Encyclopedia of Islam

kafir

  

421  J

---

beliefs and practices of the 

umma

. Even though 

condemned in the 

hadith

, kafir became a polemi-

cal term used more by Muslim elites against other 

Muslims than against non-Muslims during the 

Middle Ages. Among those accused of unbelief 

were leading Muslim philosophers such as i

bn

s

ina

 (d. 1037), “intoxicated” Sufis such as Man-

sur al-h

allaJ

 (d. 922), and members of various 

branches of the Shia.

Drawing on this tradition and promoting a 

rigid doctrine of absolute monotheism, the central 

Arabian revivalist Muhammad 

ibn

 a

bd

 

al

-W

ahhab

(d. 1798) called any Muslim who failed to enact 

the requirements of believing in one God a kafir.

This included Muslims who practiced fortune-

telling, magic, astrology, wearing amulets, exces-

sive mourning of the dead, Sufi shrine pilgrimage,

and who followed Shii teachings about the Imams. 

The conquest of much of the Arabian Peninsula 

by the Saudis in alliance with the followers of 

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings, Saudi control of 

Islam’s most sacred centers in Mecca and Medina, 

and 

oil

 revenues have given significant weight 

to the influence of the Wahhabi understanding 

of Islam and disbelief well beyond the borders of 

s

aUdi

 a

rabia

.

In the modern period Islamist ideologists such 

as Abu al-Ala m

aWdUdi

 (d. 1979) of Indo-Pakistan 

and Sayyid q

Utb

 (d. 1966) of e

gypt

 have extended 

the polemics of unbelief to include condemna-

tions of Western-style 

secUlarism

 and the mate-

rialist understandings of society. They considered 

the 20th century to be Jahiliyya time, recalling 

the era that preceded Islam’s appearance when 

unbelief prevailed. The main difference between 

the jahiliyya of ancient Arabia and today was that 

the modern jahilyiya was one when Muslim soci-

eties were being corrupted by Western laws and 

governments based on Western models that vio-

lated the 

sharia

. Mawdudi and Qutb called upon 

a faithful corps of true Muslims, what Qutb called 

a “unique quranic generation,” not only to reject 

the modern jahiliya, but to conduct jihad against 

it to bring about its destruction. They quoted the 

Quran in support of their radical ideology, espe-

cially the verse, “Those who judge not (or rule 

not) by what God has revealed are the kafirs” (Q 

5:44). Even though rejected by most Muslims, this 

ideology was used by the Jihad Group of Egypt to 

justify the assassination of Egyptian president 

Anwar al-s

adat

 in 1981 and it inspired radical 

movements in many Muslim countries during the 

1980s and 1990s. U

sama

 

bin

 l

adin

 used it in his 

fatwas and speeches against the United States and 

Israel, both of whom he accused of invading and 

occupying sacred Muslim lands.

Lastly, the term Kaffir is derived from kafir. It was 

originally used by Arabs for the indigenous peoples 

of Africa, then adopted by European slave traders. 

Eventually it became a racial slur, used particularly 

by whites in South Africa against the blacks.

See also 

apostasy

; 

bidaa

; 

blasphemy

; c

hristian

-

ity

 

and

 i

slam

; 

crime

 

and

 

pUnishment

; 

dhimmi

; 

her

-

esy

; 

Jihad

 

movements

; J

Udaism

 

and

 i

slam

; 

prophets

and

 

prophecy

;  s

hiism

;  t

akFir

 

Wa

-h

iJra

; W

ah

-

habism

; 

ziyara

.