The word
kāfir is the active participle of the Semitic root
K-F-R "to cover". As a
pre-Islamic term, it described farmers burying seeds in the ground, covering them with soil while planting. Thus, the word
kāfir implies the meaning "a person who hides or covers". In Islamic parlance, a kāfir is a person who rejects Islamic faith, i.e. "hides or covers [viz., the truth]".[
citation needed]
"Kaffir" is derived from the Arabic word (
Arabic:
كافر kāfir) that is usually translated into
English as "non-believer", i.e. a
non-Muslim. The word was originally applied to non-Muslims in general, and therefore to non Muslim
black peoples encountered along the
Swahili coast by
Arab traders. The
Portuguese nation who arrived on the East African coast in 1498, encountered the usage of the term by the coastal Arabs (but not the
Swahili who used the term
Washenzi (meaning "uncivilized") to the describe the non-Islamic people of the African interior. The poet
Camões used the plural form of the term (
cafres) in the fifth
canto of his 1572 poem
Os Lusíadas. This interpretation was probably passed on to other Europeans in succession, the Spanish, English, Dutch and French. From the Portuguese the termed was passed onto their Asian possessions and exists in several Asian languages including
Konkani in India as "Khapri" and in
Sinhalese as "Kaffir". The terms are descriptive of people of African descent, but are not considered offensive in either Western India or in Sri Lanka.
The word is derived from the
Arabic term
kafir (meaning "
disbeliever"), which originally had the meaning "one without religion".
[5] Arab Traders adopted the term to refer to non-Muslim people. Variations of the word were used in
English,
Dutch, and, later, in
Afrikaans, from the 17th century to the early 20th century as a general term for several different people of
Southern Africa. In
Portuguese, in
French and in
Spanish, the equivalent
cafre was used. The term acquired a distinctly derogatory meaning in the context of
South African history, especially during the
Apartheid era. In Afrikaans, the term is more commonly spelled
kaffer.