The Evil Khariijites

    On the other side of the good, democratic, rational, individualistic Mutazilas, we apparently have the evil Kharijites. I was introduced to them in Fatema Mernissi's Muslim psychology book, Islam And Democracy; Fear Of The Modern World. I would like to move through her book to see who these people are and where they came from because they apparently run Islam today and have made it into a death religion.
    I realize that the same could be said of Christianity since Christ is supposedly cited as saying we should be in this world but not of it. Our behavior should not be for living in this world but for getting into heaven. Islam does the same but adds the ridiculous reward of seventy-two virgins. That's a whorehouse, not paradise. What is sacred or holy about fornicating? And seventy-two? What man over forty wants seventy-two supposedly lustful women hounding him?
    The first reference I find in Mernissi's book about the Kharijites is that they come from a tradition of political subversion in which their idea of changing the political situation is simply rebel against the imam and even kill him. Unlike, the good Mutazilas, they have nothing to do with democracy. They hate it. The Kharijites created the rebel tradition in the first decades after the death of Muhammad over the question of whether you must be obedient to the imam if he is not protecting your rights. Do you have to show blind obedience or can you use your own judgment? This is a very Western question which America, for one huge example, answered by breaking away from King George lll and England and becoming America after a long, dicey Revolution. Indeed, the Kharijites answered their own question long before America was formed by declaring that you are not obliged to obey. You can "go out" (kharaja) from obedience. In America too, the rebel tradition was strong and remains so today. Look at the huge popularity of the socialist Bernie Sanders and the celebrity Donald Trump.
Peter Nickerson. Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary
    "The measure of a man
      Is not what he says....