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102-557: The terms " kafir " , " gawur", and " rûm " (the last meaning " Rum millet ") were commonly used in defters (tax registries) for Orthodox Christians , usually without ethnic distinction. Christian ethnic groups in the Balkan lands of the Ottoman Empire included Greeks ( rûm ), Bulgarians ( bulgar ), Serbs ( sırp ), Albanians ( arnavut ) and Vlachs ( eflak ), among others. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described

204-513: A dahri . One type of kafir is a mushrik (مشرك), another group of religious wrongdoer mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic works . Several concepts of vice are seen to revolve around the concept of kufr in the Quran. Historically, while Islamic scholars agreed that a mushrik was a kafir , they sometimes disagreed on the propriety of applying the term to Muslims who committed

306-406: A kafir is known as takfir , a practice that has been condemned but also employed in theological and political polemics over the centuries. A dhimmi or mu'ahid is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. Dhimmis were exempt from certain duties specifically assigned to Muslims if they paid the jizya poll tax, but otherwise equal under

408-578: A Muslim commits a punishable offense if they say 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

510-420: A broader notion of Islamism as a form of identity politics , involving "support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity, broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization of the community." Islamists themselves prefer terms such as "Islamic movement", or "Islamic activism" to "Islamism", objecting to the insinuation that Islamism is anything other than Islam renewed and revived. In public and academic contexts,

612-399: A different school of Islam, such as a "phase between fundamentalism and Islamism". Originally a reformist movement of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdul, and Rashid Rida, that rejected maraboutism (Sufism), the established schools of fiqh , and demanded individual interpretation ( ijtihad ) of the Quran and Sunnah ; it evolved into a movement embracing the conservative doctrines of

714-413: A different status known as musta'min . The mushrikun are those who believe in shirk 'association', which refers to accepting other gods and divinities alongside God . The term is often translated as polytheist . 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

816-619: A fervent opponent of Westernization , Zionism and nationalism , advocated Sunni internationalism through revolutionary restoration of a pan-Islamic Caliphate to politically unite the Muslim world . Riḍā was a strong exponent of Islamic vanguardism, the belief that Muslim community should be guided by clerical elites ( ulema ) who steered the efforts for religious education and Islamic revival . Riḍā's Salafi - Arabist synthesis and Islamist ideals greatly influenced his disciples like Hasan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher who founded

918-541: 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 ( 4:48 , 4:116 ). 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 Mutazila adversaries with shirk , accusing them of attributing to man creative powers comparable to those of God in both originating and executing actions. Mu'tazila theologians, in turn, charged

1020-602: A formal abandonment of their original vision of implementing sharia (also termed Post-Islamism ) – done by the Ennahda Movement of Tunisia, and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) of Indonesia. Others, such as the National Congress of Sudan, have implemented the sharia with support from wealthy, conservative states (primarily Saudi Arabia). According to one theory – "inclusion-moderation"—the interdependence of political outcome with strategy means that

1122-544: A grave sin or the People of the Book . The Quran distinguishes between mushrikūn 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 to self-professed Muslims, particularly by members of Islamist movements . The act of declaring another self-professed Muslim

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1224-475: A modern ideology that owes more to European utopian political ideologies and "isms" than to the traditional Islamic religion. According to Salman Sayyid, "Islamism is not a replacement of Islam akin to the way it could be argued that communism and fascism are secularized substitutes for Christianity." Rather, it is "a constellation of political projects that seek to position Islam in the centre of any social order ". The modern revival of Islamic devotion and

1326-641: A modern nation-state. The reaction to new realities of the modern world gave birth to Islamist ideologues like Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi and organizations such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam in India. Rashid Rida, a prominent Syrian-born Salafi theologian based in Egypt , was known as a revivalist of Hadith studies in Sunni seminaries and a pioneering theoretician of Islamism in

1428-638: A natural opening for the left, was instead the beginning of major victories for the Islamist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party. The reason being the corruption and economic malfunction of the policies of the Third World socialist ruling party (FNL) had "largely discredited" the "vocabulary of socialism". In the post-colonial era, many Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, were ruled by authoritarian regimes which were often continuously dominated by

1530-543: 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. In Islam, jahiliyyah ('ignorance') refers to the time of Arabia before Islam . 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,

