Nijasat of Kafir?
Question:
(Two similar questions are answered:)
- My question is regarding to nijjasat of kuffir.
I really can't convince myself that they are najis. We just have one verse in Qoran that prohibits kafir to Enter the mosque because they are unclean. Some reasons for that is they use alcohol and pork which is najis for muslims so they are completely najis. but they are some scholars who say they are spiritually unclean. which one is correct?
- My question is about the purity of non believers. I have read some where that they are totally impure and we should avoid touching their wet hands but actually this does'nt appeal to my brian and can't accept it rationally. please tell me this is true or not.
Answer:
The verse that you are referring to is as follows:
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرامَ بَعْدَ عامِهِمْ هذا وَ إِنْ خِفْتُمْ عَيْلَةً فَسَوْفَ يُغْنيكُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ إِنْ شاءَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَليمٌ حَكيمٌ
O you who believe the idolaters are unclean, so they shall not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year And if you fear poverty then God will enrich you out of His grace if He pleases Surely God is Knowing, Wise. (9:28)
Before answering your main question I have to make two things clear:
1. As you see the verse does not say a kafir is najis. It says a mushrik is najis. Each of mushrik and kafir has their own technical meaning and none of them mean non-Muslim. A mushrik is a person who by his own confession believes in more than one god (and for understanding the word kafir please read this article: Who is Called Kafir). I think you can easily appreciate that only very specific groups can be considered mushrik by this definition.
2. Also the verse does not say that a mushrik cannot enter the mosque. Rather, It says that a mushrik cannot enter a specific mosque, that is, Masjid al-Haram. I appreciate one may then generalise this for any mosque but it is important to first appreciate what it is that the actual verse says, so that 'deduction' and 'instruction' can be distinguished.
The word najis in the above verse in my understanding does not refer to physical uncleanness, rather it is about spiritual uncleanness due to having explicit shirk. To appreciate this, look at verses 24:26 and 46:20 in which a word on the opposite spectrum of najis (i.e. tayyib) is used for human beings. As you can appreciate in all these verses too the word clean refers to spiritually clean rather than physically clean.
It is of course very possible that due to the not very healthy style of life, mushriks in Arabia at the time were also generally not very clean in physical sense, which would be another reason to disallow them entering the holy mosque of Mecca. However verse 9:28 does not seem to be referring to this aspect and even if it does, then it will be a specific case for those mushriks at the time of the prophet in Arabia and cannot be generalised beyond that.
The above also answers the second question. There is no basis to consider a non-believer to be impure or unclean in terms of social interaction. The above verse (9:28) as you see is only about the prohibition of a mushrik entering the sacred mosque which at most can be extended to prohibiting entering any mosque. Since as I wrote the nijasah here is not a physical one, therefore this cannot be extended to social interaction.
Note that many scholars from the sunni school of thought and a number of creditable scholars from the shia school of thought has the same view (i.e. cleanness of non-believers in principle).
--------
Farhad Shafti
November 2017
(Two similar questions are answered:)
- My question is regarding to nijjasat of kuffir.
I really can't convince myself that they are najis. We just have one verse in Qoran that prohibits kafir to Enter the mosque because they are unclean. Some reasons for that is they use alcohol and pork which is najis for muslims so they are completely najis. but they are some scholars who say they are spiritually unclean. which one is correct?
- My question is about the purity of non believers. I have read some where that they are totally impure and we should avoid touching their wet hands but actually this does'nt appeal to my brian and can't accept it rationally. please tell me this is true or not.
Answer:
The verse that you are referring to is as follows:
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرامَ بَعْدَ عامِهِمْ هذا وَ إِنْ خِفْتُمْ عَيْلَةً فَسَوْفَ يُغْنيكُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ إِنْ شاءَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَليمٌ حَكيمٌ
O you who believe the idolaters are unclean, so they shall not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year And if you fear poverty then God will enrich you out of His grace if He pleases Surely God is Knowing, Wise. (9:28)
Before answering your main question I have to make two things clear:
1. As you see the verse does not say a kafir is najis. It says a mushrik is najis. Each of mushrik and kafir has their own technical meaning and none of them mean non-Muslim. A mushrik is a person who by his own confession believes in more than one god (and for understanding the word kafir please read this article: Who is Called Kafir). I think you can easily appreciate that only very specific groups can be considered mushrik by this definition.
2. Also the verse does not say that a mushrik cannot enter the mosque. Rather, It says that a mushrik cannot enter a specific mosque, that is, Masjid al-Haram. I appreciate one may then generalise this for any mosque but it is important to first appreciate what it is that the actual verse says, so that 'deduction' and 'instruction' can be distinguished.
The word najis in the above verse in my understanding does not refer to physical uncleanness, rather it is about spiritual uncleanness due to having explicit shirk. To appreciate this, look at verses 24:26 and 46:20 in which a word on the opposite spectrum of najis (i.e. tayyib) is used for human beings. As you can appreciate in all these verses too the word clean refers to spiritually clean rather than physically clean.
It is of course very possible that due to the not very healthy style of life, mushriks in Arabia at the time were also generally not very clean in physical sense, which would be another reason to disallow them entering the holy mosque of Mecca. However verse 9:28 does not seem to be referring to this aspect and even if it does, then it will be a specific case for those mushriks at the time of the prophet in Arabia and cannot be generalised beyond that.
The above also answers the second question. There is no basis to consider a non-believer to be impure or unclean in terms of social interaction. The above verse (9:28) as you see is only about the prohibition of a mushrik entering the sacred mosque which at most can be extended to prohibiting entering any mosque. Since as I wrote the nijasah here is not a physical one, therefore this cannot be extended to social interaction.
Note that many scholars from the sunni school of thought and a number of creditable scholars from the shia school of thought has the same view (i.e. cleanness of non-believers in principle).
--------
Farhad Shafti
November 2017