The word · Belief
التَّكْفِير
Takfir
Declaring a specific Muslim to be a disbeliever, a ruling classical scholars fenced with heavy conditions.
Also written · Takfeer · Takfiri · Takfeeri · Declaring someone a kafir · Excommunication · Calling someone a disbeliever
The meaning
What Takfir means in Islam
Scholarship treats takfir as a judgement with conditions and impediments: ignorance, misreading, compulsion, and the absence of clear proof all block it. The Prophet peace be upon him warned that when a man calls his brother a disbeliever it returns to one of the two, in a report in Bukhari and Muslim. Saying that a statement is disbelief is not the same as saying the person who said it is a disbeliever, and the second was left to qualified scholars.
Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named
Read beside it
Rooms that name it
Words that sit beside it
- KufrDisbelief: rejecting or refusing what a person knows Allah has revealed.الكُفْر
- Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ahThe main body of Muslims who follow the Prophet's way and the practice of his companions.أَهْلُ السُّنَّةِ وَالجَمَاعَة
- Bid'ahInnovation in religion: introducing an act of worship that has no basis in what was revealed.البِدْعَة
More from Belief
- Adhab al-QabrThe punishment or ease a person meets in the grave, before the Day of Judgement arrives.عَذَابُ القَبْر
- Ba'thThe resurrection: bodies raised and souls returned, so that everyone stands for judgement.البَعْث
- IstidrajBeing drawn in slowly by blessings while sinning, so that ease becomes a punishment rather than approval.الاِسْتِدْرَاج
- MahdiA rightly guided leader expected near the end of time, understood very differently by Sunni and Shia Islam.المَهْدِيّ
- QadrAllah's decree: that He knows, wrote, willed and created all that happens, without forcing anyone to sin.القَدَر
- Sidrat al-MuntahaThe Lote Tree at the furthest limit, reached by the Prophet on the Night Journey.سِدْرَةُ المُنْتَهَى