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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.

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Hagemann, H.-L. (2015). History and memory: Khārijism in Early Islamic historiography [PhD, University of Edinburgh]. https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/11692

The Khārijites are usually regarded as the first faction to separate from the early Islamic community. They are viewed as rebels and heretics, constituting the first sect within early Islam. This thesis seeks to examine the narrative role and function of Khārijism in the historiographical tradition of the formative period of Islam. To that end, it looks at the major Islamic chronicles of the 3rd and 4th centuries AH/9th and 10th centuries CE and investigates their portrayal of Khārijite history. The analysis covers the period from the apparent emergence of the Khārijites at the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 37 AH/657 CE until the death of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān in 86 AH/705 CE. The thesis’ methodological approach is based on the premise that the historiographical works under study need to be approached as literary artefacts, as texts rather than databanks that can be mined for hard facts in order to reconstruct early Islamic and thus Khārijite history ‘as it really was’. This literary analysis of the source material on Khārijism leads to two major conclusions: first, there is hardly any narrative substance to the Khārijites as presented in the sources. Instead, the reports on Khārijite activities are mostly made up of structural components such as names and dates on the one hand, and topoi and schemata on the other. Consequently, no distinct and tangible identity, literary or otherwise, emerges from the material, pointing out the pitfalls of positivist approaches to Khārijite history and by extension early Islamic history in general. This phenomenon is directly connected to the second conclusion: the historiographical sources approach Khārijism not as an end in itself, but as a narrative tool with which to illustrate, discuss and criticize other actors and subject matters. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapters One and Two address those characteristics of and topoi in the representation of Khārijism that pervade the source material across the entire period investigated here. It emerges that the historiographers’ major concern in the depiction of Khārijism is the discussion of the perils of the rebels’ militant piety that threatens the unity and stability of the Islamic community. Chapters Three to Five look at the periods of ʿAlī’s caliphate, Muʿāwiya’s rule and the second fitna as well as t he reign of ʿAbd al-Malik, respectively, and identify the specific narrative purposes of Khārijism in the portrayal of each period. Chapter Six offers a number of observations on the early historiographical tradition as derived from the analysis over the preceding five chapters, addressing issues such as whether it makes sense to distinguish between proto-Sunnī and proto-Shīʿī sources. The Conclusion summarizes the main findings of this thesis and provides some suggestions regarding future research on Khārijite history and thought as well as early Islamic history in general.

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Gouja, M. (2006). La grande discorde de l’Islam: le point de vue des kharéjites. L’Harmattan. Fonds Martin Custers.

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Muhammad, S. M. (1985). The concept of jihād and civil war in early islam with particular reference to the Khawārij movement and the Ibāḍiya sect (analytical study) [Thesis]. Exeter University.

Bin Haji Yahya, M. (1978). The origins of the Khawārij [PhD, University of Exeter]. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.478221

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Baugh, C. (2017). Revolting Women? Early Kharijite Women in Islamic Sources. Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, 2(1), 36–55. https://doi.org/10.2979/jims.2.1.03

The Kharijites were an early movement of anti-government activists, self-proclaimed pious rebels who began their protests in the seventh century of the common era. Their initial complaint was against ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (d. 656 CE), the third Caliph, for what they perceived as abuses of power and improper execution of Divine Law. Throughout Islamic history, many groups have appeared to protest deeply corrupt systems and injustices. Many women participated vigorously in anti-government protests, many going so far as to take up arms. Even today, any group engaged in governmental protest or anti-government activities might easily be dubbed Kharijites and thus dismissed as “extremist.” This paper focuses on women in Kharijite movements of late antiquity. The sources for this inquiry are early writers including Jāḥiẓ (d. 869 CE), Mubarrad (d. 900 CE), and Ṭabarī (d. 923 CE), with reference to the modern-era biographical compendium of ʿUmar Riḍā al-Kaḥḥāla. The three women discussed span three generations of Kharijite activity. Each of the three has a story with the ruler of the time. For Qaṭām, it is a story of revenge against the Caliph ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 660 CE). For Baljāʾ, it is one of political protest against the Caliph Muʿāwiya (d. 680 CE), directed against his governors Ziyād ibn Abīhi (d. 673 CE) and his son ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād (d. 686 CE). And for Ghazāla, it is a story of a year of battle and bloodshed during the rule of the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbd al-Mālik ibn Marwān's (d. 705 CE) tyrannical governor, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714 CE). The ways these deeply opinionated and activist women are depicted provide telling insight into how Muslim historiography has grappled with women revolutionaries.

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Gaiser, A. R. (2009). Source-Critical Methodologies in Recent Scholarship on the Khārijites. History Compass, 7(5), 1376–1390. Fonds Martin Custers. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00630.x

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Kharusi, K. al-. (2015). special issue on Ibāḍī Islam: Introduction. The Muslim World, 105(2), 139–141. https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12096

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