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These will continue to be in the news. This week it is the Arabic word KAFIR on the right arm of the US Secretary of Defense. Raymond Ibrahim explains the meaning.
"Translating the word to “non-Muslim” or “unbeliever” — as almost every modern, English-language Koran does — completely misses the all-important and decidedly negative connotations associated with the word and its definition. (This, incidentally, is why older English translations rendered the word kafir as infidel, as I often do; although still an imperfect translation, it sought to capture the pejorative sense of the Arabic in one English word.)
To Muslim ears, kafir (singular) and kuffar (plural) are virtually synonymous with “evildoers” and “enemies.” In fact, virtually every vile human characteristic — and several connected to animals — is associated with the word kafir.
As usual, let us turn to the Koran; it refers to kuffar as the “worst of beasts” (8:55, 98:6), similar to cattle and just as dumb (47:12, 8:65); they are inherently “guilty,” “unjust,” and “criminal” (10:17, 45:31, 68:35; 39:32); they are the “sworn enemies” of Muslims (4:101); and are “disliked” and “accursed” by Allah (2:89, 3:32, 33:64). The Islamic deity is himself their declared enemy (2:98) who requires that “terror be cast into their hearts” (3:151).
According to Koran 9:5, Muslims must “slay” those who reject Islam, “wherever you find them — seize them, besiege them, and make ready to ambush them!”
If that sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because the Muslim ambassador of Barbary (North Africa) paraphrased this verse when explaining to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams why his Muslim countrymen were raiding American vessels and killing and enslaving their kafir sailors. As Jefferson wrote in a letter to Congress in 1786,
The ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, … that it was their right and duty to make war upon them [non-Muslims, kuffar] wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners."
A few weeks ago, an image went viral. In Belgium a migrant used the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to cook an omelette. For many, the desecration brought to mind a quote from French author Jean Raspail, written in 1973 in his novel Camp of the Saints, about a sudden invasion of Muslim, Indian and African migrants into France:
“Your universe has no meaning to them. They will not try to understand. They will be tired, they will be cold, they will make a fire with your beautiful oak door.”
“Beware of two errors: despising the world God sustains, or worshipping the culture He restrains.”
— Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace Vol. 1, Ch. 30
"[Successful NY Mayoral candidate] Mamdani built his campaign on the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA and its city allies can dispatch activists across New York and, with a network of progressive partner organizations, can mobilize young people, get out the vote, and do the work of door-to-door politics.
"We saw this dynamic many times in the twentieth century: socialists rise to power, their policies degrade the quality of life, and, as they enter the endgame, they tighten their grip on power and offload resentments onto their ideological, racial, and economic enemies.
"...the twentieth century taught us that left-wing voters have extraordinary defenses against reality."
-- Christopher Rufo
