He used to keep fast during the day and offer prayers the night through".

He used to keep fast during the day and offer prayers the night through". Their every action was inspired by their belief. They were dogmatic in all their performance. They struggled for the promotion of their doctrines. About them Ali (peace be upon him) says: "Do not kill of the Kharijites any more after me, because the one who seeks the truth but goes amiss, is not like the one who seeks falsehood and finds it". That is to say: "They differ from the accomplices of Mo'awiyah.

These people wanted the truth but had fallen in error, while the others were jugglers essentially and their line was the line of falsehood. Hereafter, if you kill them it will be to the advantage of Mo'awiyah who is worse and more dangerous than they are". ( 127 ) Before exhausting all characteristics of the Kharijites, it appears essential to deal forthwith an issue relevant to their piety, continence and Pharisaism, viz.

in combat with those arid, petrified, haughty, self-righteous people, Ali's bold and courageous stand is one of his biography's exceptional salient charms to which no match can be cited. Ali drew his sword against such people who were looking good, refined, pious and poorly dressed formalists and he did them all to death.

If we would have been in his companions' stead and would have seen such countenances, certainly we would have felt agitated and objected to Ali "After all why to draw your sword against such a people"? Of many instructive lessons in the history of Shiaism in particular and of Islam in general is this very tale of the Kharijites. Ali is aware of the exceptional importance of this aspect of his action. He repeats it and says: "I pulled out the eye of this sedition.

Except me, none had the courage to handle them when the wave of their darkness and deception had assumed tide and underneath their madness had aggravated". "In this context, Amir-ul-Momineen (PBH) has got two valid arguments: The deception and confusion created by this movement: (i) The apparent piety and the features of the Kharijites were of such a pattern that it would put every faithful Muslim in doubt.

For this reason a dark wave of ambiguity and an atmosphere of doubt and double-mindedness obtained. ( 128 ) (ii) The other argument is that the arid formalists have been compared with dog for its madness. The same madness when it appears in a dog, the dog would bite whosoever comes across it. This disease is microbic (virus).