Islamic terrorism

===== Takfir =====

According to traditional Islamic law, the blood of someone who leaves Islam is "forfeit"—i.e. they are condemned to death.<ref name=KepelJihad-31 />  This applies not only to self-proclaimed ex-Muslims, but to those who still believe themselves to be Muslims but who  (in the eyes of their accusers) have deviated too far from orthodoxy.  {{#tag:ref|(The punishment is agreed on by all the [[madhhab|schools of fiqh]] (Islamic jurisprudence) both [[Madhhab#Sunni|Sunni]] and [[Madhhab#Shia|Shia]],<ref name="punishment">{{cite book |last1=Abul Ala Mawdudi |title=The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law |date=1 January 1994 |publisher=The Voice of the Martyrs |chapter=Chapter one. The Problem of the Apostate's Execution from a Legal Perspective }}</ref> and has traditionally been undisputed.)<ref name="Schirrmacher-2020-85">{{cite book |last1=Schirrmacher |first1=Christine |editor1-last=Enstedt |editor1-first=Daniel |editor2-last=Larsson |editor2-first=Göran |editor3-last=Mantsinen |editor3-first=Teemu T. |title=Handbook of Leaving Religion |date=2020 |publisher=Brill |page=85  |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43466/external_content.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |access-date=6 January 2021 |chapter=Leaving Islam}}</ref>|group=Note}}

Many contemporary liberal/modernist/reformist Muslims believe [[Apostasy in Islam#Supporters and opponents of death penalty|killing appostates]] to be in violation of the Quranic injunction 'There is no compulsion in religion....' (Q.2:256), but even earlier generations of  Islamic scholars warned against making such accusations (known as ''[[takfir]]''), without great care and usually reserved the punishment of death for "extreme, persistent and aggressive" proponents of religious innovation (''[[bidʻah]]'').<ref name="Lewis-229">{{cite book|last1=Lewis|first1=Bernard|title=The Middle East: a Brief History of the Last 2000 Years|date=1995|publisher=Touchstone|isbn=978-0-684-83280-7|page=229}}</ref> The danger, according to some (such as [[Gilles Kepel]]), was that "used wrongly or unrestrainedly,  ... Muslims might resort to mutually excommunicating one another and thus propel the [[Ummah]] to complete disaster."<ref name=KepelJihad-31>Kepel, Gilles; ''Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam'', London: I.B. Tauris, 2002, page 31</ref>

Kepel noted that some of Qutb's early followers believed that his declaration that the Muslim world has reverted to pre-Islamic ignorance ([[Jahiliyyah]]), should be taken literally and everyone outside of their movement takfired;<ref name=KepelJihad-32>Kepel,  ''Jihad'', 2002, p. 32</ref> and Wahhabis has been known for their  willingness to takfir non-Wahhabi Muslims.<ref name="TCSI2010: 48">{{cite book|last=Halverson|first=Jeffry R.|year=2010|title=Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-10658-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IYzGAAAAQBAJ |pages=48–49}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Islam and power in Saudi Arabia|editor-first=John L.|editor-last=Esposito|editor2=Emad El-Din Shahin|encyclopedia=The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hc7iAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA412|pages=412–413|isbn=978-0-19-539589-1}}</ref>

Since the last half of the 20th century, a "central ideology"<ref name="OISO" /> of insurgent [[Wahhabi movement|Wahhabist]]/[[Salafi jihadism|Salafi jihadist]] groups<ref>Oliveti, Vincenzo; ''Terror's Source: the Ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism and its Consequences,'' Birmingham: Amadeus Books, 2002</ref> has been the "sanctioning" of "violence against leaders" of Muslim majority states<ref name="OISO" /> who do not enforce [[sharia]] (Islamic law) or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".<ref name="OISO">{{cite web |title=Takfiri |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117234531/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 January 2013 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=18 December 2020}}</ref>
Some  insurgent groups -- [[Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]] of Egypt, and later [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria#Antar Zouabri and takfir|GIA]], the [[Taliban's rise to power#Ethnic massacres and persecution|Taliban]],  and [[Ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant#Takfir|ISIL]]) -- are thought to have gone even further,  applying takfir and its capital punishment against not only to Sunni government authorities and Shia Muslims, but to ordinary Sunni civilians who disagree with/disobeyed insurgent policies such as reinstituting slavery.

In 1977, the group ''[[Jama'at al-Muslimin]]'' (known to the public as ''[[Takfir wal-Hijra]]''), kidnapped and later killed an  Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi.  The founder of ''Jama'at al-Muslimin'', Shukri Mustaf  had been imprisoned with [[Sayyid Qutb]], and had become one of Qutb's "most radical" disciples.<ref name=pbs>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/script.html|title=Transcript &#124; Al Qaeda's New Front &#124; FRONTLINE |publisher=PBS}}</ref> He believed that not only was the Egyptian government [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]], but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".<ref name=Mili-29-6-2006>{{cite journal|last1=Mili|first1=Hayder|title=Jihad Without Rules: The Evolution of al-Takfir wa al-Hijra|journal=Terrorism Monitor|date=29 June 2006|volume=4|issue=13|url=http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=822&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=181&no_cache=1|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref>  While police broke up the group, it  reorganized with thousands of members,<ref>Wright, Robin ''Sacred Rage'', 1985, p.181</ref> some of whom went on to help assassinate the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat,<ref name="Rabasa">{{Cite book|first=Angel|last=Rabasa|title=Radical Islam in East Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x96UabsFz4AC&pg=PA70|year=2009|publisher=Rand Corporation|page=70|isbn=978-0-8330-4679-6}}</ref> and join the [[Algerian Civil War]] and Al-Qaeda.<ref name="Dalacoura">[https://archive.org/details/islamistterroris0000dala/page/113 ''Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East''] By Katerina Dalacoura, p.113</ref>  During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated by [[Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]], targeted not only police and government officials but also civilians, killing or wounding 1106 persons in one particularly bloody year (1993).<ref>Murphy, Caryle ''Passion for Islam : Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience'', Scribner, 2002, pp. 82-3</ref>

