Dīn Information
Dīn (دين, also anglicized as Deen) is an Arabic word commonly associated with Islam, but also used in Arab Christian worship. The term is sometimes translated as "religion", but as used in the Qur'an, it refers both to the path along which righteous Muslims travel in order to comply with divine law, or Shari'a, and to the divine judgment or recompense to which all humanity must inevitably face without intercessors before God[1]. Thus, although secular Muslims would say that their practical interpretation of Dīn conforms to "religion" in the restricted sense of something that can be carried out in separation from other areas of life, both mainstream and reformist Muslim writers take the word to mean an all-encompassing way of life carried out under the auspices of God's divine purpose as expressed in the Qur'an and hadith. As one notably progressive Muslim writer puts it, far from being a discrete aspect of life carried out in the mosque, "Islam is Dīn, a complete way of life"[2]
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Etymology
How the term Dīn came to be used in Islamic Arabia is uncertain, but its use in modern Persian may derive etymologically from the Zoroastrian concept, Daena, which represents "insight" and "revelation", and from this "conscience" and "religion". Here, Daena is the Eternal Law, which was revealed to humanity through the Mathra-Spenta ("Holy Words")[3]. Alternatively, the Hebrew term "דין", transliterated as "dīn", means either "law" or "judgement"[4]. In the Kabbalah of Judaism, the term can, alongside "Gevurah", refer to "power", and to "judgement"[5].
Dīn as Used in Islam
It has been said that the word Dīn appears in as many as 79 verses in the Qur'an[6], but because there is no exact English translation of the term its precise definition has been the subject of some misunderstanding and disagreement. For instance, the term is often translated in parts of the Qur'an as "religion"[7]. However, in the Qur'an itself, the act of submission to God is always referred to as Dīn, rather than as Muzdhab, which is the Arabic word for "religion".
Some Qur'anic scholars have translated Dīn in places as "faith"[8] Others suggest that the term "has been used in various forms and meanings, e.g., power, supremacy, ascendancy, sovereignty or lordship, dominion, law, constitution, mastery, government, realm, decision, definite outcome, reward and punishment. On the other hand, this word is also used in the sense of obedience, submission and allegiance"[9].
The well-known Islamic scholar, Fazlur Rahman Malik, suggested that Dīn is best considered as "the way-to-be-followed". In this interpretation, Dīn is the exact correlate of Shari'a: "whereas Shari'a is the ordaining of the Way and its proper subject is God, Dīn is the following of that Way, and its subject is man"[10]. Thus, "if we abstract from the Divine and the human points of reference, Shari'a and Dīn would be identical as far as the 'Way' and its content are concerned"[11].
In addition to the two broad usages referred to so far - of sovereignty on the one hand and submission on the other - others have noted[12] that the term Dīn is also widely used in translations of the Qur'an in a third sense. Most famously in its opening chapter, al-Fātiḥah, the term is translated in almost all English translations as "judgment":
- 1:4 مَٰلِكِ يَوْمِ ٱلدِّينِ
transliterated as "Maliki yawmi alddeeni", and (usually) translated as "Master of the Day of Judgment".
References and Notes
- ^ e.g. 1:4, 2:256, 4:46, 8:72, 9:11, 9:122, 15:35, 22:78, etc.
- ^ "Inside the Gender Jihad", p. 92, Amina Wadud, Oneworld Publications, 2006
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daena
- ^ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9F
- ^ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Din.html
- ^ Gulam Ahmed Parwez, "Exposition of the Qur'an", p. 12, Tolu-E-Islam Trust
- ^ For instance, translations of the Qur'an by Marmaduke Pickthall, Shakir, and others
- ^ For instance, the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 60:9
- ^ Lugh’at-ul-Quran, Ghulam Ahmed Parwez, Tolu-e-Islam Trust, 1941
- ^ Rahman F, Islam, p. 100, University of Chicago Press, 1979
- ^ Rahman F, Islam, p. 100, University of Chicago Press, 1979
- ^ "Let Us Be Muslims, Abu Ala Maududi U.K.I.M. Dawah Center, 1960
See also
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