Hanif

In Islam, the terms ḥanīf (SING; Arabic: حنيف, lit. 'a renunciate [of idolatry]') and ḥunafā' (PLUR; حنفاء) are primarily used to refer to pre-Islamic Arabians who were Abrahamic monotheists. Muslims regard these people favorably for shunning Arabian polytheism and instead solely worshipping the God of Abraham, thus setting themselves apart from what is called jahiliyyah. However, they were not associated with Judaism or Christianity; instead exemplifying what they perceived as the unaltered beliefs and morals of Abraham.

The form hanīf appears 10 times in the Quran, and the form ḥunafā' twice. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a ḥanīf (before he met the angel Gabriel) and a direct descendant of Abraham's eldest son Ishmael. Likewise, Islam regards all Islamic prophets and messengers before Muhammad — that is, those affiliated with Judaism and/or Christianity, such as Moses and Jesus — as ḥunafā', underscoring their God-given infallibility.

The term ḥanīf comes from the Arabic root ḥ-n-f meaning "to incline, to decline" or "to turn or bend sideways" from the Syriac root of the different meaning “to deceive, to turn pagan, to lead into paganism”. The Syriac word refers to pagans and deceivers. The Arabic is defined as "true believer, orthodox; one who scorns the false creeds surrounding him/her and profess the true religion" by The Arabic-English Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic.

According to Francis Edward Peters, in verse 3:67 of the Quran, hanif has been translated as "upright person", and outside the Quran as, "to incline towards a right state or tendency". According to W. Montgomery Watt, hanif appears to have been used earlier by Jews and Christians in reference to "pagans" and applied to followers of an old Hellenized Syrian and Arabian religion and used to taunt early Muslims.

Michael Cook states, "its exact sense is obscure," but the Quran uses hanif "in contexts suggestive of a pristine monotheism, which it tends to contrast with (latter-day) Judaism and Christianity". In the Quran ḥanīf is associated "strongly with Abraham, but never with Moses or Jesus". The unique association of ḥanīf with Abraham underscores his foundational role in the development of monotheistic faith and his exemplary status in the Islamic tradition.

Oxford Islamic Studies online defines ḥanīf as "one who is utterly upright in all of his or her affairs, as exemplified by the model of Abraham"; and that prior to the arrival of Islam "the term was used [...] to designate pious people who accepted monotheism but did not join the Jewish or Christian communities."

Others translate Hanīfiyyah as the law of Ibrahim; the verb taḥannafa as "to turn away from [idolatry]". Others maintain that the ḥanīf followed the "religion of Ibrahim, the hanif, the Muslim[.]" It has been theorized by Watt that the verbal term Islam, arising from the participle form of Muslim (meaning "surrendered to God"), may have only arisen as an identifying descriptor for the religion in the late Medinan period.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there is no evidence that a true ḥanīf cult existed in pre-Islamic Arabia."^{[additional citation(s) needed]}