Clive Foss explores the origins of the Kharijites, an early and radical Islamic sect that emerged during the first century of Islam in regions of southern Iraq and Iran. Known for their uncompromising and literal interpretation of the Quran, the Kharijites rejected hereditary rule and promoted a purist vision of Islamic leadership based solely on piety and merit.
Their ideology fueled a history of violent opposition to the established caliphates, and their militant actions posed a persistent challenge to early Islamic governance for several centuries. Though the original movement eventually declined, remnants of the Kharijite tradition have endured in more peaceful, quietist forms—particularly in parts of East Africa and the Sultanate of Oman.
On the 17th day of the sacred month of Ramadan, in the year 40 AH (corresponding to January 24, AD 661), Caliph Ali entered the grand mosque of Kufa to perform the morning prayers. As he prepared for worship, a hidden assassin emerged from the shadows and struck him with a poisoned blade to the head. Ali succumbed to the wound later that same day.
He became the third of the Prophet Muhammad’s four immediate successors to be assassinated—but the first whose death was driven by religious motivations. The attacker, who was swiftly apprehended, was part of a broader plot to eliminate the leading figures of the Islamic world at the time: Ali, Muawiya (then governor of Syria), and Amr ibn al-As, the governor of Egypt. In the end, only the attempt on Ali’s life was successful.
