Kafirs

Kafir ( ar, كافر '; plural ', ' or '; feminine '; feminine plural ' or ') is an Arabic and Islamic term which, in the Islamic tradition, refers to a person who disbelieves in God as per Islam, or denies his authority, or rejects the tenets of Islam. The term is often translated as " infidel", " pagan", "rejector", " denier", "disbeliever", "unbeliever", "nonbeliever", and "non-Muslim". The term is used in different ways in the Quran, with the most fundamental sense being "ungrateful" (toward God). ''Kufr'' means "unbelief" or "non-belief", "to be thankless", "to be faithless", or "ingratitude". The opposite term of ''kufr'' is '' īmān'' (faith), and the opposite of ''kāfir'' is '' muʾmin'' (believer). A person who denies the existence of a creator might be called a '' dahri''.

''Kafir'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''mushrik'' (, those who practice polytheism), another type of religious wrongdoer mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic works. (Other, sometimes overlapping Quranic terms for wrong doers are ''ẓallām'' (villain, oppressor) and ''fāsiq'' (sinner, fornicator).) Historically, while Islamic scholars agreed that a polytheist/''mushrik'' is a ''kafir'', they sometimes disagreed on the propriety of applying the term to Muslims who committed a grave sin or to the People of the Book. The Quran distinguishes between ''mushrikun'' and People of the Book, reserving the former term for idol-worshippers, although some classical commentators considered the Christian doctrine to be a form of '' shirk''.

In modern times, ''kafir'' is sometimes applied towards self-professed Muslims particularly by members of Islamist movements. The act of declaring another self-professed Muslim a ''kafir'' is known as ''takfir'', a practice that has been condemned but also employed in theological and political polemics over the centuries. A ''Dhimmī'' or ''Muʿāhid'' is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. ''Dhimmī'' were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax ('' jizya'') but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation according to some scholars, whereas others state that religious minorities subjected to the status of ''Dhimmī'' (such as Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians) were inferior to the status of Muslims in Islamic states. Jews and Christians were required to pay the '' jizya'' and '' kharaj'' taxes, while others, depending on the different rulings of the four ''madhhab'', might be required to convert to Islam, pay the ''jizya'', be exiled, or killed under the Islamic death penalty.

In 2019, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest independent Islamic organization based in Indonesia, issued a proclamation urging Muslims to refrain from using the word "''kafir''" to refer to non-Muslims, because the term is both offensive and perceived as "theologically violent".

Etymology

The word ' is the active participle of the verb كَفَرَ kafara, from root ك-ف-ر K-F-R. As a pre-Islamic term it described farmers burying seeds in the ground. One of its applications in the Quran has also the same meaning as farmer. Since farmers cover the seeds with soil while planting, the word ' implies a person who hides or covers. Ideologically, it implies a person who hides or covers the truth. Arabic poets personify the darkness of night as ''kâfir'', perhaps as a survival of pre-Islamic Arabian religious or mythological usage.

The noun for disbelief, "blasphemy", "impiety" rather than the person who disbelieves, is ''kufr''.

Usage

The practice of declaring another Muslim as a ''kafir'' is ''takfir''. ''Kufr'' (unbelief) and ''shirk'' (idolatry) are used throughout the Quran and sometimes used interchangeably by Muslims. According to Salafist scholars, ''Kufr'' is the "denial of the Truth" (truth in the form of articles of faith in Islam), and ''shirk'' means devoting "acts of worship to anything beside God" or "the worship of idols and other created beings". So a mushrik may worship other things while also "acknowledging God".

In the Quran

The distinction between those who believe in Islam and those who do not is an essential one in the Quran. ''Kafir'', and its plural ''kuffaar'', is used directly 134 times in Quran, its verbal noun "''kufr''" is used 37 times, and the verbal cognates of ''kafir'' are used about 250 times.

By extension of the basic meaning of the root, "to cover", the term is used in the Quran in the senses of ignore/fail to acknowledge and to spurn/be ungrateful. The meaning of "disbelief", which has come to be regarded as primary, retains all of these connotations in the Quranic usage. In the Quranic discourse, the term typifies all things that are unacceptable and offensive to God. Whereby it is not necessary to deny the existence of God, but it suffices to deviate from his will as seen in a dialogue between God and Iblis, the latter called a ''kafir''. According to Al-Damiri (1341–1405) it is neither denying God, nor the act of disobedience alone, but Iblis' attitude (claiming that God's command is unjust), which makes him a ''kafir''. The most fundamental sense of ''kufr'' in the Quran is "ingratitude", the willful refusal to acknowledge or appreciate the benefits that God bestows on humankind, including clear signs and revealed scriptures.

