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Concept
Hanif
Summary
In Islam, a ḥanīf (ḥanīf; plural: حنفاء, DIN), meaning "renunciate", is someone who maintains the pure monotheism of the patriarch Abraham. More specifically, in Islamic thought, renunciates were the people who, during the pre-Islamic period or Jahiliyyah, were seen to have renounced idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Abraham (إبراهيم, Ibrāhīm), which was submission to God in its purest form. The word is found twelve times in the Quran (ten times in its singular form and twice in the plural form) and Islamic tradition tells of a number of individuals who were ḥanīfs. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a ḥanīf and a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham.
The term ḥanīf comes from the Arabic root DIN meaning "to incline, to decline" or "to turn or bend sideways" from the Syriac root of the same meaning. It 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 of the Quran it has been translated as "upright person" and outside the Quran as "to incline towards a right state or tendency". According to W. Montgomery Watt, it 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 it 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".
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.
Official source
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