Giaour

The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan by Eugène Delacroix (1826, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago). Inspired by Lord Byron's poem The Giaour.

Giaour or Gawur or Ghiaour, written gâvur in modern Turkish (Turkish pronunciation: [ɟaˈʋur], /dʒaʊər/, from Persian: گبر‎), is a religious and sometimes ethnic slur used by Muslims in Turkey and the Balkans to describe all who are non-Muslim, with particular reference to nearby Christian populations like Greeks,^[1][2] Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbs,^[3] ethnic Macedonians,^[4] Romanians, Aromanians, and Assyrians. The term is considered highly offensive by Christians in the Balkans.^{[citation needed]}

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described the term as follows:

Giaour (a Turkish adaptation of the Persian gdwr or gbr, an infidel), a word used by the Turks to describe all who are not Moslems, with especial reference to Christians. The word, first employed as a term of contempt and reproach, has become so general that in most cases no insult is intended in its use; similarly, in parts of China, the term foreign devil has become void of offence. A strict analogy to giaour is found in the Arabic kafir, or unbeliever, which is so commonly in use as to have become the proper name of peoples and countries.

European representations

Giaour is the name given to the evil monster of a man in the tale Vathek, by William Thomas Beckford, written in French in 1782, and translated into English soon after. The name Giaour appears in the French, as well as in the English translation.

See also

Look up giaour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Giaour, a poem by Lord Byron
• Kafir, Kaffir
• Dhimmi
• Rayah
• Ary Scheffer, "Le Giaour", 1832, oil on canvas, Musée de la Vie romantique, Hôtel Scheffer-Renan, Paris
• Vathek, 1782, by William Beckford

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press