The Khawārij and religious identity formation in early Islam

Contenu

Titre

The Khawārij and religious identity formation in early Islam

Type

Mémoire de Master

Créateur

Thomson, Rodney L. Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Date

2017

Résumé

The problems inherent to the sources for early Islam continue to challenge
scholars when it comes to making positivist statements regarding the formation of early Muslim identity. Specialists have long recognized that the polemical struggles for orthodoxy and legitimacy in the Abbasid period plague the akhbār and ḥadīth. This problem is particularly acute for the Khawārij, the first recognized sectarian division in Islam. The present author examines the sources using social identity theory and the analytical tools of the Biblical text critic, both of which find fruitful application to the early Muslim sources. Further support derives from an understanding of the Late Antique and tribal environments prevalent in the first Hijri centuries. Through careful application of these tools, the present author deconstructs the Khārijī master narrative to separate later inventions or redactions from those more likely to represent the sectarians as they actually existed. Akhbār, poetry, and apologetic literature ascribed to the Khawārij are then analyzed to show how the sectarians’ early self-identity did not stray far from its pre-Islamic heritage, but evolved over time to include detailed religious justification. The author concludes with the suggestion of a new Khārijī narrative in which the sect's dissent stemmed principally from complaints fully coherent with the Arabian tribal milieu, to which members only later developed doctrine to legitimate their separatism.

Editeur

California State University Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Place

Chico

Sujet

Kharijisme Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Langue

eng

nombre de pages

280

uri

http://dspace.calstate.edu/handle/10211.3/196394

Thomson, Rodney L., “The Khawārij and religious identity formation in early Islam”, California State University, 2017, bibliographie, consulté le 7 septembre 2024, https://ibadica.org/s/bibliographie/item/2011