Posted by: Umm Zakiyyah January 17, 2014

So naturally, in my world, a kaafir didn’t exist. People who believed a kaafir did exist—and who had the audacity to use the term in connection to an actual human being—were shunned, whispered about, and referred to as “misguided” and their thinking reprehensible.

As for how my friends and I dealt with Muslims who used the word, we didn’t associate with “those” Muslims. We didn’t go to the masjid with “those” Muslims. We were better than “those” Muslims…

Because we didn’t use profanity.

They did.

We didn’t say horrible words like kaafir.

They did.

As I grew older and eventually befriended some of “those” Muslims, I was surprised that they weren’t revolting or evil, as I’d once thought. And I was even more surprised that they didn’t seem angry or spiteful when they used the word kaafir. In fact, if anything, my friends and I were more obviously spiteful when we talked about “those” Muslims for using the word at all.

Nevertheless, like my jolt upon hearing for the first time a dog groomer use the word bitch in its appropriate context, I was a bit taken aback when I first heard the word kaafir used in the Islamic context by some of my new friends. And as was the case with my understanding bitch as simply meaning “a female dog”, I began to understand that—at least to these Muslims—the word kaafir simply meant non-Muslim.

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