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ABSTRACT
A key question in the field of religious studies is the extent to which ‘religion’ as a concept ‘translates’ in various cultural contexts, with some arguing that it is a purely Western and academic construct. In this article, I argue that the Islamic understanding of religion as a universal category of human experience with various, distinct manifestations is similar to the concept of religion widely operative in the academic discipline of comparative religion; for this reason, Islamic terms related to religion can easily be translated into terminology broadly found in the study of religion, including the term ‘religion’ itself. I argue, however, that the apparent ease with which one can translate Islamic religious terminology may obscure some important nuances in the Islamic conception of religion that make it both distinct and internally coherent with its broader view of human nature and of its own particular religious system relative to others. Attentiveness to the semantic range and usage of some key terms in Qur’anic and Islamic terminology regarding religion yields a distinctly Islamic conception of religion that is independent of Western, academic theories of religion.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Maria Massi Dakake is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and director of the undergraduate Islamic Studies program at GMU. She is associate editor and co-author of The Study Qur’an (2015), and author of The Charismatic Community: Shi`ite Identity in Early Islam (SUNY Press, 2008).
Notes
1 A seminal and still unparalleled study of at least some of these terms, including islām and īmān, as well as their common opposing term kufr (disbelief) and shirk (polytheism) can be found in Izutsu’s (Citation2002), which treats these terms primarily as concepts elucidating the moral and ethical principles of Islam.
2 The English translations include: the oldest extant complete translation of the Qur’an into English by George Sale (d. 1736), (Citation1853); Khan and al-Din Hilali (Citation1994); Pickthall (Citation1996); Yusuf `Ali (Citation1995); Asad (Citation2003); Abdel Haleem (Citation2004); Shakir (Citation1993); Nasr et al. (Citation2015); Droge (Citation2013); and McAuliffe (Citation2017). The French translations include: Hamidullah (Citation1966) and an unnamed translation by the French scholar, Jean-Louis Michon (both accessed on altafsir.org). German translations include: Paret (Citation2015); and Abu Rida Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Rassoul (accessed on tanzil.net).
3 The verses selected for our survey include: Qur’an 2:256; 4:125, 171; 5:3; 5:54; 6:70, 159, 161; 8:39, 72; 9:11; 10:22; 16:52; 22:78; 30:30; 42:13; 48:28; 49:16; 82:9; 109:6. It should be noted, however, that the term dīn can also mean ‘judgment,’ especially in the widespread Qur’anic phrase, yawm al- dīn (Day of Judgment). This particular usage, occurring almost always as part of this specific phrase, was not considered here.
4 See Asad and Abdel Haleem’s translations of Qur’an 8:39.
5 This is found in Muhammad Hamidullah’s French translation of Qur’an 10:22, and in Jean-Louis Michon’s French translation of Qur’an 8:39.
6 See Abu Rida’s translation of Qur’an 8:39.
7 See Asad’s translation of Qur’an 107:1 and 109:6.
8 See Sale, Asad, Abdel Haleem, Mohsin Khan’s translations of 16:52, as well as Hamidullah’s translation of the term in this same verse as obeissance.
9 See, for example, Qur’an 9:33: ‘He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth to make it prevail over religion, all of it (or more idiomatically, “over all religion”).’ An identical verse is statement is found in Qur’an 48:28 and 61:9.
10 In the commentary on the verse cited in the note above the usage of the singular rather than the plural form of dīn is sometimes explained by saying that the verse is referring to dīn as a ‘jins’, that is, the Arabic term for ‘genus.’ See, e.g., al-Zamakhsharī (Citation1995, v. 2, 257) (commentary on 9:33); and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, commentary on 9:33.
11 A similar appreciation for, and overview of, these various usages for the term dīn in Islamic discourse can be found Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion, where he also notes that dīn and related terms (den, daena) had already started to be used to refer to something close to our contemporary understanding of ‘religion’ by several different cultural and linguistic groups in the Near East in the centuries prior to the rise of Islam, see pp. 98–102.