1632-457: A purge and violations of democratic principles by the Erdoğan regime . Critics of the concept – which include both Islamists who reject democracy and anti-Islamists – hold that Islamist aspirations are fundamentally incompatible with the democratic principles. [REDACTED] Politics portal The contemporary Salafi movement is sometimes described as a variety of Islamism and sometimes as

1734-478: 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 they 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. Various types of unbelief recognized by legal scholars include: Muslim belief/doctrine

1836-476: A redoubling of faith and devotion by the faithful was called for to reverse this tide. The connection between the lack of an Islamic spirit and the lack of victory was underscored by the disastrous defeat of Arab nationalist-led armies fighting Israel under the slogan "Land, Sea and Air" in the 1967 Six-Day War , compared to the (perceived) near-victory of the Yom Kippur War six years later. In that war

1938-559: A revival of Islam , but others believe that Islamism is a modern deviation from Islam which should either be denounced or dismissed. A writer for the International Crisis Group maintains that "the conception of 'political Islam'" is a creation of Americans to explain the Iranian Islamic Revolution , ignoring the fact that (according to the writer) Islam is by definition political. In fact it

2040-522: A thousand years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain to the second Turkish siege of Vienna, Europe was under constant threat from Islam. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity ... Their loss

2142-493: Is quietist /non-political Islam, not Islamism, that requires explanation, which the author gives—calling it an historical fluke of the "short-lived era of the heyday of secular Arab nationalism between 1945 and 1970". Hayri Abaza argues that the failure to distinguish Islam from Islamism leads many in the West to equate the two; they think that by supporting illiberal Islamic (Islamist) regimes, they are being respectful of Islam, to

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2244-568: Is an Arabic term in Islam which refers to a person who disbelieves the God in Islam , denies his authority, rejects the tenets of Islam, or simply is not a Muslim —one who does not believe in the guidance of Muhammad , the Islamic prophet . Kafir is often translated as ' infidel ', ' pagan ', 'rejector', ' denier ', 'disbeliever', 'unbeliever', 'nonbeliever', and 'non-Muslim'. The term

2346-444: Is for impartiality, but if used in reference to a certain person or group in particular without others, it implies that the author is either unsure whether to affirm or negate their attribution to Islam, or trying to insinuate his disapproval of the attribution without controversy. In contrast, referring to a person as a Muslim or a Kafir implies an explicit affirmation or a negation of that person's attribution to Islam. To evade

2448-871: Is found in the Arabic kafir , or unbeliever, which is so commonly in use as to have become the proper name of peoples and countries. During the Tanzimat (1839–1876) era, a hatt-i humayun prohibited the use of the term by Muslims with reference to non-Muslims to prevent problems occurring in social relationships. Musselmans and Giaours Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth For any weeping. Kafir Political Militant [REDACTED] Islam portal Kafir ( Arabic : كَافِر , romanized :  kāfir ; plural: كَافِرُون kāfirūn , كُفَّار kuffār , or كَفَرَة kafara ; feminine: كَافِرَة kāfira ; feminine plural: كَافِرَات kāfirāt or كَوَافِر kawāfir )

2550-582: Is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, and other alternatives in achieving a just, successful society. Islamism is generally considered anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist and anti-communist; Islamists support family values, sharia, reformation of interest-based finance, and the broad Quranic command of ' enjoining goodness and forbidding evil .' The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are dedicated to realizing their ideological interpretation of Islam within

2652-640: Is often summarized in " the Six Articles of Faith ", (the first five are mentioned together in the 2:285 ). 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): Minor disbelief or Kufran-Ni'mah indicates "ungratefulness of God's Blessings or Favours". According to another source,

2754-408: 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 kāfir implies a person who hides or covers. Ideologically, it implies a person who hides or covers

2856-542: 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

2958-438: 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

3060-416: 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

3162-418: Is used in different ways in the Quran , with the most fundamental sense being ungrateful toward God. Kufr means 'disbelief', 'unbelief', 'non-belief', 'to be thankless', 'to be faithless', or 'ingratitude'. The opposite term of kufr ('disbelief') is iman ('faith'), and the opposite of kafir ('disbeliever') is mu'min ('believer'). A person who denies the existence of a creator might be called

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3264-503: The Mu'tazila believed that there was a status between believer and unbeliever called "rejected" or fasiq . 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

