volume=21 |doi=10.1163/9789004435544_026 |doi-access=free |isbn=978-9004435544 |issn=1874-6691 |pages=485–512}}</ref>
<ref name="FAS-2009">{{cite web |author-last=Blanchard |author-first=Christopher |date=28 January 2009 |title=Islam: Sunnis and Shia |url=https://fas.org/irp/crs/RS21745.pdf |url-status=live |department=fpc.state.gov |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=[[Congressional Research Service]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220511230914/https://irp.fas.org/crs/RS21745.pdf |archive-date=11 May 2022 |access-date=10 August 2022}}</ref>
}}

===Works cited===
{{refbegin|indent=y}}
* {{cite book |last1=Kepel |first1=Gilles |translator=Anthony E. Roberts |title=Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam |date=2002 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |location=London; New York |isbn=978-1-85043-722-2}}
* {{cite book |last1=Oliveti |first1=Vincenzo |title=Terror's Source: The Ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism and its Consequences |date=2002 |publisher=Amadeus Books |location=Birmingham, UK |isbn=9780954372903 |oclc=52591247}}
* {{cite book |last1=Watts |first1=Michael |editor1=Heather Merrill |editor2=Lisa Hoffman |title=Spaces of Danger: Culture and Power in the Everyday |date=2015 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, Georgia, US |isbn=978-0-8203-4875-9 |pages=191–227 |chapter=Insurgent Spaces: Power, Place, and Spectacle in Nigeria}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Zenna |first1=Jacob |last2=Pierib |first2=Zacharias |title=How much Takfir is too much Takfir? The Evolution of Boko Haram's Factionalization. |journal=Journal for Deradicalization |date=Summer 2017 |issue=11 |pages=281–308 |url=https://journals.sfu.ca/jd/index.php/jd/article/download/107/90 |access-date=6 March 2021 |issn=2363-9849}}
{{refend}}

====Primary sources====
{{refbegin|indent=y}}
* {{cite book |last=Qutb |first=Sayyid |date=1964 |edition=2017 |title=Milestones |publisher=Maktabah Publishers |url-status=live |url=https://cryptome.org/2017/10/Milestones-Qutb.pdf |archive-date=22 April 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250422155124/https://cryptome.org/2017/10/Milestones-Qutb.pdf}}
* {{citation |mode=cs1 |author=Al-Zarqawi |url=http://www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html |title=[Letter from al-Zarqawi to bin Laden] |date=January 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041228215628/http://www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html |archive-date=28 December 2004 |translator=Coalition Provisional Authority |translator-link=Coalition Provisional Authority}}
* {{citation |mode=cs1 |url=https://fas.org/irp/news/2005/10/letter_in_english.pdf |last1=Al-Zawahiri |first1=A. |date=2005 |title=[Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi] |access-date=10 January 2021}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |author2=Abū Ameenah 'AbdurRahmān as-Salafi |author1=AbdulHaq Al-Ashanti |title=A Critical Study of the Multiple Identities and Disguises of 'al-Muhajiroun', the organisation known as 'The Salafi Youth for Islamic Propagation': Exposing the antics of the cult followers of Omar Bakri Muhammad Fustuq |date=2009 |publisher=Jamiah Media |location=London |isbn=9780955109942 |oclc=495440928 |ref=none}} ([https://lutonislamiccentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/A-Critical-study-Of-The-Multiple-Identities-Disguises-Of-Al-Muhajiroun.pdf Link to PDF file] of the 2008 edition.)
* {{cite book |author1=Abū Ameenah 'AbdurRahmān as-Salafi |author2=AbdulHaq Al-Ashanti |title=Abdullah El-Faisal Al-Jamayki: A Critical Study of His Statements, Errors and Extremism in Takfeer |date=2009 |publisher=Jamiah Media |location=London |isbn=978-0-9551099-9-7 |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{cite thesis |last1=Aslan |first1=Reza |title=Global Jihadism as a Transnational Social Movement: A Theoretical Framework |date=2009 |publisher=University of California, Santa Barbara |author-link=Reza Aslan |isbn=978-1-109-51187-1 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/304852928 |id={{ProQuest|304852928}} |language=en |type=PhD dissertation |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Jason |title=Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam |date=2004 |publisher=Penguin |location=London; New York |isbn=978-0-14-101912-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite web |last1=Swenson |first1=Elmer |title=Sayyid Qutb's ''Milestones'' |website=Gems of Islamism |ref=none |url=https://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/milestones_qutb.html |date=2005 |id=[Commentary and quotations]}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* {{wiktionary inline}}

{{Religious slurs}}

[[Category:Islam-related controversies]]
[[Category:Islam-related slurs]]
[[Category:Islamic extremism]]
[[Category:Sectarianism]]
[[Category:Apostasy in Islam]]