Understanding ‘Deen’

THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION supreme authority” and do not accept and obey that sovereignty—is a weak argument, similar to how some people interpret belief in the “state” as faith in Allah. Similarly, trying to establish the “third meaning” of Deen from “( ” وال حیرمون ما حرم هللا ورسوله they do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful)—which refers to “the system of thought and action established under this sovereignty”—is simply a distortion of the words rather than a valid scholarly argument. Furthermore, claiming that “ ” دين احلق includes all four meanings of Deen is an unsupported assertion. There is no linguistic indicator in the verse to suggest that Deen al-Haqq is used here to represent a collection of these four meanings. The specific meaning that this verse is intended to establish in the book under discussion certainly does not emerge from it, and no commentator supports it. However, setting that aside, there is a difference of opinion among scholars regarding the correct interpretation of the verse. One group interprets “ يدينون ” دين احلق as referring to the acceptance of Islam (Tafsir al-Qurtubi, Vol. 8, p. 110). However, this interpretation creates a contradiction within the verse. According to this view, the reason for waging war against the People of the Book is that they do not adopt the religion brought by Muhammad œ as their own. If the reason