3366-608: 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

3468-695: 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 . 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

3570-633: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL has been rejected as blasphemous by the majority of Islamists. Originally the term Islamism was simply used to mean the religion of Islam, not an ideology or movement. It first appeared in the English language as Islamismus in 1696, and as Islamism in 1712. The term appears in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in In Re Ross (1891). By

3672-781: 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. Another group that are "distinguished from

3774-654: 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

3876-604: The Muslim Brotherhood and the Ennahda were excluded from democratic political participation. At least in part for that reason, Islamists attempted to overthrow the government in the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) and waged a terror campaign in Egypt in the 90s. These attempts were crushed and in the 21st century, Islamists turned increasingly to non-violent methods, and "moderate Islamists" now make up

3978-623: The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 50s and 60s). Qutbism argued that not only was sharia essential for Islam, but that since it was not in force, Islam did not really exist in the Muslim world, which was in Jahiliyya (the state of pre-Islamic ignorance). To remedy this situation he urged a two-pronged attack of 1) preaching to convert, and 2) jihad to forcibly eliminate the "structures" of Jahiliyya . Defensive jihad against Jahiliyya Muslim governments would not be enough. "Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on this earth", so offensive Jihad

4080-632: The Muslim Brotherhood movement, and Hajji Amin al-Husayni , the anti-Zionist Grand Mufti of Jerusalem . Al-Banna and Maududi called for a " reformist " strategy to re-Islamizing society through grassroots social and political activism. Other Islamists (Al-Turabi) are proponents of a " revolutionary " strategy of Islamizing society through exercise of state power, or ( Sayyid Qutb ) for combining grassroots Islamization with armed revolution. The term has been applied to non-state reform movements, political parties, militias and revolutionary groups. At least one author ( Graham E. Fuller ) has argued for

4182-432: 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

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4284-423: The 18th century, followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab , known as Wahhabis , believed kufr or shirk was found in the Muslim community itself, especially in "the practice of popular religion": [S]hirk took many forms: the attribution to prophets, saints, astrologers, and soothsayers of knowledge of the unseen world, which only God possesses and can grant; the attribution of power to any being except God, including

4386-512: The 1960s in these countries "went out of their way to impress upon children that socialism was simply Islam properly understood." Olivier Roy writes that the "failure of the 'Arab socialist' model ... left room for new protest ideologies to emerge in deconstructed societies ..." Gilles Kepel notes that when a collapse in oil prices led to widespread violent and destructive rioting by the urban poor in Algeria in 1988, what might have appeared to be

4488-541: The Church. On the other hand, modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations of verse Q. 5:73 . Cyril Glasse criticizes the use of kafirun (plural 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 [plural of kafir ]" and "in theory"

4590-580: The Last Day and do good, will have their reward with their Lord and they will not fear, nor grieve." 2:62 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 5:73 ("Certainly they disbelieve [ kafara ] who say: God

4692-563: The Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders". Central and prominent figures in 20th-century Islamism include Sayyid Rashid Riḍā , Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood ), Sayyid Qutb , Abul A'la Maududi , Ruhollah Khomeini (founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran), Hassan Al-Turabi . Syrian Sunni cleric Muhammad Rashid Riḍā,

4794-401: The Muslim world. Compared to other societies around the globe, "[w]hat is striking about the Islamic world is that ... it seems to have been the least penetrated by irreligion ". Where other peoples may look to the physical or social sciences for answers in areas which their ancestors regarded as best left to scripture, in the Muslim world, religion has become more encompassing, not less, as "in

4896-436: The Muslim world." By the late 1960s, non-Soviet Muslim-majority countries had won their independence and they tended to fall into one of the two cold-war blocs – with "Nasser's Egypt, Baathist Syria and Iraq, Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya, Algeria under Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumedienne, Southern Yemen , and Sukarno's Indonesia" aligned with Moscow. Aware of the close attachment of the population with Islam, "school books of

4998-615: The Muslims. Ibn Hajar is of opinion that none of the Muhammad's parents who were non-prophets were kafirs (disbelievers) and all the hadiths on this subject (although some hadiths seem to contradict it) mean that. Ibn Hajar says about Muhammad saying his ab is in the Hell, that the ab in the hadith refers to the paternal uncle and that Arabs widely use ab to refer to 'amm (paternal uncle). Most Sunni scholars hold

