Muhammad Asad’s commentary on the Qur’an, 74:10

Since this is the earliest Qur'anic occurrence of the expression kafir (the above surah having been
preceded
only by the first five verses of surah 96), its use here - and, by implication, in the whole of the
Qur'an -
is obviously determined by the meaning which it had in the speech of the Arabs before the advent
of the
Prophet Muhammad: in other words, the term kafir cannot be simply equated, as many Muslim
theologians of
post-classical times and practically all Western translators of the Qur'an have done, with
"unbeliever" or
"infidel" in the specific, restricted sense of one who rejects the system of doctrine and law
promulgated
in the Qur'an and amplified by the teachings of the Prophet - but must have a wider, more general
meaning.
This meaning is easily grasped when we bear in mind that the root verb of the participial noun kafir
(and
of the infinitive noun kufr) is kafara, "he [or "it"] covered [a thing]": thus, in 57:20 the tiller of the
soil is called (without any pejorative implication) kafir, "one who covers", i.e., the sown seed with
earth,
just as the night is spoken of as having "covered" (kafara) the earth with darkness. In their abstract
sense,
both the verb and the nouns derived from it have a connotation of "concealing" something that
exists or"denying" something that is true. Hence, in the usage of the Qur'an - with the exception of the one
instance
(in 57:20) where this participial noun signifies a "tiller of the soil" - a kafir is "one who denies
[or "refuses to acknowledge"] the truth" in the widest, spiritual sense of this latter term: that is,
irrespective of whether it relates to a cognition of the supreme truth - namely, the existence of God
- or
to a doctrine or ordinance enunciated in the divine writ, or to a self-evident moral proposition, or
to an acknowledgment of, and therefore gratitude for, favours received. (Regarding the expression
alladhina kafaru, implying conscious intent, see surah 2, note 6.)