Takfir or takfīr (takfīr) is an Arabic and Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim to be an apostate. The word is found neither in the Quran nor in the ḥadīth literature; instead, kufr ("unbelief") and kāfir ("unbeliever") and other terms employing the same triliteral root k-f-r appear. "The word takfīr was introduced in the post-Quranic period and was first done by the Khawarij", according to J. E. Campo. The act which precipitates takfīr is termed mukaffir. A Muslim who declares another Muslim to be an unbeliever or apostate is a takfīri ("excommunicational").
Since according to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law (sharīʿa) the punishment for apostasy is the death penalty, and potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community (Ummah), an ill-founded takfir accusation was a major forbidden act (haram) in Islamic jurisprudence, with one hadith declaring that one who wrongly declares a Muslim an unbeliever is himself an apostate. In the history of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as the Kharijites carried out takfīr against both Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims, and became the main source of insurrection against the early caliphates for centuries. Traditionally, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim a kāfir are the scholars of Islam (Ulama), which affirm that all the prescribed legal precautions should be taken before declaring takfīr, and that those who profess the Islamic faith should be exempt.
Starting in the mid-to-late 20th century, some individuals and organizations in the Muslim world began to apply takfīr accusations not only against those that they perceived as stray deviant and lapsed Muslims, but Islamic governments and societies as well. In his widely influential book Milestones, Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyid Qutb preached that all of the Muslim world had fallen into a state of collective apostasy or jahiliyah (a state of pre-Islamic ignorance) several centuries ago, having abandoned the use of sharīʿa law, without which (Qutb held) Islam cannot exist.
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The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; ˈaɪsᵻl), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS; ˈaɪsᵻs), and by its Arabic acronym Da'ish or Daesh (داعش, Dāʿish, ˈdaːʕɪʃ), is a transnational militant Islamist terrorist group and former unrecognized quasi-state that follows the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam. It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when it captured a large amount of Iraqi territory, and took advantage of the civil war in Syria to take control of chunks of territory in Eastern Syria.
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within Sunnī Islam different schools of theology (Atharī, Ashʿarī, Māturīdī) and jurisprudence (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī).
Salafi jihadism, also known as Revolutionary Salafism or jihadist-Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim and (takfired) Muslim targets, and the Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts "in their most literal, traditional sense", to bring about the return to (what adherents believe to be) "true Islam".