…the dreary void,/The leafless desert of the mind…
-Byron, The Giaour, A Fragment of a Turkish Tale
Giaour, a variant spelling of Gavur, is a Turkish word for infidel derived from the same root that generates the Arabic word Kafir, Denier of God, its metaphorical sense apparent in the verb Kafara, to Conceal, to Cover. Byron had just been to the Middle East before writing the poem and he presumably encountered Muslims who had never met a Christian. Maybe some of the drovers had never met or even seen a Christian or a Jew before saddling up with us, but if they had not they soon learned that in the desert when dawn fills night’s void, and just as in foxholes, there are no Kafirs.