[Corpora-List] "Kafir" in English dictionaries and corpora

[Otto Lassen]

Eric Atwell  started a discussion 28.2 about how 

vocabulary related to Islam figures in British dictionaries 

and corpora. He found one word, "tajweed", which did not figure.

But there are many islamic words in the dictionaries 

and many which are not in the dictionaries, so I wonder

how the choice of including / excluding words is made 

and what are the effect of this choice on the users?

I tried with another word, "kafir" (or “kaffir”), which 

means infidel, disbeliever, unbeliever.

You find it in the online versions of Oxford English Dictionary 

and Collins English Dictionary but not in Longman 

Dicitionary of Contemporary English nor in British National Corpus.

The encyclopedias (Britannica, Wikipedia) have it naturally.

So why is "kafir" better represented than "tajweed"?

A proposal for a solution could be that "kafir" is used in 

the Qur'an many times. In Shakir's translation there are 

400 hits for disbeliev.. and unbeliev..... For every 3 pages 

2 has them The contrast between believers and 

unbelievers is in that way basic for the Qur'an and 

for its influence on the readers. Unbelievers are described 

very negatively. The concept of "kafir" is part of the belief 

of the 5% muslims in England but must be known by 

everybody because it concerns all. Therefore the 

choice of "kafir" to the dictionaries. “Tajweed" tells only

how to recite verses from the Qur’an.

But this may not be the only explanation of the choice

of including / excluding islamic words in dictionaries.

Regards

Otto Lassen
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