Kafir: what Wikipedia removed
Kafir is the Arabic term for a non-Muslim disbeliever. The 2005 opening noted that ‘Some Militant Islamists, however, often do not make the distinction in their rhetoric and do often use it to include these religious communities, or any enemy.’ Today the word is gone from the article entirely, count zero. A reader today does not learn that militant Islamist rhetoric has applied the term broadly to justify targeting any enemy.
The word “militant” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| militant | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| islamist | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| genocide | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| disputed | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The sentence describing how militant Islamists often ignore the distinction and apply the term to any enemy was cut from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 16137008):
see kaffir lime for the condiment, kaffir for the derogatory Afrikaans term for native Africans. Kafir (or kāfir ; plural Kuffar , kuffār ) is an Arabic word meaning “denier” or “concealer.” In a religious context it means a non- Muslim , and it is often used to mean “unbeliever” or “infidel”. The noun kufr means “not believing in God” or “blasphemy, atheism .” In Fiqh , the term amounts to the equivalent of Christian excommunication . The verb, “to declare someone a kafir” is takfir . For example, the novelist Salman Rushdie was declared a kafir in the Fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini . The correct use of the word kafir in Islamic theology does not include either Christians , Samaritans , Jews ,…
2025 (revision 1297967412):
Term for disbelievers in Islam For the ethnic slur used in South Africa, see Kaffir (racial term) . For the lime, see Kaffir lime . For other uses, see Kafir (disambiguation) . Kāfir ( Arabic : كَافِر ; plural: كَافِرُون kāfirūn , كُفَّار kuffār , or كَفَرَة kafara ; feminine: كَافِرَة kāfira ; feminine plural: كَافِرَات kāfirāt or كَوَافِر kawāfir ) is an Arabic-language term used by Muslims to refer to a non-Muslim, more specifically referring to someone who disbelieves in the Islamic God , denies his authority, and rejects the message of Islam as the truth. Kafir is often translated as ’ infidel ’, ‘truth denier’, ‘rejector’, ‘disbeliever’, ‘unbeliever’, The term is used in different ways…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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