چکیده:
The overall aim of this paper is to highlight a transcendental usage of the Religion of Islamin the Qur’an. I will show that the notion of Islamas a unitary Religion is used in the Qur’an as a genus for religions (adyan) which have appeared throughout human history. This usage will show that there is a sense of Religion which guarantees the essential unity of all religions and prepares us to understand the apparent plurality and conflicting diversity of world religions; however, it is essentially different from the sense which has emerged within the modern discipline of religious studies in Western scholarship which interprets religion as a cultural phenomenon and considers the myriad variety of religions to be mere socio-historical events. In this paper, I will first briefly provide a background on the difficulty faced within this modern Western concept of religion, then I will progress to the Islamic concept of Religion to illustrate a model for understanding the plurality and the diversity of religions, which apparently have their own individual boundaries, yet at the same time enjoy a unitary reality.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In the rest of this paper I will try to show the meaning and usage of din in the Qur‘an, and reconsider the concept of religion in light of the text in order to meet the second difficulty we find in modern religious studies - the possibility of a universal notion of religion which integrates token-religions.
As claimed in Islamic literature, all these aspects are embodied in a unique reality which is meta-historical by nature but has appeared as different forms of religions throughout the spiritual history of human beings.
18 a) The Qur’anic Conception of Din The Qur‘an claims that Din is a unitary notion which is only one truth in itself; a type-Religion, or a unique divine reality which is the depth 16.
Though I realize that, in considering the history of the word ―religion,‖ it may be wrong to translate the Qur‘anic word din as ―religion,‖ I will use the latter term solely for convenience in this paper while enlarging its meaning and indication in light of the Qur‘anic idea of Din. of all revealed truths, embodied and developed in specific forms of token-religions.
I am applying this terminology here to show that the word "Islam," in the Qur‘an, is considered to be a universal and unitary Religion (which I call type-Religion), while other religions are its historically appeared instances (which I refer to as token-religions).
Within this pyramid, the relationship between type-Religion as a meta-historical reality and token-religions as its historical manifestations can be considered in two different ways: vertical and horizontal.