According to the ''E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, Volume 4'', the term first applied in the Quran to unbelieving Meccans, who endeavoured "to refute and revile the Prophet". A waiting attitude towards the ''kafir'' was recommended at first for Muslims; later, Muslims were ordered to keep apart from unbelievers and defend themselves against their attacks and even take the offensive. Most passages in the Quran referring to unbelievers in general talk about their fate on the day of judgement and destination in hell.

According to scholar Marilyn Waldman, as the Quran "progresses" (as the reader goes from the verses revealed first to later ones), the meaning behind the term ''kafir'' does not change but "progresses", i.e. "accumulates meaning over time". As the Islamic prophet Muhammad's views of his opponents change, his use of ''kafir'' "undergoes a development". ''Kafir'' moves from being ''one'' description of Muhammad's opponents to the primary one. Later in the Quran, ''kafir'' becomes more and more connected with '' shirk''. Finally, towards the end of the Quran, ''kafir'' begins to also signify the group of people to be fought by the ''mu'minīn'' (believers).

Types of unbelievers

People of the Book

The status of the ''Ahl al-Kitab'' (People of the Book), particularly Jews and Christians, with respect to the Islamic notions of unbelief is disputed.

Charles Adams writes that the Quran reproaches the People of the Book with ''kufr'' for rejecting Muhammad's message when they should have been the first to accept it as possessors of earlier revelations, and singles out Christians for disregarding the evidence of God's unity. The Quranic verse ("Certainly they disbelieve 'kafara''who say: God is the third of three"), among other verses, has been traditionally understood in Islam as rejection of the Christian doctrine on the Trinity, though modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations. Other Quranic verses strongly deny the deity of Jesus Christ, son of Mary and reproach the people who treat Jesus as equal with God as disbelievers who will have strayed from the path of God which would result in the entrance of hellfire. While the Quran does not recognize the attribute of Jesus as the Son of God or God himself, it respects Jesus as a prophet and messenger of God sent to children of Israel. Some Muslim thinkers such as Mohamed Talbi have viewed the most extreme Quranic presentations of the dogmas of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus (, , ) as non-Christian formulas that were rejected by the Church.

On the other hand, modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations of verse Q.. Cyril Glasse criticizes the use of ''kafirun'' l. of ''kafir''to describe Christians as "loose usage". According to the ''Encyclopedia of Islam'', in traditional Islamic jurisprudence, ''ahl al-kitab'' are "usually regarded more leniently than other ''kuffar'' l. of ''kafir'' and "in theory" a Muslim commits a punishable offense if he says to a Jew or a Christian: "Thou unbeliever". (Charles Adams and A. Kevin Reinhart also write that "later thinkers" in Islam distinguished between ''ahl al-kitab'' and the polytheists/''mushrikīn'').

Historically, People of the Book permanently residing under Islamic rule were entitled to a special status known as ''dhimmī'', while those visiting Muslim lands received a different status known as ''musta'min''.

''Mushrikun''

''Mushrikun'' (pl. of ''mushrik'') are those who practice '' shirk'', which literally means "association" and refers to accepting other gods and divinities alongside the god of the Muslims – Allah (as God's "associates"). The term is often translated as polytheism. The Quran distinguishes between ''mushrikun'' and People of the Book, reserving the former term for idol worshipers, although some classical commentators considered Christian doctrine to be a form of ''shirk''. ''Shirk'' is held to be the worst form of disbelief, and it is identified in the Quran as the only sin that God will not pardon (, ).

Accusations of ''shirk'' have been common in religious polemics within Islam. Thus, in the early Islamic debates on free will and theodicy, Sunni theologians charged their Mu'tazila adversaries with ''shirk'', accusing them of attributing to man creative powers comparable to those of God in both originating and executing his own actions. Mu'tazila theologians, in turn, charged the Sunnis with ''shirk'' on the grounds that under their doctrine a voluntary human act would result from an "association" between God, who creates the act, and the individual who appropriates it by carrying it out.

In classical jurisprudence, Islamic religious tolerance applied only to the People of the Book, while ''mushrikun'', based on the Sword Verse, faced a choice between conversion to Islam and fight to the death, which may be substituted by enslavement. In practice, the designation of People of the Book and the ''dhimmī'' status was extended even to non-monotheistic religions of conquered peoples, such as Hinduism. Following destruction of major Hindu temples during the Muslim conquests in South Asia, Hindus and Muslims on the subcontinent came to share a number of popular religious practices and beliefs, such as veneration of Sufi saints and worship at Sufi dargahs, although Hindus may worship at Hindu shrines also.

