the.com/takfir
A religious ruling that labels another Muslim an unbeliever, sometimes used to justify violence against them.
means A formal religious ruling that brands a fellow Muslim as a disbeliever, often used to justify casting them out of the community — or worse.
from From Arabic kafara, 'to disbelieve' or 'to be ungrateful' (toward God), the same root that gives kafir, 'infidel.' Takfir is the verbal-noun form, literally 'the act of making someone a kafir' — turning a believer into an outsider with a word. The root's deeper sense carries a notion of 'covering' or 'concealing' (a cognate idea found in Semitic languages generally), as if disbelief were a kind of covering-over of truth. The term moved from classical Islamic theology, where scholars debated it with great caution, into modern political and militant usage, where it's applied far more freely — and far more dangerously.
- literal root
- from kafir, meaning disbeliever
- historical weapon
- used to justify killing fellow Muslims as heretics
- mainstream view
- most scholars call indiscriminate takfir itself heretical
- modern misuse
- extremist groups use it to excommunicate entire societies