12 See Qur’an 109: 1–6 where Muhammad is told to address the pagan Arabs in Mecca as ‘disbelievers (kāfirūn),’ and saying: ‘To you your dīn, and to me my dīn.’ The religion of the pagan Arabs is also mentioned as dīn, in hadith reports: See, for example, a hadith that describes the way that the Quraysh and ‘those who adhered to their religion [i.e., the religion of the Quraysh]’ (man dāna dīnahā) use to make pilgrimage before the time of Islam (Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, v. 1, p. 502, K. al-hajj, h. 3013), or another which describes someone as being an adherent of the ‘religion of the Qurayshi disbelievers (`alā dīn kuffār Quraysh),’ (Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, v. 1, p. 418, K. al-ijārah, h. 2307).
13 See, e.g., al-Tirmidhī (Citation2000), Sunan v. 2, p. 626, K. Sifat al-qiyāmah,h. 2636, for a hadith that offers a warning about seeking ‘the world’ (al-dunyā) through religion. See also al-Bukhārī (Citation1968), Adab al-mufrad, h. 1200, where a recommended supplication (dùā) asks for good both in dīn and dunyā.
14 See, e.g., al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, v. 1, p. 218, K. al-tahajjud, h. 1171, where Muhammad teaches his followers a form of supplication, in which they ask God for guidance toward what is best for both their dīn and livelihood (màāsh).
15 The juxtaposition of these terms emerges early in Islamic intellectual history, see, for example, a 9th century work by al-Ṭabarī (Citation1973). It has become more prominent beginning in the 20th century, as the statement that Islam is dīn and dawlah is regularly invoked by those arguing that Islamic principles should govern both religion and state.
16 It should be noted, however, that the term for ‘secular’ in Arabic is `ālamī (lit., ‘worldly’ or ‘of the world’, a direct translation of European terms for the secular), and does not emerge until the late 19th century. See Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, and Modernity, pp. 206–207.
17 This is the view according to the majority Sunni tradition. Shìites, however, generally argue that he did accept Islam before death – a position related to their reverence for `Ali, the son of Abu Talib, whose was the first of their Imams.
18 The primary example of this being the aṣḥāb al-kahf (companions of the cave), a group of young believing men who escape religious persecution by taking refuge in a cave, where God causes them to remain in a sleeping state for 309 years, awaking after the tyrannical king has died (Qur’an 18:9–26). This story is very similar to the Christian story of the seven sleepers of Ephesus.
19 Perhaps the clearest articulation of this is the formulaic definition of ‘faith (īmān)’ as ‘knowledge/recognition (màrifah)’ in the heart. There is also the well-known story a close companion of Muhammad, Usama b. Zayd, who once killed an enemy soldier even after the soldier – who had been overcome by Usama and was facing certain death – pronounced the Islamic testament of faith. Usama thought the soldier was merely trying to save his own life, and killed him anyway. Muhammad later admonished him, ‘Did you cut out his heart to see if he had uttered the testimony [sincerely]?’ Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, K. al-īmān, h. 287.
20 The original Arabic text al-Kāshānī’s commentary on Qur’an 2:256 was accessed at https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir, where it is listed under its attribution to Ibn `Arabī as Tafsīr Ibn `Arabī. It is now known, however, that this work was actually written by `Abd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī as Ta’wīlāt al-qur’ān al-karīm An English translation of the first part of al-Kāshānī’s Ta’wilat, properly attributed to him, can now be found on the same site: https://www.altafsir.com/Books/kashani.pdf.
21 The Qur’an frequently represents various created beings (animate and inanimate) as manifesting a worshipful or humble relationship with God. See, for example, Qur’an 2:74; 13:13–15; 16:49; 17:44; 22:18.
22 See, e.g., the passage from Jalal al-Dīn Rumi’s, Dīvān-i Shams (lines 34969–34975), as translated in Chittick (Citation1983, 182–183), which says, in part,
All the tasks of the world are different, but all are one …
I sought round the world for ‘others’ and reached certainty: There are no others.
The buyers are all a single buyer, the bazaar has but one aisle …
23 See, for example, Dworkin (Citation2013) (although he draws different conclusions from such observations).
24 W.C. Smith notes in his discussion that dīn as ‘judgment’ is similar to the usage of the word in Hebrew, whereas dīn in pre-Islamic Arabic seems to have related more to the idea of proper behavior and honorable comportment (The Meaning and End of Religion, pp. 99–102). The term as used in the Qur’an encompasses the first meaning directly in some places, and the second insofar as dīn can mean proper comportment toward God. The dynamic and reciprocal quality of dīn in the Qur’an and Islamic literature derives from the combination of these meanings.
