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Takfiri is an Arabic language and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of their coreligionists—i.e., who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate, or , 'one who turns back'.
According to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law ( Sharia), the punishment for apostasy is death Potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community ( ummah),Karawan, Ibrahim A. (1995). "Takfīr". In John L. Esposito. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. an ill-founded accusation of takfir is considered a major forbidden act ( haram) in Fiqh, (2025). 9780262514644, MIT Press. ISBN 9780262514644 with one hadith declaring that one who wrongly declares another Muslim to be an unbeliever is themself an apostate. (2025). 9780190651121, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190651121 Takfirism has been called a "minority ideology" that "advocates the killing of other Muslims declared to be Infidel".
The accusation itself, takfīr, is derived from the Arabic word kafir ('unbeliever') and described as when "one who is a Muslim is declared impure". In principle, in mainstream Sunni Islam, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim a kāfir are the scholars of Islam ( ulama); this is done only if all the prescribed legal precautions have been taken. Traditionally, the declaration of takfīr was used against self-professed Muslims who denied one or more of the five pillars of Islam. Throughout the history of Islam, Islamic denominations and movements, such as Shia Islam and Ahmadiyya Islam, have been accused of takfīr and labeled as kuffār ('unbelievers') by Sunni leaders, becoming victims of religious discrimination, religious violence, and religious persecution. (2025). 9781472416476, Ashgate Publishing/Routledge. ISBN 9781472416476 The term Takfiri has also been pejoritavely deployed by Shia jihadism groups to demonise and justify violence against Sunnis.
In the history of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as the Kharijites carried out takfīr against both Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims, becoming a dominant source of intra-Islamic insurrection against caliphates for centuries.Toshihiko Izutsu (2025). 9789839154702, Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies at Keio University. ISBN 9789839154702 Since the latter half of the 20th century, takfīr has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders of " who do not enforce Sharia or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious". (2025). 9789004307834, Brill Publishers. ISBN 9789004307834 This arbitrary application of takfīr has become a "central ideology" of insurgent Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist extremist and terrorist groups, particularly al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), (2025). 9781138221802, Routledge. ISBN 9781138221802 which have drawn on the ideas of the medieval Islamic scholars Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir, and those of the modern Islamist ideologues Sayyid Qutb and Abul A'la Maududi. The practice of takfīr has been denounced as deviant by mainstream branches of Islam and Muslim scholars, such as Hasan al-Hudaybi (died 1977) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Generally, Muslims agree that the declaration of takfīr is "so serious, and mistakes therein are so grave", that great care is needed, and that if the accused is actually a believing Muslim, then the act of accusing makes the accuser themself guilty of apostasy. There is also a belief shared by various Muslim scholars which assert that the practice of takfīr may be dangerous for the entire Muslim community ( ummah); they believe that if takfīr is "used wrongly or unrestrainedly", retaliation could lead down a slippery slope of "discord and sedition" to mutual excommunication and "complete disaster". The Sunnī Islamist militant group and Salafi-jihadist terrorist organization ISIL ( ISIS; IS; Daesh), for example, have declared takfīr not only upon Shīʿa Muslims and Sufi Muslims but also against rival insurgent Islamist groups (although they are also Salafi-jihadists) and all those who oppose its policy of enslaving and Shia genocide and non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly Christians and Yazidis.
What to do in a situation where self-professed Muslim(s) disagree with other Muslims on an important doctrinal point is more controversial. In the case of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community—who are accused of denying the basic tenet of the Finality of Prophethood—the Islamic Republic of Pakistan declares in Ordinance XX of the Second Amendment to its Constitution, that Ahmadi Muslims are non-Muslims and deprives them of religious rights. "Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: An Analysis Under International Law and International Relations". Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 16, September 2003.
All religious seminaries and in Pakistan belonging to different sects of Islam have prescribed essential reading materials specifically targeted at refuting Ahmadiyya beliefs.Rahman, Tariq: "Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Survey of the Education System of Pakistan". Contemporary South Asia. 2004. p. 15. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the political and religious persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan has sparked several large riots (the 1953 Lahore riots and the 1974 Anti-Ahmadiyya riots) and bombings (the 2010 Ahmadiyya mosques massacre) which have targeted and killed hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims in the country.
