Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret 

History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Ladin, from the 

Soviet Invasion until September 10, 2001 (New York: Pen-

guin Books, 2004); Oliver Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy 

War to Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1995).

hell

  See f

ire

.

Helpers

  See a

nsar

.

heresy

A heresy is a doctrine or belief that authorities 

believe to be false or that deviates from what is 

accepted by the mainstream or orthodox commu-

nity. In early Islam, emergence of heresies paral-

leled the competition over power and 

aUthority

that followed the death of m

Uhammad

 (ca. 570–

632). Muhammad’s dual role of prophet and 

tribal leader set the stage for the fusion of “right 

religion” (orthodoxy) and righteous rule that 

subsequently defined the office of his successor, 

the 

caliphate

. The holders of this office, 

caliph

s,

justified their rule in religious terms and often 

dismissed their opponents as religious deviants. 

Heresies, then, were born in conflict and received 

their stigma from the winning faction, which by 

virtue of its power established the operational 

norms of society.

It was the first civil war (656–661), or 

fitna

,

that gave rise to the earliest heresies in Islam: the 

K  296  

hell

---

k

haWariJ

 and the Shia. Both groups diverged from 

what became the Sunni orthodox view of ruler-

ship. In fact, it was the divergence of these groups 

that led to the military and intellectual assertion 

of Sunni dominance. The first civil war produced 

only temporary political unity, but it introduced 

permanent religious division into the community 

of Muslims. Over time, the Khawarij and the Shia 

evolved into full-scale minority sects, with defin-

ing ideologies, mythic histories, and legal systems. 

And within the regions that fell under their mili-

tary control, these sects had the power to create 

societies that reflected their worldviews, like the 

majority Sunnis.

Along with heresies rooted in political opposi-

tion, there were heresies of pure religious belief. 

In fact, the number of heresies based solely on 

belief multiplied exponentially as the Sunni tradi-

tion refined its views in relation to the range of 

religious opinion voiced within the expanding 

empire. Medieval Muslim sources list some 72 

heretical sects in Islam. While exaggerated, this 

number captures the diversity and richness of 

intellectual engagement in early and medieval 

Islam. Sunni attempts to police Muslim belief by 

labeling opponents as heretical demonstrate the 

extent to which religious unity was viewed as 

essential to the health and welfare of the commu-

nity as a whole.

In the modern period, the idea of heresy 

has largely fallen out of favor, though factional 

disputes remain. When the label of heretic is 

now wielded, it tends to be with the purpose of 

polemic rather than prosecution, although in the 

very recent period this latter, too, has emerged as 

Muslims struggle to reconcile the Islamic heri-

tage with the intellectual challenges presented by 

modernity. Nonetheless, what medieval thinkers 

once labeled as heresies modern Muslims tend to 

think of as alternative schools of thought.

See also 

apostasy

; 

blasphemy

;  i

badiyya

, 

kafir

;

s

hiism

; s

Unnism

; 

umma

.

Jeffrey T. Kenney