Dhimmi no more- the meaning of KAFIR root k-f-r in Hebrew

Submitted by Sara (United States), Mar 8, 2007 at 17:49

Hi Dhimmi no More,

I enjoy reading your language/translation comments, and thought I would add to your analysis of the word Kafir (or Kuffar, or Kufr, depending on the arab dialect).

In Hebrew, you might be interested to know, words are divided by three letter roots (I think Arabic does the same thing, since it arose from similar (Aramaic) roots). Hence, you can take the word with the root letter K-F(or P)-R and make a number of words from them, Yom Kippur for example (the day of Atonement, the holiest fasting day for Jews). (In Hebrew, the letter P and F are the same, the P is just the F with a dot in it...)

The root verb "LEKHAPER" , means to Atone, from which is derived the act of KIPPUR- Atonement. One could argue that it could mean 'to cover', since one is covering up, or atoning, fixing. Another interesting note is that Jews from Arab origin in Israel will use the word 'Kapara" as an endearment, almost like saying 'blessed one'

So it's interesting that this root word in Hebrew has been taken from meaning a blessed thing to describing a despicable thing in Arabic...

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