Kharijite Daʼwa Between the Islamic East and West: Factors of Transmission and Conditions of Success

Abstract

This article investigates the Kharijite daʼwa (call and propagation) between the Islamic East (Mashriq) and the Islamic West (Maghrib), examining the factors that drove its transmission and the conditions that enabled its success. The study traces the emergence of early sectarian formations within the first Islamic state, centering on the Kharijite movement — its origins, principal factions, shared doctrinal commitments, and defining theological tenets. It then examines the circumstances that confronted the Kharijites in the Islamic East under the Umayyad Caliphate and the sustained persecution to which they were subjected, arguing that this repression constituted the primary catalyst behind their strategic relocation. Driven westward, the Kharijites abandoned direct military confrontation in favor of clandestine preaching (daʿwa) and political organization in regions beyond the immediate reach of Umayyad authority — a deliberate pivot that enabled them to exploit the volatile conditions prevailing in the Islamic West under Umayyad governance. The article concludes with a critical assessment of competing historiographical positions: those that seek to exonerate the Umayyad Caliphate of responsibility for events in the Maghrib, attributing culpability solely to individual governors, and those that hold the caliphate institutionally accountable for what transpired. A final section presents the study's principal findings.