5100-700: The Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul ), on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. In March 1924, the Caliphate was abolished legally by the Turkish National Assembly, marking the end of Ottoman influence. This shocked the Sunni clerical world, and many felt the need to present Islam not as a traditional religion but as an innovative socio-political ideology of

5202-463: 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

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5304-417: 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

5406-467: 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'). Khaled Abou El Fadl argues that Quran 2:62 supports religious pluralism, implying that some non-Muslims are not kafirs: "Those who believe, Jews, Christians, Sabians --whoever believes in God and

5508-501: 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

5610-576: The Sunnis with shirk because under their doctrine a voluntary human act results 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,

5712-460: 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

5814-527: The attraction to things Islamic can be traced to several events. By the end of World War I, most Muslim states were seen to be dominated by the Christian-leaning Western states. Explanations offered were: that the claims of Islam were false and the Christian or post-Christian West had finally come up with another system that was superior; or Islam had failed through not being true to itself. The second explanation being preferred by Muslims,

5916-528: The conservative "guardians of the tradition" ( Salafis , such as those in the Wahhabi movement) and the revolutionary "vanguard of change and Islamic reform" centered around the Muslim Brotherhood . Olivier Roy argues that " Sunni pan-Islamism underwent a remarkable shift in the second half of the 20th century" when the Muslim Brotherhood movement and its focus on Islamisation of pan-Arabism

6018-765: The context of the state or society. The majority of them are affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements. Islamists emphasize the implementation of sharia , pan-Islamic political unity, and the creation of Islamic states . In its original formulation, Islamism described an ideology seeking to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory, purifying it of foreign elements, reasserting its role into "social and political as well as personal life"; and in particular "reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" (i.e. Sharia). According to at least one observer (author Robin Wright ), Islamist movements have "arguably altered

6120-608: The democratic and political process as well as armed attacks by their powerful paramilitary wings. Jihadist organizations like al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad , and groups such as the Taliban , entirely reject democracy, seeing it as a form of kufr (disbelief) calling for offensive jihad on a religious basis. Another major division within Islamism is between what Graham E. Fuller has described as

6222-709: The democratic process include parties like the Tunisian Ennahda Movement . Some Islamists can be religious populists or far-right. Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan is basically a socio-political and " vanguard party " working with in Pakistan's Democratic political process, but has also gained political influence through military coup d'états in the past. Other Islamist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine claim to participate in

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6324-463: The democratic public square in places like Turkey , Tunisia , Malaysia and Indonesia ". Islamism is not a united movement and takes different forms and spans a wide range of strategies and tactics towards the powers in place—"destruction, opposition, collaboration, indifference" —not because (or not just because) of differences of opinions, but because it varies as circumstances change. Moderate and reformist Islamists who accept and work within

6426-468: 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

6528-502: The detriment of those who seek to separate religion from politics . Another source distinguishes Islamist from Islam by emphasizing the fact that Islam "refers to a religion and culture in existence over a millennium ", whereas Islamism "is a political/religious phenomenon linked to the great events of the 20th century". Islamists have, at least at times, defined themselves as "Islamiyyoun/Islamists" to differentiate themselves from "Muslimun/Muslims". Daniel Pipes describes Islamism as

6630-452: The different rulings of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence , might be required to convert to Islam, pay the jizya , exiled, or subject to the death penalty . In 2019, Nahdlatul Ulama , the world's largest independent Islamic organization, 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". The word kāfir

6732-424: 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. 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

6834-566: 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

6936-483: The enactment of religious bylaws to counter the popularity of Islamist oppositions. In Egypt, during the short period of the democratic experiment , Muslim Brotherhood seized the momentum by being the most cohesive political movement among the opposition. Few observers contest the immense influence of Islamism within the Muslim world . Following the collapse of the Soviet Union , political movements based on

7038-472: 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 ( 5:19 , 5:75 , 5:119 ) as non-Christian formulas that were rejected by

