When Ali accepted arbitration with Mu'awiya at Siffin, the purists of his army seceded on the cry that judgment belongs to God alone. Their extremist wing was destroyed at Nahrawan; their moderate wing became the Ibadi tradition, which disowns the extremists to this day.
The parties
- Ali ibn Abi Talib and his main army
- The Kharijites, who seceded over the arbitration at Siffin
What was disputed
Whether a grave sinner remains a believer, and who may judge the ruler's Islam.
Causes: doctrinal political
Key documents
- The accounts of Siffin and Nahrawan in the early histories
What it produced
Resolution attempts
- The Ibadi tradition's own settled disavowal of the Kharijite extremists, recorded in its literature
How each side understands it
Sunni and Shia histories alike remember the Kharijites as extremists; the Ibadi record remembers its own founders as the party that refused both Ali's arbitration and the extremists' violence.
It grew out of
- Sunni-Shia Split, 632 and after
Sources
Primary
- Al-Tabari, History, the accounts of Siffin (657).
Secondary
- Valerie J. Hoffman, The Essentials of Ibadi Islam (2012).