Takfir

Common card · No. 200714

Takfir (Arabic: تَكْفِير, romanized: takfīr) is an Arabic and Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e., accusing another Muslim of being an apostate. The word is found neither in the Quran nor in the hadith literature; instead, kufr ("unbelief") and kafir ("unbeliever") and other terms employing the same triliteral root K-F-R appear. Since according to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law (Sharia), the punishment for apostasy is the death penalty, and potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community (Ummah), an ill-founded takfir accusation was a major forbidden act (haram) in Islamic jurisprudence, with one hadith declaring that one who wrongly declares a Muslim an unbeliever is himself not an apostate but rather one who has committed a minor shirk. In the history of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as the Kharijites carried out takfir against both Sunni and Shia Muslims, and became the main...

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