The Issue of Kufr and Kafir

and demeaning. Therefore, even though the two words may appear similar in a literal sense, they do not carry the same tone or impact in real usage. The communist-bourgeois division in the twentieth century alienated the non-communist world from communists. The same situation has now arisen with Muslims. From the Muslim side, the division between believer and kafir has made the non-Muslim world resentful of Muslims. As a result, people like Ashok Singhal and Pravin Togadia have begun demanding that Islam be reviewed and that the word kafir be removed from the Islamic vocabulary. They argue that unless Islam is reformed, Muslims and non-Muslims cannot live together in a balanced way. However, experience shows that this issue is not confined to extreme figures of other faiths. It has now become a challenge for Muslims themselves. In today’s modern society, Muslims and non-Muslims live together. In such conditions, educated Muslims generally feel that they cannot live in a balanced way in a shared society while holding on to the conventional concept of kafir. Consciously or unconsciously, they begin to feel that Islam has lost its relevance in the present age. They do not understand how, with such an Islam, they can live with dignity in today’s society. I frequently meet a highly educated Muslim in Delhi. He says that although he was born into a Muslim