7140-657: The globe. Sayyid Rashid Rida had visited India in 1912 and was impressed by the Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama seminaries. These seminaries carried the legacy of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and his pre-modern Islamic emirate. In British India , the Khilafat movement (1919–24) following World War I led by Shaukat Ali , Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar , Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abul Kalam Azad came to exemplify South Asian Muslims' aspirations for Caliphate . Muslim alienation from Western ways, including its political ways. For almost

7242-478: The hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth obtained from the Persian Gulf's huge oil deposits were nothing less than a gift from God to the Islamic faithful. As the Islamic revival gained momentum, governments such as Egypt's, which had previously repressed (and was still continuing to repress) Islamists, joined the bandwagon. They banned alcohol and flooded the airwaves with religious programming, giving

7344-408: The largest independent Islamic organization in the world, 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". According to Islamic sources, none of forefathers of Muhammad were kafirs . According to Ibn Hajar, the Quran clearly declares that Ahl al-Fatrah were among

7446-553: The last few decades, it has been the fundamentalists who have increasingly represented the cutting edge" of Muslim culture. Writing in 2009, German journalist Sonja Zekri described Islamists in Egypt and other Muslim countries as "extremely influential. ... They determine how one dresses, what one eats. In these areas, they are incredibly successful. ... Even if the Islamists never come to power, they have transformed their countries." Political Islamists were described as "competing in

7548-632: 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 20th 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

7650-417: The laws of property, contract, and obligation according to some scholars, whereas others state religious minorities subjected to the status of dhimmis (such as Hindus , 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

7752-469: The liberal ideology of free expression and democratic rule have led the opposition in other parts of the world such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and many parts of Asia; however "the simple fact is that political Islam currently reigns [circa 2002-3] as the most powerful ideological force across the Muslim world today". The strength of Islamism also draws from the strength of religiosity in general in

7854-434: The majority of the contemporary Islamist movements. Among some Islamists, Democracy has been harmonized with Islam by means of Shura (consultation). The tradition of consultation by the ruler being considered Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad , ( Majlis-ash-Shura being a common name for legislative bodies in Islamic countries). Among the varying goals, strategies, and outcomes of "moderate Islamist movements" are

7956-408: 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. Dhimmī are non-Muslims living under the protection of an Islamic state . Dhimmī are exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid

8058-447: The masses a channel to express their economic grievances and frustration toward the lack of democratic processes. As a result, in the post-Cold War era , civil society-based Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood were the only organizations capable to provide avenues of protest. The dynamic was repeated after the states had gone through a democratic transition . In Indonesia, some secular political parties have contributed to

8160-466: The medieval Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyyah . While all salafi believe Islam covers every aspect of life, that sharia law must be implemented completely and that the Caliphate must be recreated to rule the Muslim world, they differ in strategies and priorities, which generally fall into three groups: Qutbism refers to the Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb , (an influential figure of

8262-545: The military's slogan was "God is Great". Along with the Yom Kippur War came the Arab oil embargo where the (Muslim) Persian Gulf oil-producing states' dramatic decision to cut back on production and quadruple the price of oil, made the terms oil, Arabs and Islam synonymous with power throughout the world, and especially in the Muslim world's public imagination. Many Muslims believe as Saudi Prince Saud al Faisal did that

8364-469: The modern age. During 1922–1923, Rida published a series of articles in seminal Al-Manar magazine titled " The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate ". In this highly influential treatise, Rida advocates for the restoration of Caliphate guided by Islamic jurists and proposes gradualist measures of education, reformation and purification through the efforts of Salafiyya reform movements across

8466-539: The more moderate the Islamists become, the more likely they are to be politically included (or unsuppressed); and the more accommodating the government is, the less "extreme" Islamists become. A prototype of harmonizing Islamist principles within the modern state framework was the " Turkish model ", based on the apparent success of the rule of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . Turkish model, however, came "unstuck" after

8568-868: The movement even more exposure. The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire , which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne , the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly exercised by the Government in Angora (now Ankara ) over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, Mehmed VI , departed

8670-762: 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 ,

8772-440: 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 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

8874-515: The power of intercession; reverence given in any way to any created thing, even to the tomb of the Prophet; such superstitious customs as belief in omens and in auspicious and inauspicious days; and swearing by the names of the Prophet, ʿAlī, the Shīʿī imams, or the saints. Thus the Wahhābīs acted even to destroy the cemetery where many of the Prophet's most notable companions were buried, on the grounds that it

