Historical semantics of al-Nifaq in the Holy Qur'an: The relationship between al-Nifaq and hypocrisy, concealing and spending (al-Infāq)

Today's meanings of al-Nifaq, including concealment and hypocrisy, contradict the descriptions of al-Munafiqun in the Holy Qur’an. In particular, al-Nifaq is used in the Qur'an as an act in the public sector and it is not limited to the religious and moral domain. This study seeks to clarify the relationship between concepts al-Nifaq, hypocrisy, and concealment by relying on historical semantics, and interpretive traditions. The study reached several results and finally came to separate the meaning of al-Nifaq from hypocrisy, concealment, and spending (Infaq). The results were as follows: There is no consensus among European scholars on the etymology and semantics of al-Munafiqun; this fact that al-Munafiqun were well-known people contradicts the idea that says concealment is the main concept of al-Nifaq; Most Arabic lexicographers have considered this root to mean loss or spend, but they have taken the wrong path to understand the historical meaning of the al-Nifaq; the two words al-Nifaq and al-Infaq had no common roots in Arabic. The high frequency of derivatives of this root in the Abyssinian language, meaning tear off, rend, divide in two, separate, and split, was consistent with all Qur'anic descriptions of al-Munafiqun. The topic "Conflict in the organization", which is discussed in the science of management, can explain the historical concept of al-Nifaq to a large extent. It should be noted that Hypocrisy as an equivalent of the word al-Nifaq was taken from the ancient Greek language and despite its imprecision, it has become the dominant equivalent in contemporary translations of the Qur’an into English.

کلیدواژه ها:

historical semantics ، historical linguistics ، Translation of the Qur'an ، Early Islam ، The Prophet ، al-Munafiqun