25 The yawm al-dīn (Day of Judgment), as described in the Qur’an and in Islamic literature, is very much like dīn as we have described it in its Qur’anic sense, in that it is both a universal and radically individual and personal experience. See Qur’an 6:94; 80:33–37.
26 It also refers to islām as the original Abrahamic religion untarnished by the polytheism of the Meccan pagans, whose religious practices were understood to be a corruption of an original monotheistic cult brought to Mecca by Abraham and his son Ishmael, whom the Qur’an identifies as the original builders of the Meccan Kàba. See Qur’an 2:125–126; 22:26–29.
27 For an analysis of the role of this ‘turning point’ in the context of the Qur’anic sūrah in which it is found (Sūrat al-Baqarah), see Robinson (Citation2004).
28 Given that both communities in Medina initially prayed in the same direction, the communal distinction between the Muslims and the Jews may not have been so clear during the Muslim community’s first two years in Medina.
29 The rhetorical structure here is remarkably similar to an earlier Meccan sūrah, Sūrat al-Kāfirūn (109), in which the Prophet is instructed to say to the Meccan pagans: ‘Say, ‘O disbelievers! I worship not what you worship, nor are you worshippers of what I worship, nor am I a worshipper of what you worship, nor are you worshippers of what I worship … ’
30 See also commentary on this passage in Nasr et al. (Citation2015, 53–54), as well as Hamza, Rizvi, and Mayer (Citation2010, 67–126).
31 The two lines that comprise the passage cited above end with references to those who might be ‘averse’ to the message of Islam – the ‘disbelievers’ in the first line, and ‘the idolaters’ in the second. Note that these two terms are not synonyms. Jews and Christians (who are likely the referent for ‘they’ in the first line), are disbelievers insofar as they do not believe in the mission and message of Muhammad, but they are not idolaters (a term that refers to followers of the pagan Arab religion). See also Qur’an 48:28, for a similar passage.
32 Many early commentators understood the ‘prevailing’ of Islam over all religion to mean prevailing through the strength of its proofs and arguments (see al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf. v. 2, p. 257; al-Qurṭubī, Tafsir, v.5, pp. 129–130; al-Rāzī (Citation2009), Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, v. 16, pp. 32–33, commentary on 9:33.
33 We should also note, however, that another of our examples, Qur’an 61:7 is found in a sūrah that most consider Madinan, but at least a few scholars suggest might be Meccan; see J. Lumbard’s introduction to this surah in Nasr et al, The Study Quran, p. 1364.
34 Abraham, among all the pre-Muhammadan prophets, was probably the most directly and frequently associated with the terms Islam and muslim. See, e.g., Qur’an 2:127–131; 3:67; 22:78.
35 We would also note here Qur’an 42:13, which connects the religion brought by Muhammad with that enjoined upon Noah, as well as with Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
36 Note that the verb translated as ‘perfected’ (akmaltu) in this verse, as well as that translated ‘completed’ (atmamtu), can both connote completion.
37 This is so only in principle, however, since Muslims considered these scriptures as they existed by Muhammad’s time to have already been corrupted so that they were no longer in their divinely revealed form. This doctrine, known as taḥrīf, is derived from a particular reading of several Qur’anic verses, including Qur’an 2:75.
38 See also Qur’an 3:199:
And truly among the People of the Book are those who believe in God and that which has been sent down unto you, and that which has been sent down unto them, humble before God, not selling God’s signs for a paltry price. It is they who shall have their reward with their Lord. Truly God is swift in reckoning.
39 Recently, the historian Fred M. Donner has made the argument that the early Islamic movement was above all a ‘believers’ movement (based on the preponderance of references to the ‘believers’ in the Qur’an), and that ‘believers’ included all those willing to remake their religious lives according to the monotheistic and pietistic example of Muhammad and his teachings, which may well have included Jews and Christian in their number. While his argument has much merit and has opened an important avenue for further study, it is based, in part, on an assumption that the word ‘believer’ (mu’min) is as general and inclusive a term in the Qur’an as it is in contemporary English parlance. See (Citation2010).