8976-470: The problem resulting from the confusion between the Western and Arabic usage of the term Islamist, Arab journalists invented the term Islamawi ( Islamian ) instead of Islami ( Islamist ) in reference to the political movement, though this term is sometimes criticized as grammatically incorrect. Islamism has been defined as: Islamists simply believe that their movement is either a corrected version or

9078-438: The same individuals or their cadres for decades. Simultaneously, the military played a significant part in the government decisions in many of these states ( the outsized role played by the military could be seen also in democratic Turkey). The authoritarian regimes, backed by military support, took extra measures to silence leftist opposition forces, often with the help of foreign powers. Silencing of leftist opposition deprived

9180-404: The same time, their popularity is such that no government can call itself democratic that excludes mainstream Islamist groups. Arguing distinctions between "radical/moderate" or "violent/peaceful" Islamism were "simplistic", circa 2017, scholar Morten Valbjørn put forth these "much more sophisticated typologies" of Islamism: Throughout the 80s and 90s, major moderate Islamist movements such as

9282-562: The term Islamist (m. sing.: Islami , pl. nom/acc: Islamiyyun , gen. Islamiyyin; f. sing/pl: Islamiyyah ) was already being used in traditional Arabic scholarship in a theological sense as in relating to the religion of Islam, not a political ideology. In heresiographical, theological and historical works, such as al-Ash'ari 's well-known encyclopaedia Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn ( The Opinions of The Islamists ), an Islamist refers to any person who attributes himself to Islam without affirming nor negating that attribution. If used consistently, it

9384-462: The term "Islamism" has been criticized as having been given connotations of violence, extremism, and violations of human rights, by the Western mass media, leading to Islamophobia and stereotyping. Following the Arab Spring , many post-Islamist currents became heavily involved in democratic politics, while others spawned "the most aggressive and ambitious Islamist militia " to date, such as

9486-567: The term as follows: Giaour (a Turkish adaptation of the Persian gâwr or gōr , an infidel ), a word used by the Turks to describe all who are not Mohammedans, with especial reference to Christians. The word, first employed as a term of contempt and reproach, has become so general that in most cases no insult is intended in its use; for example in parts of China , the term foreign devil has become void of offence. A strict analogy to giaour

9588-412: The truth. Arabic poets personify the darkness of night as kāfir , 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 . 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 ,

9690-540: The turn of the twentieth century the shorter and purely Arabic term "Islam" had begun to displace it, and by 1938, when Orientalist scholars completed The Encyclopaedia of Islam , Islamism seems to have virtually disappeared from English usage. The term remained "practically absent from the vocabulary" of scholars, writers or journalists until the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978–79, which brought Ayatollah Khomeini 's concept of "Islamic government" to Iran. This new usage appeared without taking into consideration how

9792-527: The view that the parents of Muhammad are saved and inhabitants of Heaven . 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. By

9894-839: 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. Islamist movement Political Militant [REDACTED] Islam portal Islamism refers to religious and political ideological movements that believe Islam should influence political systems, and generally oppose secularism . Its proponents believe Islam

9996-510: Was a center of idolatry. While ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the Wahhābīs 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 19th century. Whether a Muslim could commit a sin great enough to become a kafir

10098-483: 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 their sins was considered a kafir . In between these two positions,

10200-523: Was eclipsed by the Salafi movement with its emphasis on "sharia rather than the building of Islamic institutions". Following the Arab Spring (starting in 2011), Roy has described Islamism as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world , such that "neither can now survive without the other." While Islamist political culture itself may not be democratic, Islamists need democratic elections to maintain their legitimacy. At

10302-460: Was needed to eliminate Jahiliyya not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the Earth. In addition, vigilance against Western and Jewish conspiracies against Islam would-be needed. Although Qutb was executed before he could fully spell out his ideology, his ideas were disseminated and expanded on by the later generations, among them Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ayman Al-Zawahiri , who

10404-762: Was sorely felt and it heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe. Islamism is described by Graham E. Fuller as part of identity politics , specifically the religiously oriented nationalism that emerged in the Third World in the 1970s: " resurgent Hinduism in India, Religious Zionism in Israel, militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka , resurgent Sikh nationalism in the Punjab , ' Liberation Theology ' of Catholicism in Latin America, and Islamism in

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