WI: Kharijities Assassinate Everyone?

Let's see Ali dies Hasan succeeds as in otl or maybe Abdullah b Abbas.
If muawiyah dies marwan can succeed him or abdur rehman b Khalid b Walid
AMR b a'as dies then the uthmanids of Egypt ( maslama b mukhallid, or muawiyah b hudayj) try to get independence from marwan in Syria
Btw khawarij did not plan to kill Aisha after death of talha in Jamal her political ambitions were over!

So we'e the non-quietist Khawarij looking for a political result to the assassinations? Caliph Hassan perhaps? (Outside of just exacting justice upon a perceived religious sin)
 
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Khanzeer

Banned
Their views was egalitarian apocalyptic and extremely rigid
They didn't care much for politics
They would ideally want a non quraish as caliph
 
The ERE's reaction to this would be quite interesting.

Assuming everyone is assassinated in 661 like Ali, Constans II has already relocated to Syracuse and is planning his invasion of Benevento. A move that only served to increase the animosity towards the Emperor after he'd had his brother killed (after forcing him to take religious vows). This might force him to return to the East and abandon his plans of retaking Italy. If he does come home to try and take advantage of any chaos that arises from the situation in the Caliphate, that means he'll be too distracted to piss off the Italians and he won't suffer the defeats at the hands of the Lombards that he did in OTL. He certainly won't get assassinated in Syracuse in 668 like he did IOTL. Though

But frankly, I don't see Constans going East. He made peace with the Caliphate in 659 and strongly directed his attention to the Italian front from then on. He was the first Emperor to set foot in Rome in two centuries, he tried to break the power of the Pope and establish a greater sense of Imperial primacy, he tried to retake territories lost to the Lombards, and under him, Syracuse was the Roman Capital in all but name. He still tried to force the Monothelite heresy on the Church and he stole bronze from the various buildings of Rome and shipped them off to Constantinople which shows he had yet to give up on the East, but everything else about the last decade of his reign shows that his vision for the Empire's future was centered on Italy and Africa even if he did everything to infuriate the Italians and the Africans. If that doesn't change then he'll stay in Syracuse, fails to take Southern Italy and end up getting assassinated just like in OTL.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
if syria is in sufficent anarchy we might see a byzantine comeback not to recounquer but to ravage pillage the fat rich cities and deal a devastating blow to arab prestige there
 

Vuu

Banned
A pretty severe power vacuum could be created that way, screwing them over pretty bad

Meanwhile East Rome laughs Peter Griffin-style, which means that this scenario is literally thoughtcrime
 

Khanzeer

Banned
^ I doubt the severe power vacumn will last for long at that time arab leadership was tribal and not personality based
the faces might be different but core interests of arab tribal leaders were the same
plus they might unite to fight the common roman enemy sooner than you think
muawiyah signed a treaty with romans basically bought peace so he can fight Ali
 
@GlobalHumanism

The beliefs of the Kharijites, while attractive on some level, would in practice lead to chaos.

1) They believe that the act of sinning constitutes unbelief, and therefore a person who sins is outside Islam.
2) If the leader sinned, it was the duty of Muslims to oppose and depose him.

Problem is, who decides what is and isn't a sin? Virtually any disagreement over any matter can be inflated to a matter of life and death, with people not merely being wrong but being apostates. It's great that they would oppose tyrannical leaders, but by the same logic they might just as easily oppose a wise and reasonable leader. What if the leader takes a decision they didn't like, or disagrees with them over some point of theology? It's a recipe for absolute chaos. Any lunatic could potentially claim the leader is an unbeliever and start an insurrection.

While the belief that Islam is defined by actions is attractive (and theologically correct), again it is open to abuse because who decides what is Islamic? Once again, we end up with absolute chaos, because people will be declaring each other unbelievers whether Shia, Sunni, Wahhabi, Salafi, Sufi, Ibadi, or whatever else. This takfiri extremism of the Kharijites is dangerous.

On balance ironically perhaps Islam is best served by Secularism as at least that guarantees everyone equal rights before the law. Matters of religion are personal; and when it comes to actions of a leader, regular Islam already makes it clear that one must struggle against oppression. But randomly declaring takfir on anyone who disagrees with you is not the right way to go.
 
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