In the 18th century, followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (aka Wahhabis) believed "kufr or shirk" was found in the Muslim community itself, especially in "the practice of popular religion":

While ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Wahhābīs was/were "the best-known premodern" revivalist and "sectarian movement" of that era, other revivalists included Shah Ismail Dehlvi and Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, leaders of the Mujāhidīn movement on the North-West frontier of India in the early nineteenth century.

Sinners

Whether a Muslim could commit a sin great enough to become a ''kafir'' was disputed by jurists in the early centuries of Islam. The most tolerant view (that of the ''Murji'ah'') was that even those who had committed a major sin (''kabira'') were still believers and "their fate was left to God". The most strict view (that of Kharidji Ibadis, descended from the Kharijites) was that every Muslim who dies having not repented of his sins was considered a ''kafir''. In between these two positions, the ''Mu'tazila'' believed that there was a status between believer and unbeliever called "rejected" or ''fasiq''.

''Takfir''

The Kharijites view that the self-proclaimed Muslim who had sinned and "failed to repent had ipso facto excluded himself from the community, and was hence a kafir" (a practice known as ''takfir'') was considered so extreme by the Sunni majority that they in turn declared the Kharijites to be ''kuffar'', following the hadith that declared, "If a Muslim charges a fellow Muslim with ''kufr'', he is himself a ''kafir'' if the accusation should prove untrue".

Nevertheless, in Islamic theological polemics ''kafir'' was "a frequent term for the Muslim protagonist" holding the opposite view, according to ''Brill's Islamic Encyclopedia''.

Present-day Muslims who make interpretations that differ from what others believe are declared ''kafirs''; '' fatwas'' (edicts by Islamic religious leaders) are issued ordering Muslims to kill them, and some such people have been killed also.

''Murtad''

Another group that are "distinguished from the mass of kafirun" are the ''murtad'', or apostate ex-Muslims, who are considered renegades and traitors. Their traditional punishment is death, even, according to some scholars, if they recant their abandonment of Islam.

''Muʿāhid'' / ''Dhimmī''

''Dhimmī'' are non-Muslims living under the protection of an Islamic state. ''Dhimmī'' were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax ('' jizya'') but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation according to some scholars,H. Patrick Glenn, ''Legal Traditions of the World''. Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 219.The French scholar Gustave Le Bon (the author of ''La civilisation des Arabes'') writes "that despite the fact that the incidence of taxation fell more heavily on a Muslim than a non-Muslim, the non-Muslim was free to enjoy equally well with every Muslim all the privileges afforded to the citizens of the state. The only privilege that was reserved for the Muslims was the seat of the caliphate, and this, because of certain religious functions attached to it, which could not naturally be discharged by a non-Muslim." Mun'im Sirry (2014), ''Scriptural Polemics: The Qur'an and Other Religions'', p.179. Oxford University Press. . whereas others state that religious minorities subjected to the status of ''Dhimmī'' (such as Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians) were inferior to the status of Muslims in Islamic states. Jews and Christians were required to pay the ''jizyah'' while pagans, depending on the different rulings of the four ''madhhab'', might be required to accept Islam, pay the jizya, be exiled, or be killed under the Islamic death penalty.Waines (2003) "An Introduction to Islam" ''Cambridge University Press''. p. 53Winter, T. J., & Williams, J. A. (2002). ''Understanding Islam and the Muslims: The Muslim Family Islam and World Peace''. Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae. p. 82. . Quote: The laws of Muslim warfare forbid any forced conversions, and regard them as invalid if they occur. Some historians believe that forced conversion was rare in Islamic history, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. Muslim rulers were often more interested in conquest than conversion.

Upon payment of the tax (''jizya''), the ''dhimmī'' would receive a receipt of payment, either in the form of a piece of paper or parchment or as a seal humiliatingly placed upon their neck, and was thereafter compelled to carry this receipt wherever he went within the realms of Islam. Failure to produce an up-to-date ''jizya'' receipt on the request of a Muslim could result in death or forced conversion to Islam of the ''dhimmī'' in question.

