Could you elaborate a little more on this? I lived in Morocco for a bit and took a North African history class. Extremely interesting place and history.
In what ways were the Kharijites dangerous? How were the Shia sects exaggerated?
Saw so many beautiful sights in Morocco and experienced a culture that most people in the West know nothing about. The big cities were more traditionally "Arabic", but the Berber culture of the interior was completely unique. Never seen anything like it.
It is attested by historical chronicles of the early period of Islam that reveal to us that in the far western sections of the Maghreb, the inhabitants were of a certain Berber sect that resembled the Dhammiyyah and certain other trends within some Shi'i circles, wherein Ali and or Fatima is seen as Allah or alternatively, above Allah in some way. Further, other Shi'a sects are supposed to have occurred among the Berbers and Arab Bedouin of Africa, namely the Is'maili Batinist (those who see hidden meanings) type of Shi'a. The Fatimid Caliphate themselves arose from this milieu of Shi'a and Kharijite sects within the rural areas of Africa.
Mind you, when we say ghulat or ghuluu in relation to the Shi'a, it refers to a type of Shi'a who is seen as radical in his/her views of Ali, Fatima, Salman al-Farisi, Hassan ibn ali or Husayn ibn Ali. Or they hold another views such as the Alevi, that Allah sort of exists in all matter within a certain atomizing process, or such as the Druze who believe in reincarnation and combine this with their esoteric believes that they inherited from the wider Batinist sects such as the Is'maili, Nizari or Hafizi. There is also Ghulat who exhibited features of Gnostic and Manichean beliefs, such as Allah as a light with arms or that all flesh is inherently evil, etc...
Now, the unspoken section of much of this is, that generally when we discuss Shi'a, there is widespread cross pollination. Namely, a Dhammite may hold that the Quran is corrupted, this may not be a feature of their belief alone, but is cross pollinated into other Shi'a varieties, such as the Rawafidh Twelvers. Or the idea of Wilaya al-Tawkwiniyyah, held by most modern Shi'a scholars is reminiscent of the Ghuluu of the past which said that Ali and the Imams are Allah. But in general, we may say there is four types of Shi'a; Zaydi: those Shi'a who are closest to Sunni, they do not consider the salaf (followers of Muhammad [SAW]) to be apostates, only that Ali should have been the Caliph, they are in turn the smallest variety of shi'a and primarily exist in the Arabian peninsula; the Batiniyyah and Niners, which are the broad group that places emphasis on the idea of the Batin nature of the Quran, that there is secret hidden meanings in each word or surah and many other views related to this; Twelver Rawafidh, so called as they believe in 12 appointed Imams and rawafidh as they rejected Zayd ibn Ali (founder of Zayydiyyah) as Zayd ibn Ali refused to call the salaf apostates, in addition they can be seen as 'rejectors' in the sense that they are the most clear in their baraa (enmity) with the immediate followers of Muhammad (SAW), that they were both known by the prophet to be hypocrites and that after the death of the prophet, all but 3 people (excluding Ali and his family) became apostates; then finally, the Ghulat, which have been described.
The Khawarij/Shurha were a type of sect that claimed that minor sins are such that they send one to hellfire. Further, their methodology began with the ideas that there is 1. No arbitration except by Allah, thus one cannot make certain human agreements on major matters. 2. Caliphs Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Talib were both illegitimate and were apostates as they accepted arbitration and invalidated their office of Caliph. 3. Rebellion against the Caliph was permissible in cases of minor sin. 4. The Caliph could be elected democratically and could be from anyone of the Muslim, regardless of lineage. 5. Outright offensive lying or deception, known as the dreaded Kitman, is permissible if used to dismantle the supposed kuffar. As a result, you have a sort of the ends justify the means sort of sect that is very rapid or ghuluu in its usage of the takfir (excommunication) and highly militaristic and subversive. They as a sect would cripple much of the Islamic world for approximately 400 years as, along with millennial Shi'a rebels, the most important internal source of rebellion and fear in the Islamic world. I have discussed them at greater lengths and details before on this site.