THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION

it meant to be a servant, what state defined servitude, what behavior worship implied, and the meaning of Deen. Therefore, when they were told to abandon worship of all others and worship Allah alone, and to leave all other religions to follow Allah’s Deen, they understood clearly the kind of change the Quran was calling for in their lives. However, over the following centuries, the original meanings of these terms as understood at the time of the Quran’s revelation gradually changed. Each term became more narrowly defined and, in many cases, unclear. One reason for this was a lack of a clear understanding of Arabic, and another was that people born within Islamic society no longer held the same meanings for Ilah, Rabb, Deen, and Ibadah that existed in non-Muslim societies at the time of revelation. As a result, later lexicons and commentaries increasingly defined Quranic terms based on the interpretations of subsequent Muslims rather than their original linguistic meanings. For example: • Ilah became almost synonymous with idols and deities, • Rabb was equated with one who nurtures and sustains or simply a guardian,