In the brutal 1991–2002 [[Algerian Civil War]], takfir of the general Algerian public was known to have been declared by the hardline Islamist [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria]] (GIA). The GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres of civilians ([[Rais massacre|Rais]] and [[Bentalha massacre]]s), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks.<ref name=GKJTPI2002:272-3>[[#GKJTPI2002|Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002]]: p.272-3</ref> He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death,"<ref>''[[El Watan]]'', 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996)</ref> (Tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians were killed in each of a series of massacres that started in April 1998.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Nesroullah Yous |author2=Salima Mellah |title=Qui a tué a Bentalha?|publisher=La Découverte, Paris|year=2000|isbn=978-2-7071-3332-8}}</ref> However, how many murders were the doing of GIA and how many of the security forces—who had infiltrated the insurgents and were not known for their probity—is not known.)<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20050401070834/http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1543&l=2 Entre menace, censure et liberté: La presse privé algérienne se bat pour survivre], 31 March 1998</ref><ref name=Ajami-2010>{{cite magazine|last1=Ajami|first1=Fouad|title=The Furrows of Algeria|magazine=New Republic|date=27 January 2010|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/the-furrows-algeria|access-date=4 June 2015}}</ref>

In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly Shia [[Hazaras|Hazara]] non-combatants in [[Mazar-i-Sharif]], Afghanistan. Comments by Mullah Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and newly installed governor,  declared in a number of post-slaughter speeches from Mosques in Mazar-i-Sharif: "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi'a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. ... You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. ...",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/report/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif|title=THE MASSACRE IN MAZAR-I SHARIF|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=1 November 1998 |access-date=25 December 2020}}</ref>  indicated that along with revenge, and/or ethnic hatred, [[takfir]]  was a motive for the slaughter.

From its inception in 2013 to 2020, directly or through affiliated groups,  [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|Daesh]]), "has been responsible for 27,947 terrorist deaths", the majority of these have been Muslims,{{#tag:ref|according to Jamileh Kadivar based on estimates from Global Terrorism Database, 2020; Herrera, 2019; Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights & United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, 2014; Ibrahim, 2017; Obeidallah, 2014; 2015<ref name="Kadivar-2020" />|group=Note}} "because it has regarded them as kafir".<ref name="Kadivar-2020">{{cite journal |last1=Kadivar |first1=Jamileh |title=Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh's Media |journal=Contemporary Review of the Middle East |date=18 May 2020 |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=259–285 |doi=10.1177/2347798920921706 |s2cid=219460446 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

One example of Daesh takfir is found in the 13th issue of its magazine ''Dabiq'', which  dedicated "dozens of pages ... to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the label ''Rafidah''
{{blockquote|Initiated by a sly Jew, [the Shia] are an apostate sect drowning in worship of the dead, cursing the best companions and wives of the Prophet, spreading doubt on the very basis of the religion (the Qur'ān and the Sunnah), defaming the very honor of the Prophet, and preferring their "twelve" imāms to the prophets and even to Allah! ...Thus, the Rāfidah are mushrik [polytheist] apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rāfidī walks on the face of earth, even if the jihād claimants despise such...<ref name="Pillalamarri-why-hate-29-1-2016">{{cite news |last1=Pillalamarri |first1=Akhilesh |title=Revealed: Why ISIS Hates the Taliban |url=https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/revealed-why-isis-hates-the-taliban/ |access-date=26 December 2020 |agency=The Diplomat |date=29 January 2016}}</ref>}}

Daesh not only called for the revival of slavery of non-Muslims (specifically of the [[Yazidi]] minority group), but declared takfir on any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.
{{blockquote|Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the [[Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)|Sinjar operations]]  ... Enslaving the families of the [[kuffar]] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam.<ref name="what-isis-really-wants" />}}

Starting in 2013, Daesh began "encouraging takfir of Muslims deemed insufficiently pure in regard of ''tawhid'' (monotheism)". The Taliban were found "to be "a 'nationalist' movement, all too tolerant" of Shia.<ref name=infighting-2019 /> In 2015 ISIL "pronounced [[Jabhat al-Nusrat]] -- then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria -- an apostate group."<ref name=infighting-2019>{{cite journal|journal=Perspectives on Terrorism |volume=13 |issue=1 |last1=Bunzel |first1=Cole |title=Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State |date=February 2019 |pages=12–21 |jstor=26590504 |access-date=17 December 2020 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26590504}}</ref>