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‘your religion (din)’?
To understand this question properly—and thus the reason
for Islam—it is necessary first to understand the components of
the question; i.e. it is necessary to understand three things: (A)
what is a religion?; (B) what are human beings?, and (C) what is
the purpose and the spiritual function of each one of these rites,
doctrines and state?
WHAT IS A RELIGION?
The English word ‘religion’ is now a contested and perhaps
‘culturally-loaded’ word, but etymologically it is derived from the
Latin ‘re-ligio’ meaning to ‘re-tie’—and hence ‘bond’—(between
man and heaven). Similarly, the Arabic word for religion (‘din’)
means literally4 a ‘debt’ that binds one to God (for having created
us). A true religion as such is thus what ‘attaches’ human beings
to God and hence to salvation, paradise, felicity and deliverance.
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS?
Human beings consist of three major dimensions: (1) a body (jism),
(2) a soul (nafs) and (3) a spirit (ruh)—and the links between them.
Each of these exists in its own plane or world and yet they are all
connected, somewhat like water with salt crystals in the daylight:
the light (symbolizing the spirit) penetrates and contains the water
(symbolizing the soul) and the salt (symbolizing the body), and yet
each remains distinct. The light is formless; the water is formal but
subtle; the salt is formal and gross, and so—symbolically speaking—are
the spirit, the soul and the body. In what follows, we describe
these as briefly and simply as we can, based upon the Qur’an.
However, this subject—spiritual anthropology—is a complex one
and requires some detail to be understood properly:
4 See: Al-Mufradat fi Ghareeb Al-Qu‘ran, Al-Raghib Al-Isfahani, (d. 502 ah), (Dar Al-
Ma‘rifah, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005 ce), p.181.
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