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[T]he term kaafir cannot be simply equated, as many Muslim theologians — Kafir

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"[T]he term kaafir cannot be simply equated, as many Muslim theologians of post-classical times and practically all Western translators of the Qur’aan have done, with “unbeliever” or “infidel” in the specific, restricted sense of one who rejects the system of doctrine and law promulgated in the Qur’aan and amplified by the teachings of the Prophet — but must have a wider, more general meaning This meaning is easily grasped when we bear in mind that the root verb of the participial noun kaafir (and of the infinitive noun kufr) is kafara, “he [or “it”] covered [a thing]”: thus, in 57:20 the tiller of the soil is called (without any pejorative implication) kaafir, “one who covers,” ie, the sown seed with earth, just as the night is spoken of as having “covered” (kafara) the earth with darkness In their abstract sense, both the verb and the nouns derived from it have a connotation of “concealing” something that exists or “denying” something that is true Hence, in the usage of the Qur’aan — with the exception of the one instance (in 57:20) where this participial noun signifies a “tiller of the soil” - a kaafir is “one who denies [or “refuses to acknowledge”] the truth” in the widest, spiritual sense of this latter term: that is, irrespective of whether it relates to a cognition of the supreme truth — namely, the existence of God - or to a doctrine or ordinance enunciated in the divine writ, or to a self-evident moral proposition, or to an acknowledgment of, and therefore gratitude for, favours received"
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Kaafir is an Islamic term of Arabic origin used by Muslims to refer to non-Muslims who deny the God in Islam, reject his authority, and do not accept the message of Islam as truth

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