# Does Islam (Bosniak Muslims In Particular) Have A Slang Term For Christians? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 19, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150 "2018-02-19T22:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/1 "2018-02-19T22:49:41Z")
I’m writing a story in which a character is a Bosniak Muslim. He will be talking about Christians, and not in a respectful or tolerant way.\* In Islam, is there a slang term for “Christian”? And in particular, does Bosniak slang have a term for “Christian”? Failing that, would it make sense for a Muslim to [rudely] call a Christian a “cannibal” (in their own language)? Or is that insult too … obscure (that is obviously not the right choice of words, but it’s the best I can do here)? \*No, my story is not anti-Islam, this guy is clearly and unambiguously portrayed as a villain, and other Muslims in the story are going to disassociate with him. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/2 "2018-02-19T23:56:42Z")
Pig eater? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/3 "2018-02-20T00:05:07Z")
I don;t know that there’s a common derogatory term for Christians as such. The term _kafir_ is often used in a derogatory sense by political Islamists, but it refers to all who reject Islam, not specifically to Christians. Obviously in a particular context the people it is applied to may be Christians, or from a broadly Christian or post-Christian society, but that’s not implicit in the term itself. (In fact there is an argument that _kafir_ does not extent to Jews or Christians, whose beliefs have enough in common with Islam that they cannot be considered complete unbelievers. But I doubt this argument carries much weight with those who employ the term in an abusive sense.) ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/4 "2018-02-20T06:36:30Z")
“Nasrani” in some Muslim cultures. I don’t know about Bosnia specifically though and I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/5 "2018-02-20T06:38:24Z")
“Associator” was apparently a term of criticism used in the eighth century in polemics between Muslims and Christians, the implication being that Christians falsely associated Jesus with God. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/6 "2018-02-20T07:37:32Z")
It may be worth adding that, while Bosniaks are mostly Muslim or of Muslim background, and Bosnian Serbs are mostly Christian or of Christian background, I don’t think the communities in Bosnia primarily identify themselves or one another as “Muslim” and “Christian”, but as “Bosniak” and “Serbian”. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-islam-bosniak-muslims-in-particular-have-a-slang-term-for-christians/809150/7 "2018-02-20T15:24:39Z")
A Bosnian Muslim old enough to remember the wars of the 90s might use the term Chetnik (used by Orthodox Christian guerillas during WWII then reused by some of the ethnic cleansing militias 50 years later) followed by a derogatory term for vagina. I never heard nasrani or kafir when I was in the former Yugoslavia.