So wait, they don't believe the Qur'an is the word of Allah? I thought that was a basic tenant of Islam.
When you say 'reclusive', do you mean they hide away from society in monasteries or something like that?
What is their definition of a 'minor sin?'
By minor sin, we refer to if a person drinks alcohol or so forth. A major sin is one within Sunni Islam that takes one to hell if they do not repent, this includes but not limited to:
-Cursing God
-Cursing the Prophet Muhammad
-Cursing the companions of the Prophet (you can disagree over some of their issues, as the Zayydi do, but not curse them)
-Cursing other Prophets, such as Jesus, Moses or so forth
-Cursing one of the Holy women of the Quran, such as the Virgin Mary
-Cursing the Quran or anything it speaks about
-Believing that the Quran is created by man and not by Allah (most Twelver scholars, Mu'tazila, Shurha believe this or believed it traditionally)
-Making permissible what God has made forbidden, such as you say it is permissible to drink alcohol. However, this does not mean the action of drinking alcohol is a major sin, if you admit that it is wrong within Islam to do so, and you do so out of weakness or addiction. (you are a Muslim still, but a sinful one if you do the latter, if the former, you become an apostate)
-Saying that God has partners or so forth, even if they are not literal gods, but are likened to God in any respect (especially in power)
-Refusing to condemn what God has condemned
etc...
A minor sin is something that is not contained in this sort of grouping. They are usually actions one takes out of weakness or lack of knowledge. Such as, some Muslim may wear the Christian crucifix as a style symbol or a custom, this is a sin according to Islam, but the person has not left Islam if he does this. If he did so out of custom or out of ignorance in his style, than this is sin but not major. Now, if he lives near other Muslim, and they come to him and say 'brother, remove this cross let me show you wear this is not allowed' and they give him evidences, and he responds with, 'I do not care, it is permitted for me' than this person is said to have committed a major sin. The Shurha were/are more radical, they say that even putting the cross on in ignorance, was a major-mortal sin and if not repented of, sends one to hellfire, Sunni reject this viewpoint. In some ways, the Shurha were puritanical when it came to sins and how we look at them. They hated corruption of any kind and any sort of abuse.
An evidence of this is, there was a man who was from a tribe called the Qurra (who would join Ali ibn abi Talib and became the first tribe that was fully Shurha) who was at a meeting between the Muslim army with the Prophet. There, the booty was being split, and the man mentioned that the splitting of the spoil was not fair as he had contributed more than some other person. The Prophet responded that Allah commands the spoil to be distributed evenly, when to the man from the Qurra responded that 'you, O Muhammad, are an unfair (and corrupt) person,' when he said this, he stormed off. Some of Muhammad's bodyguards pulled their swords and vowed to take his head, Muhammad simply said 'no leave him be.' In other words, the Shurha, like this man from the Qurra, have no issue in even telling a Holy Figure, that they are unjust.
----
Reclusive, I mean that they are not extremely vocal in their views. Historically, the Shurha and Ibadhi practiced a deception practice called Kitman, which is an offensive deception (different from Taqiyyah, which is almost like deceptive defense, that is more impactful than simply avoidance), wherein the idea is that one can actively conceal their beliefs and intentions for the sake of gaining long term benefits or power. In the past, certain Shurha militants utilized this stratagem to create massive rebellions in the Islamic world, such as the Zanj revolt, began through its vanguard group using a combination of Kitman and Taqiyyah to create their rebellion. It is also partly reclusive in that, the Ibadhi are known to be the quietist version of the Shurha, who believe in containing the true Islam to themselves and not indulging in radicalism as their more classically common comrades do.
Shurhism is also known, as I have discussed, to arise in various forms without necessarily being linked to a tradition. In other words, some Shurha acquire their views naturally through interpretation of issues and develop the ideas independently and then discover the sect and learn it this way. In 2016, there was a case, where a dozen soldiers in ISIS were beheaded for being Shurha and having created a conspiracy to take over the leadership and install their version of Islam upon the militant groups controlled regions.
----
The Shurha say one of two points:
1. Allah created the Quran, therefore it is a creation.
- According to all Sunni schools, this is blasphemy. As, what Allah creates is eternal lest He wills it not to be and according to the sayings of Muhammad and other points, the Quran is the eternal words of Allah, not simply a creation as a human book is. Histocially, the Mu'Tazila were the advocates of this idea that the Quran is like a man-made book, simply a truthful one created by Allah and not eternal. To them, making the Quran eternal, is polytheism, however, Sunni assert that the Quran is among the attributes of Allah, aka his words, thus it is eternal, just as Allah's attribute of kindness is eternal.
2. The current Quran is tampered with and is the creation of the unrighteous caliph Uthman ibn Affan and other corrupt scholars of the time. This view, corresponds to the idea that when the Quran was put to paper in full compilation, that the scribes and rulers intentionally removed points and added texts or changed wordings.
-According to Sunni schools, this is blasphemy and is more clear-cut than the previous. This view is found in two flavors, one of the Shurha, who believed that the Umayyad caliphate compiled the Quran and wrote away their sins and used it to empower their own rule. The other flavor, is that of many Shi'a scholars who believe that only Ali ibn Abi Talib possessed the Quran and what we have today, is either not the Quran or an incomplete version; while the final Imam holds the true Quran in its untouched version.