Studying the largest Arab world country, Egypt, Elie Podeh distinguishes between three groups: conservative Islamists, "jihadi" Muslims, and takfiri. All three see the government and society sadly lacking in piety and in need of Islamification and restoration of Sharia law. Conservative Islamists do not support armed struggle against the secular government, whereas jihadist and takfiri groups do, and invoke the concepts of jahiliyya (regression of Muslims to pre-Islamic ignorance), al-hakimiyya (God's sovereignty), and al-takfir. However, according to Podeh's formulation, takfiri groups are more extreme, and regard not just some Muslims but the whole of Egyptian society as kafir, and consequently completely disengage from it. Podeh also points out that unlike jihadists, takfiri groups make no distinction between the regime and the ordinary population when employing violence. (2025). 9780714647692, Routledge. ISBN 9780714647692
Some political scientists and of Middle Eastern studies (such as Jacob Zenna, Zacharias Pier, and Dale Eikmeier) argue that the accusation of takfir may serve as a sort of ingenious "legal loophole" for Islamist insurgents, allowing them to bypass the Sharia injunction against imprisoning or killing fellow Muslims. Since it is very difficult to overthrow governments without killing their (self-proclaimed) Muslim rulers and officials or any Muslim opposing the Islamists, and since enforcing Sharia is the insurgents , the prohibition against killing Muslims is a major impediment against taking power. But if the enemy can be made to be not Muslims but unbelievers claiming to be Muslims, the prohibition is turned into a religious obligation.
Takfiris have also been classified by some scholars as violent offshoots of the Salafi movement. Although most Salafis oppose terrorism or violence within the Muslim community ( ummah), Takfiris condone acts of violence as legitimate methods of achieving religious or political goals. Middle East expert Robert Baer has written that:
Takfiris also reject the traditional Muslim duty to obey one's legitimate rulers in all manners that do not contradict the Sharia, as sedition is viewed as a great danger to a nation. However, takfiris consider all political authority that does not abide by their interpretation of Islam to be illegitimate and therefore apostate; this view closely mirrors Qutbism on what he perceived as jahiliyyah in the Muslim world. As such, violence against such regimes is considered legitimate.
The term takfiri was brought to greater public prominence by the BBC investigative journalist Peter Taylor in his 2005 BBC Television series The New Al Qaeda.
According to researcher Trevor Stanley, the precedent "for the declaration of takfir against a leader" came from the medieval Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 CE), who supported the Mamluks in their jihad against the invading Central Asian Mongols. After the Mongols converted to Islam, another cause was sought for the jihad against them. In his famous fatwa, Ibn Taymiyyah reasoned that since the Mongols followed their traditional Yassa law rather than Sharia (Islamic law), they were not really Muslims, and since non-Muslims who called themselves Muslims were , the Mongols should be killed. Ibn Taymiyya wrote that he "was among the strictest of people in forbidding that a specific person be accuse of unbelief, immorality or sin until proof from the Messenger to has been established", yet he "regularly accused his opponents of outright unbelief and has become a source of inspiration to many Islamist and even takfiri movements." (2025). 9789004307834, Brill Publishers. ISBN 9789004307834
From the 19th century onwards, liberal, modernist, or reformist Muslims have complained that this capital punishment is a violation of the principle of no compulsion in religion, and only those guilty of treason should be executed. Revivalist and conservative Muslims see the capital punishment as a matter of obedience to the Sharia ( sharīʿa) and protection of the faith. Since the 20th century, capital punishment is seldom applied by the state in Muslim-majority countries; instead, it is frequently carried out by "vigilantes" who believe that they are executing their "individual duty".
The Islamic tradition traces the origin of the Kharijities to the battle between 'Ali and Mu'awiya at Siffin in 657 CE. When 'Ali was faced with a military stalemate and agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration, some of his party withdrew their support from him. "Judgement belongs to God alone" (لاَ حُكْم إلَا لِلّهِ) became the slogan of these secessionists. They also called themselves al-Shurat ('the Vendors'), to reflect their willingness to sell their lives in martyrdom.
These original Kharijites opposed both 'Ali and Mu'awiya, and appointed their own leaders. They were decisively defeated by 'Ali, who was in turn assassinated by a Kharijite. Kharijites engaged in guerilla warfare against the , but only became a movement to be reckoned with during the Second Fitna (the second Islamic Civil War) when they at one point controlled more territory than any of their rivals. The Kharijites were, in fact, one of the major threats to Ibn al-Zubayr's bid for the caliphate; during this time they controlled Yamama and most of southern Arabia, and captured the oasis town of al-Ta'if.
