The origin of Kharijism lies in the first Islamic civil war: a struggle for political supremacy over the Muslim community in the years following the death of Muhammad.
The third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was killed by mutineers in 656 AD, and a struggle for succession ensued between Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and Muˤāwiyya, Governor of Damascus. (The core of ˤAlī's followers later became Shiites.)
In 658, ˤAlī's forces met Muˤāwiyya's at the Battle of Siffin; at first, the battle went against Muˤāwiyya, but then he hit upon the idea of having his army hoist Qur'āns on their lances, proclaiming that he wanted to have the decision of who should be Caliph arbitrated using it. Most of ˤAlī's army was favorable to the idea, and he agreed to have the question decided by two arbiters. Some in his army, however, regarded this as a betrayal; a large group of them (traditionally 12,000, mainly from the Bani Hanifah and Banu Tamim tribes) repudiated his cause, citing the verse, "No rule but God's", leaving to fight both sides. In their opinion, the right of arbitration was God's alone, and the choice of caliph should not be questioned by mere mortals. Thus they opposed both Muˤāwiyya for his rebellion and ˤAlī for submitting to the arbitration. They became known as Kharijites: Arabic plural Khawārij, singular Khārijī, derived from the verb kharaja "come out, leave the hold.
It is said that ˤAlī agreed to the arbitration in a clever scheme of his, so that he could identify the sect that the Prophet had warned him from. It is reported that the Prophet said to ˤAlī warning him of a future sect in Islam:
"Coming after me will be a sect that hurts me in my posterity. They will keep breaking away from the Muslims and opposing them. Kill them O ˤAlī, kill them, for they will be the supporters of the Antichrist."
(See the entry on Ad-Dajjal for Muslim belief in the Antichrist.)
The Kharijites fit the Prophet' description. So ˤAlī hurridly divided his troops and ordered them to catch the dissenters before they reach major cities and disperse among the population. A few decades later, the Kharijites used taqīyah "dissimulation" and assimilated and posed as the Shia of ˤAlī, especially that after ˤAlī's death and the death of his son Hussain 20 years later, most of the Ṣahāba "Companions" who supported ˤAlī had already died too either by age or on the hands of the Kharijites themselves so that they could not be identified, and then to seek protection from persecution which though started by ˤAlī but neverthless continued unabated by the Umayyads.
Abdullah ibn Abbas is said managed to persuade a number of them to return to ˤAlī. ˤAlī defeated the remaining military rebellion in the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, but the Kharijites survived and, in 661, assassinated ˤAlī. They had supposedly organized simultaneous attempts against Muˤāwiyya and ˤAmrū (one of the arbitrators at the Battle of Siffin), in their view the other main sources of strife within the Muslim community.
It is said that the bulk of the population who invited Hussein to come to them in Kufah were from those Kharijites' original tribes of Eastern Arabia (namely Banu Hanifa of Iraq and Ihsa'a up to ad-Dumat al-Jandal west). Banu Hanifa (compared to Quraysh who dominated western Arabia west of ad-Dumat al-Jandal before Islam. Those Banu Hanifa were not happy with Muhammad of the Quraysh controling all Arabia, while they were the heroes of Dhi-Qar. They tried to assassinate Muhammad. Another man criticized the Prophet for being unjust (incident for the above Hadith). Later a false prophet came out of them Musailemah, and they constituted all the Kharijites. These days they still live in south Iraq and Ihsaa as Shia of south Iraq.
References:
Kharijites Summary
Kharijites
Signs Of The Hour
Kufa During The Days Of The Pledge Of Allegiance
Siapa Pembunuh AL-HUSEIN Ra?
BINCANG-BINCANG TENTANG SYIAH DI MILIS ISNET
Sunni yang Sunni
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