Who is Kafir? ------ Taseer Cheema, MD

Kafir is in my opinion a term very much misunderstood by many including Muslims. Usually its a term to distinguish between a muslim and a non muslim which is the partial reality.Let me shed some light on this Quranic term here. Kafir comes from a root Kuf'r= to cover or hide something. Someone whose body is all covered with weapons is also called "kafir" Night is also called Kafir because it coveres every thing Black clouds are called Kafir as well Rivers and Oceans are also called kafir because they hide everything contained in the body of water. Peasant is a kafir too becasue he hides the seed in the soil Grave is also called Al-Kafro Kafoor is the shell which encloses the growing bud. and also a medicine( herbal) which is believed to decrease the heat.

When we ponder on Quranic verses we see Kafir is brought in opposition to Momin and would mean someone who hides the truth after he has realised the turthfullness of something. IN Quran Kafir is used as opposed to "eemaan" and "shukar" Shukar= when goats mammary glands are so much filled up with milk that it starts dripping = would mean the natural consequences of sincere efforsts based on truth) A momin also commits Kuf'r when he rejects the Falsehood --- see the term Kuf'r bit' Taghoot(16/36, 4/60) Eemaan and Kufr are two schools of thought. When someone evaluates the Divine message and accepts it whole heartedly after pondering over these realities and seeing the hidden good in them and also lives by those absolute values then he would be called a Momin and on the other hand there is a person who also goes through the same process and knows its all true what has been presented to him but knwoingly and being fully aware of the built in good of whats being presented to him , he takes the other path because of his stubborness, ancestry, tribal pride, hatered so on and so forth, and he ends up rejecting those absolute valuse which are nothing but Truth ---- thats the point when he declares himself as a kafir.

In Quran Kafir is not used as a curse word but to differentiate two schools of thought or two groups. ONe who accepts the divine message and the other who rejects but the emphasis is after he knows that the message is nothing but truth. Not all the non muslims are kafirs, there are many in this world who never ever pondered over the Divine message or evaluated it. They might be non mulsims but not kuffaar. They are Dhaaleen the ones who are not on the right path.