The Azariqa, considered to be the extreme faction of the Kharijites, controlled parts of western Iran under the Umayyads until they were finally put down in 699 CE. The more moderate Ibadi Islam Kharijites were longer-lived, continuing to wield political power in North and East Africa and in eastern Arabia during the 'Abbasid period. Because of their readiness to declare any opponent as apostate, the extreme Kharijites tended to fragment into small groups. One of the few points that the various Kharijite splinter groups held in common was their view of the caliphate, which differed from other Muslim theories on two points.
By the time that Ibn al-Muqaffa' wrote his political treatise early in the 'Abbasid period, the Kharijites were no longer a significant political threat, at least in the Islamic heartlands. The memory of the menace they had posed to Muslim unity and of the moral challenge generated by their pious idealism still weighed heavily on Muslim political and religious thought, however. Even if the Kharijites could no longer threaten, their ghosts still had to be answered. The Ibadis are the only Kharijite group to survive into modern times.
While Qutb declared that the Islamic world had "long ago vanished from existence" and that true Muslims would have to confront "arrogant, mischievous, criminal and degraded people" in the struggle to restore Islam, he had not specifically stated that the self-professed Muslim "authorities of the jahili system" were apostates (or whether they should all be killed)
Ayman al-Zawahiri, "jihad's main ideologist," (originally of al-Jihaad al-Islami aka Egyptian Islamic Jihad), and the leader of al-Qaeda from 2011 until his death in 2022, paid homage to Qutb in his book Knights under the Prophet's Banner (2001). (2025). 9780674015753, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674015753 (2025). 9780812238082, University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812238082 Al Qaeda is commonly described as seeking to overthrow the "apostate" regimes in the Middle East and replace them with "true" Islamic governments, Via – Google Books. and having a "habit" of denouncing Muslims who did not "accept a narrow interpretation" of Sunni Islam as "non-believers and legitimate targets".
Shukri Mustaf, founder of Jama'at al-Muslimin (known to the public as Takfir wal-Hijra) had been in prison with Qutb and was a disciple of his.
The Takfir of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant may be more rooted in Wahhabism and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab than Qutb, but "one famous quote" from him "has been seen written on walls and has also appeared repeatedly in IS texts: 'Whoever does not pay the price of jihad, shall pay the price of abstention'". Another source writes that the "roots" of ISIL's "takfiri" ideology "can be found in the Khawarij's view, and in the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and Sayyid Qutb."
In 1974, 100 members of the "Islamic Liberation Organization", led by one Salih Sirriya, stormed the armory of the Military Technical College in Cairo, seizing weapons and vehicles, as part of a plan to kill President Anwar El Sadat and other top Egyptian officials.
In 1977, the group Jama'at al-Muslimin (known to the public as Takfir wal-Hijra for its strategy of takfiring Muslim society and going into psychological hijraexile from it), kidnapped and later killed an Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi. The group's founder, Shukri Mustafwho had been imprisoned with Sayyid Qutb, and was now one of Qutb's "most radical" disciplesbelieved that not only were the Egyptian President and his government officials apostates, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims". Hundreds of members of the group were arrested and Shukri Mustafa was executed but (according to journalist Robin Wright), the group reorganized with thousands of members. Later its ex-members went on to help assassinate Anwar Sadat, and be involved in the Algerian Civil War and Al-Qaeda.
In 1981, President Sadat was successfully assassinated (along with six diplomats) by members of the Tanzim al-Jihad movement.
During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, targeted police, government officials (but also civilians including tourists). In one particularly bloody year (1993), 1106 persons were killed or wounded, and "several senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes."Murphy, Caryle Passion for Islam : Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience, Scribner, 2002, pp. 82–83
In the brutal 1991–2002 Algerian Civil War between the Algerian Government and various Islamist rebel groups, takfir was known to be declared by the hardline Islamist GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria). Starting in April 1998, a series of massacres in villages or neighborhoods killed tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians without disregard to the age and sex of victims. (2025). 9782707133328, La Découverte. ISBN 9782707133328 Although the government had infiltrated the insurgents and it is thought by many that security forces as well as Islamists were involved in massacres, "Entre menace, censure et liberté: La presse privé algérienne se bat pour survivre". International Crisis Group. 31 March 1998. the GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres (Rais massacre and Bentalha massacres), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks. He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death". El Watan, 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996) Between 100,000 and 200,000 were ultimately killed in the war.