Types of disbelief

Various types of unbelief recognized by legal scholars include:
*''kufr bi-l-qawl'' (verbally expressed unbelief)
*''kufr bi-l-fi'l'' (unbelief expressed through action)
*''kufr bi-l-i'tiqad'' (unbelief of convictions)
*''kufr akbar'' (major unbelief)
*''kufr asghar'' (minor unbelief)
*''takfir 'amm ''(general charge of unbelief, i.e. charged against a community like ahmadiyya
*''takfir al-mu'ayyan'' (charge of unbelief against a particular individual)
*''takfir al-'awamm'' (charge of unbelief against "rank and file Muslims" for example following taqlid.
*''takfir al-mutlaq'' (category covers general statements such as 'whoever says X or does Y is guilty of unbelief')
* ''kufr asli'' (original unbelief of non-Muslims, those born to non-Muslim family)
*''kufr tari'' (acquired unbelief of formerly observant Muslims, i.e. apostates)
;Iman
Muslim belief/doctrine is often summarized in " the Six Articles of Faith", (the first five are mentioned together in the ).

# God
# His angels
# His Messengers
# His Revealed Books,
# The Day of Resurrection
# '' Al-Qadar'', Divine Preordainments, i.e. whatever God has ordained must come to pass

According to the Salafi scholar Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali, "''kufr'' is basically disbelief in any of the articles of faith. He also lists several different types of major disbelief, (disbelief so severe it excludes those who practice it completely from the fold of Islam):

# ''Kufr-at-Takdhib'': disbelief in divine truth or the denial of any of the articles of Faith (quran 39:32)
# ''Kufr-al-iba wat-takabbur ma'at-Tasdiq'': refusing to submit to God's Commandments after conviction of their truth (quran 2:34)
# ''Kufr-ash-Shakk waz-Zann'': doubting or lacking conviction in the six articles of Faith. (quran 18:35–38)
# ''Kufr-al-I'raadh'': turning away from the truth knowingly or deviating from the obvious signs which God has revealed. (quran 46:3)
# '' Kufr-an-Nifaaq'': hypocritical disbelief (quran 63:2–3)

Minor disbelief or ''Kufran-Ni'mah '' indicates "ungratefulness of God's Blessings or Favours".

According to another source, a paraphrase of the Tafsir by Ibn Kathir, there are eight kinds of ''Al-Kufr al-Akbar'' (major unbelief), some are the same as those described by Al-Hilali (''Kufr-al-I'rad'', ''Kufr-an-Nifaaq'') and some different.

# ''Kufrul-'Inaad'': Disbelief out of stubbornness. This applies to someone who knows the Truth and admits to knowing the Truth, and knowing it with his tongue, but refuses to accept it and refrains from making a declaration. God says: Throw into Hell every stubborn disbeliever.
# ''Kufrul-Inkaar'': Disbelief out of denial. This applies to someone who denies with both heart and tongue. God says: They recognize the favors of God, yet they deny them. Most of them are disbelievers.
# ''Kufrul-Juhood'': Disbelief out of rejection. This applies to someone who acknowledges the truth in his heart, but rejects it with his tongue. This type of kufr is applicable to those who call themselves Muslims but who reject any necessary and accepted norms of Islam such as Salah and Zakat. God says: They denied them (our signs) even though their hearts believed in them, out of spite and arrogance.
# '' Kufrul-Nifaaq'': Disbelief out of hypocrisy. This applies to someone who pretends to be a believer but conceals his disbelief. Such a person is called a munafiq or hypocrite. God says: Verily the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of Hell. You will find no one to help them.
# ''Kufrul-Kurh'': Disbelief out of detesting any of God's commands. God says: Perdition (destruction) has been consigned to those who disbelieve and He will render their actions void. This is because they are averse to that which God has revealed so He has made their actions fruitless.
# ''Kufrul-Istihzaha'': Disbelief due to mockery and derision. God says: Say: Was it at God, His signs and His apostles that you were mocking? Make no excuses. You have disbelieved after you have believed.
# ''Kufrul-I'raadh'': Disbelief due to avoidance. This applies to those who turn away and avoid the truth. God says: And who is more unjust than he who is reminded of his Lord's signs but then turns away from them. Then he forgets what he has sent forward (for the Day of Judgement).
# ''Kufrul-Istibdaal'': Disbelief because of trying to substitute God's Laws with man-made laws. God says: Or have they partners with God who have instituted for them a religion that God has not allowed. God says: Say not concerning that which your tongues put forth falsely (that) is lawful and this is forbidden so as to invent a lie against God. Verily, those who invent a lie against God will never prosper.

Ignorance

In Islam, jahiliyyah ("ignorance") refers to the time of Arabia before Islam.

