Defining “Kafir”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

“Ka-fa-ra” comes from the root word, meaning “to cover”.  The term “kafir” was originally used to refer to farmers since they covered the seeds in the soil.  With the advent of Islam, the term “kafir” came to refer to those who knew the truth and actively chose to oppose, covering it.  This is an important definition.  What it means then, is that a non-Muslim is not a kafir.  He is simply ghayr muslim, non-Muslim. 

Who would qualify as a kafir then?  They would be like the Quraysh, the relatives of the Prophet (s.a.w.), who knew him, who knew his attributes, and who knew the Truth in Revelation; but they actively chose to oppose it for temporal reasons.  To qualify as a kafir, a coverer of truth, one must have known the truth. 

Within the context of Islam, the kaffarah is something done to make up for something else.  There is tasabih kaffarah, seeking to cover the faults and inadequacies of speaking by seeking Divine Forgiveness.  There is the fidyah, a kaffarah for missed fasts in Ramadhan and so forth. 

A kafir is not strictly an infidel.  An infidel, by its very name, denotes infidelity to a doctrine or a creed.  An infidel is actually a zindiq, a heretic.  A munafiq, hypocrite, is a special category of kafir, whereby the kafir pretends to be a believer but has beliefs that are at variance with the orthodoxy of the faith and actively works to undermine the orthodoxy.