THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION

THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION of love is hosting”. And, as there is a meeting during hosting, a friend is also embraced. And over time in hosting and embracement, love also gets developed during this course.3 To clarify this error, I will cite the example of Ibadah. Worship essentially describes a particular state that arises in a believer’s heart because of extreme fear of and love for God. When this state emerges, it leads the person to devotion, obedience, and submission to God’s will in all matters. However, the mindset under discussion did not find this picture of worship appealing. This was because, in it, acknowledging supreme authority and establishing a system of obedience under that authority were treated merely as external requirements of the core meaning. As a result, it turned the very concept of worship upside down. In the discussion of worship, after undertaking a lexical analysis of the term, the writer goes on to write: “This explanation clarifies that the core meaning of the root ‘abd is to recognize someone’s 3. The example of love presented in this analysis should not be understood as implying that the demands discussed in the book— regarding the four terminologies—are necessarily of the same level or importance. It is simply an illustration meant to clarify the nature of the issue. In reality, it is well known that such demands are not all equally important; they vary significantly in their relative significance.