History of the usage of the term

Usage in the proper sense

When the Islamic empire expanded, the word "''kafir''" was broadly used as a descriptive term for all pagans and anyone else who disbelieved in Islam.
Historically, the attitude toward unbelievers in Islam was determined more by socio-political conditions than by religious doctrine. A tolerance toward unbelievers "impossible to imagine in contemporary Christendom" prevailed even to the time of the Crusades, particularly with respect to the People of the Book. However, due to animosity towards Franks, the term ''kafir'' developed into a term of abuse. During the Mahdist War, the Mahdist State used the term ''kuffar'' against Ottoman Turks, and the Turks themselves used the term ''kuffar'' towards Persians during the Ottoman-Safavid wars. In modern Muslim popular imagination, the ''dajjal'' (antichrist-like figure) will have k-f-r written on his forehead.

However, there was extensive religious violence in India between Muslims and non-Muslims during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire (before the political decline of Islam).
In their memoirs on Muslim invasions, enslavement and plunder of this period, many Muslim historians in South Asia used the term Kafir for Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains.Elliot and Dowson
Tarikh-i Mubarak-Shahi
The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians – The Muhammadan Period, Vol 4, Trubner London, p. 273

Raziuddin Aquil states that "non-Muslims were often condemned as ''kafirs'', in medieval Indian Islamic literature, including court chronicles, Sufi texts and literary compositions" and fatwas were issued that justified persecution of the non-Muslims.

Relations between Jews and Muslims in the Arab world and use of the word "kafir" were equally as complex, and over the last century, issues regarding "kafir" have arisen over the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Calling the Jews of Israel, "the usurping kafir", Yasser Arafat turned on the Muslim resistance and "allegedly set a precedent for preventing Muslims from mobilizing against 'aggressor disbelievers' in other Muslim lands, and enabled 'the cowardly, alien kafir' to achieve new levels of intervention in Muslim affairs."

In 2019, Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest independent Islamic organization in the world based in Indonesia, issued a proclamation urging Muslims to refrain from using the word ''kafir'' to refer to non-Muslims, as the term is both offensive and perceived to be "theologically violent".

Muhammad's parents

A hadith in which Muhammad states that his father, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, was in Hell, has become a source of disagreement among Islamic scholars about the status of Muhammad's parents. Over the centuries, Sunni scholars have dismissed this hadith despite its appearance in the authoritative ''Sahih Muslim'' collection. It passed through a single chain of transmission for three generations, so that its authenticity was not considered certain enough to supersede a theological consensus which stated that people who died before a prophetic message reached them—as Muhammad's father had done—could not be held accountable for not embracing it. Shia Muslim scholars likewise consider Muhammad's parents to be in Paradise. In contrast, the Salafi website IslamQA.info, founded by the Saudi Arabian Salafi scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid, argues that Islamic tradition teaches that Muhammad's parents were ''kuffār'' ("disbelievers") who are in Hell.

Other uses

By the 15th century, Muslims in Africa were using the word Kaffir in reference to the non-Muslim African natives. Many of those ''kufari'' were enslaved and sold to European and Asian merchants by their Muslim captors, most of the merchants were from Portugal, which had established trading outposts along the coast of West Africa by that time. These European traders adopted the Arabic word and its 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'' (1589) by Richard Hakluyt. In volume 4, Hakluyt writes: "calling them ''Cafars'' and ''Gawars'', which is, infidels or disbelievers". 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 as ''land of Cafraria''. The 16th century explorer Leo Africanus described the ''Cafri'' as "negroes", and he also stated that they constituted one of five principal population groups in Africa. He identified their geographical heartland as being located in a remote region of southern Africa, an area which he designated as ''Cafraria''.

By the late 19th century, the word was in use in English-language newspapers and books. One of the Union-Castle Line ships operating off the South African coast was named SS ''Kafir''. In the early twentieth century, in his book ''The Essential Kafir'', Dudley Kidd writes that the word ''kafir'' had come to be used for all dark-skinned South African tribes. Thus, in many parts of South Africa, ''kafir'' became synonymous with the word "native". Currently in South Africa, however, the word '' kaffir'' is regarded as a racial slur, applied pejoratively or offensively to blacks.

The song "Kafir" by the American technical death metal band Nile on its sixth album ''Those Whom the Gods Detest'' uses the violent attitudes that Muslim extremists have towards kafirs as subject matter.

The Nuristani people were formerly known as the Kaffirs of Kafiristan before the Afghan Islamization of the region.

The Kalash people who live in the Hindu Kush mountain range which is located south west of Chitral are referred to as kafirs by the Muslim population of Chitral.

In modern Spanish, the word ''cafre'', derived from the Arabic word ''kafir'' by way of the Portuguese language, also means "uncouth" or "savage".

See also

References

Notes

Citations

External links

Nonbelief: An Islamic Perspective



Takfir – Anathematizing

Universal Validity of Religions and the Issue of Takfir

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