Ironically, the Taliban seemed to have backed off the "Hazaras are not Muslim" approach and were later denounced by the ISIS for their tolerance of Shia. The 13th issue of the ISIS magazine Dabiq (19 January 2016) attacked the Taliban for "considering the Rāfidah a to be their brothers and publicly denouncing those who target the Rāfidah:" Dabiq quoted "Abdullāh al-Wazīr, the official correspondent of the nationalist Taliban media committee:
The Shī’ah are Muslims ... Everyone who says there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's Messenger is a Muslim. The sects are many and Allah will decide between them on Judgment Day.as evidence of Taliban wrongdoing.
The 13th issue of the ISIS magazine Dabiq dedicates "dozens of pages" were devoted "to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the label .
Initiated by a sly Jew, the 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...
Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006 the successor of the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, aka ISIL or Daesh, expanded takfir still further. ISIL not only called for the revival of slavery of non-Muslims (specifically of the Yazidi minority group), but takfired any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.
Yazidi women and children are divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the 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.
Starting in 2013, the ISIL 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. In 2015 ISIL "pronounced Jabhat al-Nusrat—then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria—an apostate group."
One of ISIL's "most infamous large-scale killings" was the June 2014 Camp Speicher massacre in Iraq, "when the group murdered more than 1,500 Shi’a army cadets in Tikrit". In a film made by ISIL about the Camp Speicher massacre, a narrator states: "All are apostates who have come from cities of apostates to kill Sunnis here, we have more than 2,000 of them."
The policy led to a schism in the group, and after Shekau ordered an "urban invasion" (the January 2012 Northern Nigeria attacks) in Kano, where "up to 200 people" were killed,Abubakar, Aballahhi. 2012. "The media, politics and Boko blitz". Journal of African Media Studies, 4(1): 97. a splinter group called "Ansaru" left, complaining of the excessive killing of Muslims.
Attacks on Sufis
Along with Shia, ISIL and to a lesser extent Al-Qaeda have takfired Sufi Muslims, considering their the shrines and these living saints a violation of monotheism. The deadliest attack by ISIL on Sufis, and "the worst terrorist attack in Egypt's modern history", occurred on 24 November 2017, when approximately 40 gunmen attacked the al-Rawda mosque (associated with the Jaririya Sufi order) near El-Arish Sinai during Friday prayers. 311 people were killed and at least 122 injured. While no group claimed responsibility for the attack, the Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai branch was strongly suspected. On 25 November, the Egyptian public prosecutor's office, citing interviews with survivors, said the attackers brandished the Islamic State flag. In an interview in the Islamic State magazine Rumiyah (January 2017 issue five) an insurgent Islamic State commander condemned Sufi practices and identified the district where the attack occurred as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that Islamic State intended to "eradicate."
Syrian civil war
Writing in 2014, Aaron Y. Zelin and Phillip Smyth argue that the combatants in the Syrian Civil War have used sectarian language to "cast one another" as non-Muslims (infidels), dehumanizing the enemy and intensifying the bloodshed and mayhem. The Shia Hizbollah, for example, had successfully "tarred all shades of the opposition, and indeed sometimes all Sunnis", with the brush of "takfiri". The Sunnis and Shiites antagonism has spread from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, so that "there have been incidents in Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, and Egypt". Republished from:
Well-known cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, often branded as "moderate", declared (aka Alawiyya) of Syria bigger infidels than even the Jews or Christians in a conference in June 2013 in Cairo (a conference that called for jihad in Syria and was attended by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar). Indications that executions of the enemy may have religious motivation came from an October 2013 video clip where Shiite Islamist fighters executed alleged captured Syrian rebels with the claim by one of the shooters that: "We are performing our taklif religious and we are not seeking personal vengeance."
Boko Haram in Nigeria
According to researchers Jacob Zenna and Zacharias Pier, takfir has been a major part of the focus of Boko Haram under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau.
See also
Explanatory notes
Citations
Works cited
(2025). 9781850437222, I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781850437222
(2025). 9780954372903, Amadeus Books. ISBN 9780954372903
(2025). 9780820348759, University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820348759
Primary sources
Further reading
(2025). 9780955109942, Jamiah Media. ISBN 9780955109942 ( Link to PDF file of the 2008 edition.)
(2025). 9780955109997, Jamiah Media. ISBN 9780955109997
(2025). 9780141019123, Penguin. ISBN 9780141019123
External links
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