The Evil Kharijites ll

    The Kharijites frightened the Muslim people for centuries, and they were the ones who initiated terrorism. They would kill the imam if they didn't agree with him, and of course, the imam knew this and would be influenced by that dreadful threat hanging over their heads. Instead of using democracy - trying to achieve support for their view and using the power of the free and secret vote of each adult or man for the narrow-minded Muslims- the Kharijites responded to dissension by violence. And so it remains. Philosophically, Islam is divided into two sects with very different behaviors. The Kharijites are the rebels, and they resort to the sword. The Mutazilas are the philosophers and they use democracy. Though Fatema Mernissi, the author of Islam And Democracy doesn't seem to say so, the sine qua non of democracy is free and secret elections. America had an election where a Black Panther criminal showed up at a voting place with a baseball bat in his hand and walked around displaying it. This was an election for the President of the United States and the weak, unprincipled president in power at the time said nothing about it, pandering to the black voters. But black voters should have been mature enough not to want a black man or any person around a voting station brandishing a baseball bat.
    Due to palace intrigues, the Abbasid Dynasty became corrupted in the tenth century and turned on the Mutazilas who had given Islam a century of enlightenment with scientific inventions that put it at the front of the world. The Kharijite tradition took over and suddenly positive values such as reason, personal opinion, and private initiative including creation and innovation were declared anti-Islamic, foreign, and any other smear the hateful, close-minded rebels with swords could think of. They also hunted down killed all the Mutazilas, whom they now denigrated as philosophers, they could find. The curtain of hate and willful ignorance had fallen. And so it remains.
Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary
 "The measure of a man,
   Is not what he says,
   But what he does,
   And what he allows others,
   To do in his presence."
     -Navy Seal Instructor
 Peter