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Murji'a

Orthodoxy and Dissent

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Origin from 695

Murji'a is the position, emerging among some Muslims in the late seventh century amid the political and moral turmoil following the early civil wars, that judgment on whether a professing Muslim who commits a grave sin remains a believer should be deferred, irja, to God alone in the next life, rather than settled by other Muslims in this one; faith, on this account, rests essentially on inward belief and confession rather than being nullified by sinful action. The position arose partly in reaction against the Kharijites, who held that a Muslim committing a grave sin thereby leaves the faith entirely and may be justly fought. Its opponents, including many early jurists and later Mutazilite theologians, held that the position too easily separated faith from practice and gave grave sinners an unwarranted assurance, and classical heresiographers such as al-Baghdadi counted Murji'a among the deviant sects. The label covers a range of positions rather than one unified school, and its central concern, that a sinning Muslim is not thereby cast out of the faith, was in a more moderate form later absorbed into mainstream Sunni theology.

Facts
Disputed
Held By
A position emerging in the late seventh century, holding that judgment on a grave sinner standing as a believer should be deferred to God alone rather than settled by other Muslims; classical heresiographers counted it among the deviant sects, though a more moderate version of its central concern, that sin alone does not expel a Muslim from the faith, was later absorbed into mainstream Sunni theology in modified form. 2
Watt argues the boundary between a rejected extreme Murji'a and the moderate position mainstream Sunni theology eventually adopted on this question is one of degree rather than of kind, which complicates treating the whole label as simply condemned; this atlas records that complication rather than smoothing it into a flat verdict.
Principal Proponent
No single founder is named in the surviving record; the position is associated with a range of early theologians and political quietists reacting against the Kharijites, rather than with one named teacher. 1
Historians treat Murji'a as a loose tendency named and grouped by later heresiographers rather than a school with a founder, which is itself part of why its boundaries are disputed.
Origins
Origin Period
from 695 1
Defining Moment
Classical heresiographers, including al-Baghdadi in the eleventh century, catalogued Murji'a among the named deviant sects; no single council condemned it, and mainstream Sunni theology later absorbed a moderated form of its central concern about sin and faith. 1
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Genuinely disputed within the tradition 2Tradition: Islam
Doctrinal Category
Faith, Sin and Religious Community 2
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
That whether a professing Muslim who commits a grave sin remains within the faith should be left to God judgment in the next life rather than decided by other believers in this one, since faith rests essentially on inward belief rather than being nullified by sinful action. 2
Position Profile
Opposing Position
That deferring judgment on a grave sinner too easily separates faith from practice and gives an unwarranted assurance to wrongdoing, a concern raised by early jurists and later sharpened by Mutazilite theologians, who held a grave sinner to occupy an intermediate position between belief and unbelief. 2
Learn More
Deferring Judgment, and What Sunni Orthodoxy Kept From It

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Kharijites had an answer to the question of the grave sinner that was simple and severe: a Muslim who commits a serious sin has left the faith, and may rightly be fought as an apostate. Murji'a arose largely as a refusal of that severity, in the unsettled decades after the first civil wars split the early Muslim community.

Its answer inverted the question rather than softening it. Rather than deciding here and now whether a sinning Muslim remains a believer, the position held that the judgment should be deferred, irja, to God alone, in the next life. In the meantime, a professing Muslim's inward faith and confession, rather than the record of sinful acts, is what defines them as a believer.

Classical heresiographers were not kind to the position. Al-Baghdadi, writing centuries later, catalogued Murji'a among the deviant sects, and Mutazilite theologians developed the competing view that a grave sinner occupies neither the category of believer nor unbeliever but an intermediate position of its own. The critique on both sides was the same: deferring judgment, opponents argued, cuts the link between faith and practice and hands a grave sinner an assurance scripture never promised.

What later Sunni orthodoxy actually settled on complicates any simple verdict that the position was refuted and dismissed. Mainstream theology came to hold that a sinning Muslim remains a Muslim, not an apostate to be fought, which sits closer to Murji'a's core instinct than to the Kharijite position. Watt reads the eventual mainstream settlement as having absorbed a moderated form of exactly what the condemned extreme had argued, which is why historians treat the label with more care than a flat list of rejected sects usually receives.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Islam, Religions

Contrasts With

Kharijites, Denominations
Sources
1. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition
P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Brill, 2005the Murji'a entry and its classical heresiographical receptionView the Source
2. Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam
W. Montgomery Watt, Luzac and Co, 1948Murji'a and the debate over the grave sinner statusView the Source
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