WikiPortallus: Kafir.html

Kafir (Arabic: كافر kāfir; plural كفّار kuffār) is an Arabic word meaning "rejecter" or "ingrate". In the Islamic doctrinal sense, the term refers to a person who does not recognize God (Allah) or the prophethood of Muhammad (i.e., any non-Muslim) or who hides, denies, or covers the "truth". In cultural terms, it is seen as a derogatory term¹ used to describe an unbeliever, non-Muslims, apostate from Islam and even between Muslims of different sects. It is usually translated into English as "infidel" or "unbeliever".

Debate exists between some Muslim scholars as to whether the term applies to certain religions, as these can also be regarded as Ahl-ul Kittab, People of the Book or Dhimmi ("protected people"). "Kafir" has been used historically to identify the followers of non-denominational religions or local traditions.²

Etymology

The word kāfir is the active participle of the root K-F-R "to cover". As a pre-Islamic term it described farmers burying seeds in the ground, covering them with soil while planting. Thus, the word kāfir implies the meaning "a person who hides or covers". In Islamic parlance, a kāfir is a word used to describe a person who rejects Islamic faith, i.e. "hides or covers [viz., the truth]".³

"kafara" ~ the root verb ~ means "he hid (something)" and "he covered (something)" or "He hid (something) by covering it up." Both "hiding" and "covering up" are indelible significations of all of the words arising on the verbal root. "Yom Kippur" (the same word in Hebrew) is the day the Hebrews ask God to "cover up their faults."

The shari'ah provides reliable "kaffaara" that are expiations for faults ~ covering them up so that they do not attach themselves to one's character that persists into subsequent life. In all cases there is some specific known thing that is hidden or covered up.

Thus "unbeliever" does not translate the word at all. In its usual context, kaafir and kaafirun (the plural) denote those who know the truth of Islam and hide it, denying their knowledge or falsifying the evidence by which they know it.

Qur'anic references

The word kāfir (and related words, such as the abstract noun kufr "disbelief") is mentioned in the Qur’an in five different senses:

The word kufr can also be applied to a Muslim when he is doing something wrong, but not necessarily something that would place him or her outside the state of belief in Islam. For example, a Muslim who is able to perform the Hajj but does not go, without denying the need to go, would be committing an act of kufr in a sense of ungratefulness to God.

In the Qur'an the phrase "O disbelievers" (yā kuffār, Ya ayuhalathina kafaru, or Ya ayuhal-kafirun) is found only in these two places:

In today's world, scholars recommend^{citation needed} that Muslims should use the same term "People of the Book" with Christians and Jews, or call them Christians and Jews, if they wish to be called so, or simply call them "non-Muslims".

According to scholars

Some scholars say People of the Book — that is to say Christians, Jews (including Samaritans) and "Sabians" — are kafir (disbelievers) because even if they are considered recipients of divine revelation from God, the Qur'an literally stamps them with the term Al-Ladheena Kafaru (those who cover)/ Walaqad Kaffara (Surely they have become kafirs).

While Muslims do view the People of the Book as having altered their religions, a minority reserve the term "kafir" for polytheists, atheists, and those who consciously live in spite of God. Hence, the People of the Book, as worshippers of God are not "kufar" in the sense it is often used. Furthermore, some Muslims would argue that God would not allow marriage between Muslim men and Christian/Jewish women (as is permitted under Qur'an 5:5) if they were on the same level as those previously mentioned.

Acts that invalidate Islam

"Verily, God forgives not (the sin of) setting up partners in worship with Him, but He forgives whom He pleases other sins than that" (al-Nisa 116).

"Say: Was it God, or His signs or His Messenger that you were mocking? Make no excuse, you have disbelieved after you had believed." (al-Tauba 65-66).

"And who does more wrong than he who is reminded of the signs of his Lord, then he turns aside therefrom? Verily, We shall exact retribution from the sinners"

The Kafiroon are not to be confused with the munafiq. The munafiq are Muslim hypocrites.

Muslim relations with the Kafir

For dealing with non-Muslims, Jasser Auda, a director of the al-Maqasid Research Centre in the Philosophy of the Islamic Law in London, England, says that the general rule is mentioned in the verse that says what means:

Birr in this context is likened to birr al-walidain, the kindness that a Muslim should show to his or her parents.⁴

Some Muslims believe that making friends with the Kafir is prohibited in Islam. Others consider the directive in Qur'an only for those Christians and Jews who were direct addressees of Qur'an or in war when there is a danger of transmission of secrets.⁵ As in Qur'an:

Shi'a jurists have traditionally deemed the person who does not believe in Allah ( God ) and His Oneness to be ritually impure (najis) so that physical contact with them or things they touched would require Shi'as to wash themselves before doing regular prayers. As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah, they are commonly considered Pak ( pure ).⁶⁷⁸

Use outside Islam

By the 15th century, the word kafir/kuffar was used by Muslims in Africa to refer to the non-Muslim African natives. Many of those kufari were enslaved and sold by their Muslims captors to European and Asian merchants, mainly from Portugal, who by that time had established trading outposts along the coast of West Africa. These European traders adopted that Arabic word and it's derivatives.

Some of the earliest records of European usage of the word can be found in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation by Hakluyt, Richard, 1552-1616 [3]. In volume 4, Hakluyt writes: calling them Cafars and Gawars, which is, infidels or disbelievers ⁹. Volume 9 refers to the slaves (slaves called Cafari) and inhabitants of Ethiopia (and they use to go in small shippes, and trade with the Cafars ) by two different but similar names. The word is also used in reference to the coast of Africa ( land of Cafraria on the coast of Ethiopia).¹⁰

Some of those African slaves were taken by the Portuguese to work in their colonies in Asia. In some cities of Sri Lanka, in particular, the descendants of those slaves still constitute a distinctive ethnic group, who call themselves Kaffir.

By the late 19th century the word was in common use throughout Europe and its colonies, often appeared in the newspapers and other written works of the time.¹²¹³¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶ One of the Union-Castle Line ships operating off the South African coast even carried the name SS Kafir.¹⁷

In South Africa, the word kaffir eventually became a racial slur, applied pejoratively or offensively by some whites to African blacks or to dark-skinned persons in general. In Jamaica, it is applied by some Jamaicans of Indian ancestry to Jamaicans of African ancestry.

Recent Uses of the Term

The term has taken a new significance since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It has become vogue for recently-returned U.S. military personnel to wear T-shirts displaying the word “kafir” written in Arabic; often in the form of a black T-shirt with large white script. Usually, a translation of the term is printed in smaller letters below the Arabic script. In some cases the T-shirts state that the wearer is a "Proud Kafir." The T-shirts, along with other similarly labeled items, are commonly sold via politically conservative or military-related websites or at gun shows. The primary purpose for these items appears to be an attempt to co-opt the negative meaning of the term and serve as an act of political defiance.

Kafir.html

Contents