Face-off Between Madkhalis And Kharijis In The Muslim World

Brecht Jonkers

There is a major reconfiguration of power underway in the Muslim world, especially among states in West Asia. There is a shift of alliances and influence in which Turkey and Saudi Arabia have emerged as regional power players. They face off against each other, and increasingly find themselves at odds on different ends of the ideological spectrum.

This realignment is paired with the proliferation of two major deviant strains of thought within the Islamic faith: the Madkhali deviation on one side, and the Wahhabi/Kharijite on the other.

(Madkhalism is a strain of quietist thought within the larger Salafi movement characterised by monarchism and loyalty to secular authoritarian regimes...)

Interestingly, the old Wahhabi heartland, ‘Saudi’ Arabia in particular, has gotten increasingly fed up with the gung-ho aggressive attitude of Al-Qaeda and Daesh subgroups. The economic and societal “vision” of crown prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) in particular, have shown themselves increasingly incompatible with the old “Salafi” school that founded the kingdom back in the 1920s. MbS’s ambitious “modernisation” plans basically include pseudo-secular developments that have caused consternation among Wahhabi clerics, leading at times to open dissent and violent regime crackdown.

There are a multitude of reasons for the new course embarked upon by Saudi Arabia. One of the primary drivers is MbS’s “Vision 2030” project to bring about major economic diversification and modernisation. A hugely ambitious program, it is meant to make Saudi Arabia the top innovative hub of commerce, and move away from oil dependency. Vision 2030 affects several sectors but the Saudi economy is still dependent on petroleum for 40% of its GDP. One of the main issues affecting the project is the lack of will by major corporations to actually start production and manufacturing in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has for decades been used by foreign powers to purchase its oil at discounted prices and sell it luxury products as well as weapons at inflated prices. MbS has grander plans but struggles to bring them to fruition because there is no internal market for them.

The increasingly inward-looking attitude of Saudi Arabia has been paired with a rise in Madkhali ideology: a relatively recent phenomenon that teaches quietism of both the general public and scholars vis-a-vis the rulers. Loyalty to the monarch or secular ruler, and a limitation of religious criticism to private advice are key parts of the Madkhali deviation.

Basically, it confers “divine right on kings” dressed in Islamic garb. This has led to a situation in which Riyadh has reduced its involvement abroad, with the one notable exception being Yemen, and has turned ever more fiercely against schools of thought that demand radical change and direct action, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) that is particularly active in Qatar and Turkey.

It also means that Saudi Arabia is looking for external partners to cooperate on the basis of non-intervention, which has led Riyadh to BRICS and to developing the multipolar world order represented by China and Russia. It goes without saying that this realignment does not rhyme well with regime change operations carried out by Wahhabi extremists, for example in Xinjiang or Chechnya, which is why a Saudi connection with these groups is generally non-existent nowadays.

In short, Madkhalism is a deviant strain of thought that allows for unbridled control by secular rulers but tends to make for a more reliable and less aggressive player on the international stage of world politics.

Perhaps even more shocking than Saudi Arabia moving away from Wahhabism is the fact that the aggressive Wahhabi and Ikhwani movements have found a new backer in Turkey. The secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal that abolished the Khilafat and broke centuries of Islamic tradition to impose a highly nationalistic westernised society in the 1920s, now ironically has become one of the principal backers of an aggressive and expansionist ideology presented as “Islamism.”

Under Erdoğan, the Turkish political system has morphed into a rather bizarre, and contradictory, combination of Turkish ethnic nationalism, Ottoman revivalism, Salafism and increasingly sectarianism. While Turkey itself remains quite secular, much more so than the Syrian Arab Republic ever was, it has managed to form a tight bond with some of the most sectarian and divisive movements in the Muslim world, up to and including even Al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS).

For Erdoğan, supporting the so-called “Sunni defence” by Wahhabi groups, is a great way to paint his neo-Ottoman revival project wrapping it in a pious garb. The fact that many fighters in Syria are ethnic Turkic mercenaries from Central Asia only cements Turkish influence over regions such as northern Syria.

The recent decision by Syrian warlord Abu Mohammad al-Julani to consider granting citizenship to these foreign fighters of which there are tens of thousands across Syria, the actual demographic make-up of an already much depleted land may soon change factually as well in favour of Turkish settlement. The justification given is that “Syria belongs to all Muslims”, and “nationality doesn’t matter”: a reasoning that bears striking similarity to the zionist concept of “a country for all Jews” on Palestinian land.

Despite the many terms used by and for these movements (Salafi, Wahhabi, Ikhwan, “Jihadi”), the origins of much of this divisive and sectarian attitude lies in the early deviant sect of the Khawarij, anglicised as Kharijites.

They were an extremist offshoot of the early Islamic Ummah who generally held the radical belief that any sort of major sin, real or perceived, by any Muslim (including leadership figures) could be seen as an act of unbelief and apostasy and, therefore, punishable by death. The Khawarij movement is infamous for the assassination of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and first person to accept Islam, who was Khalifah at the time of his death.

How radical and quick to judge the Kharijites were can be found in why they moved against Imam Ali in such a violent manner. Their reason was that he had agreed to peace negotiations with a rebel force. Such negotiation in and of itself was considered by the Kharijites to be an act of heresy and betrayal by the Khalifah, worthy of his death.

No openly professing Kharijite movement exists today but it is not hard to see the influence in the sectarian groups that rampage across West Asia professing the “true Islam” and accusing every other Islamic school of thought of heresy and unbelief.

The West Asian geopolitical landscape is changing rapidly. It has become almost unrecognisable compared to 20 years ago. Turkey is riding high, pushing its neo-Ottoman agenda with the help of virulent Wahhabi armed groups. Saudi Arabia is slowly retreating from foreign entanglements, focusing on realpolitik and far-reaching economic reform plans.

Happening almost off the radar for over a decade now, a conflict between Turkish-backed Salafi groups and Gulf-backed Madkhalis has already been taking place in Libya. The so-called Government of National Accord in Tripoli, with Turkey and Qatar as its main backers, is rife with Ikhwan and Wahhabi influence. The so-called Libyan National Army led by ‘Field Marshal’ Khalifa Haftar on the other hand, is openly supportive of the Madkhali strain receiving significant backing from the UAE, Egypt, Russia and indeed Saudi Arabia. Of particular note in recent events in Syria is the fact that some 13,000 troops of the so-called “Syrian National Army”, the rebel force backed by Turkey in northern Syria, participated in the Libyan Civil War by mid-2020.

It looks ever more likely that, while Zion watches on with glee, the Islamic world will get entangled in a face-off between the ideological successors of Madkhalis and Kharijites. Traditional, orthodox Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, are increasingly caught in the crossfire.

KhawarijMadkhali