Hanif (Arabic: حنيف, Ḥanīf; plural: حنفاء, ḥunafā') is a term that refers to those who maintain the pure monothestic beliefs of the patriarch Ibrahim. More specifically, in Islamic thought it refers to the people during the period known as the Age of Ignorance, who were seen to have rejected idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Ibrahim which was "submission to God" (Arabic: Allah) in its purest form.
The term is from the Arabic root ḥ-n-f meaning "to incline, to decline" (Lane 1893) from the Syriac root of the same meaning. The ḥanīfiyyah is the law of Ibrahim; the verb taḥannafa means "to turn away from (idolatry)", with a secondary and subsequent meaning of "to become circumcised". In the verse 3:27 of the Quran it has also been translated as "upright person" and outside the Quran as "to incline towards a right state or tendency". It appears to have been used earlier by Jews and Christians in reference to 'pagans' and applied to followers of an old Hellenized Syro-Arabian religion and used to taunt early Muslims.
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