Takfiri
Takfiri is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of their coreligionists—i.e., who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate, or, 'one who turns back'.
According to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law, the punishment for apostasy is death. Potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community, an ill-founded accusation of takfir is considered a major forbidden act in Islamic jurisprudence. Takfirism has been called a "minority ideology" that "advocates the killing of other Muslims declared to be unbelievers."
The accusation itself, takfīr, is derived from the Arabic word kafir and described as when "one who is a Muslim is declared impure". In principle, in mainstream Sunni Islam, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim a kāfir are the scholars of Islam ; this is done only if all the prescribed legal precautions have been taken. 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 by Sunni leaders, becoming victims of religious discrimination, religious violence, and religious persecution. The term Takfiri has also been pejoratively deployed by Shia jihadist groups to demonise and justify violence against Sunnis.
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 caliphates for centuries. Since the latter half of the 20th century, takfīr has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders of Islamic states" who do not enforce Sharia or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious". This arbitrary application of takfīr has become a "central ideology" of insurgent Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist extremist and terrorist groups, particularly al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, 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. The practice of takfīr has been denounced as deviant by mainstream branches of Islam and Muslim scholars, such as Hasan al-Hudaybi and Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Issues and criticisms
Traditionally, Muslims have agreed that someone born a Muslim or converting to Islam who rejects the faith is deserving of capital punishment, provided legal precautions have been taken. This is true in the case of a self-professed apostates, or "extreme, persistent and aggressive" proponents of religious innovation.Generally, Muslims agree that the declaration of takfīr is "so serious, and mistakes therein are so grave", that great care is needed. 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 ; 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". The Sunnī Islamist militant group and Salafi-jihadist terrorist organization ISIL, for example, have declared takfīr not only upon Shīʿa Muslims and Sufi Muslims but also against rival insurgent Islamist groups and all those who oppose its policy of enslaving and killing Shīʿa Muslims and non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly Christians and Yazidis.
What to do in a situation where self-professed Muslim 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 the Finality of Prophethood—the Islamic Republic of Pakistan declares in Ordinance XX of the Second Amendment to its Constitution, that Ahmadi Muslims are non-Muslims and deprives them of religious rights. All religious seminaries and madrasas in Pakistan belonging to different sects of Islam have prescribed essential reading materials specifically targeted at refuting Ahmadiyya beliefs. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the political and religious persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan has sparked several large riots and bombings which have targeted and killed hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims in the country.
Modern political uses
The importance of takfir in modern Islamic political thought, insurgent Islamist groups, and religiously-motivated terrorist attacks on civilians is underscored by the fact that as of 2017, "the overwhelming majority" of violent terrorist attacks had occurred in Muslim-majority countries and the "primary victims" of these attacks were Muslims.Studying the largest 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, al-hakimiyya, and al-takfir. However, according to Podeh's formulation, takfiri 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.
Some political scientists and scholars of Middle Eastern studies 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 Muslim rulers and officials or any Muslim opposing the Islamists, and since enforcing Sharia is the insurgents 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.
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, Takfiris condone acts of violence as legitimate methods of achieving religious or political goals. Middle East expert Robert Baer has written that:
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 Qutb's views on what he perceived as jahiliyyah in the Muslim world. As such, violence against such regimes is considered legitimate.
The term takfiri was brought to greater public prominence by the BBC investigative journalist Peter Taylor in his 2005 BBC Television series The New Al Qaeda.
Suicide
Takfiri views on suicide also differ significantly from those of 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 is a martyr and therefore goes straight to Jannah without having to wait for the 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 civilians and non-combatants.Historical background
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" 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, 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. Nonetheless, those accused of apostasy were usually left "unmolested", and in general executions for apostasy were "rare in Islamic history", unless the violation was "extreme, persistent and aggressive".According to researcher Trevor Stanley, the precedent "for the declaration of takfir against a leader" came from the medieval Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah, who supported the Mamluks in their jihad against the 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, they were not really Muslims, and since non-Muslims who called themselves Muslims were apostates, 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 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."
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 Islamic law 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".