الدين
al-Dīn
The normative, perfect religion that God ordained for humanity, covering faith, ethics, law, worship, institutions and judgment.
What it means
Al-dīn is the word for religion, but it is wider than the English term. Faruqi defines it as the norm, the perfect way God ordained for humankind. It includes belief, ethics, law, devotion, institutions and the final reckoning. Religion in the narrow sense of private belief does not capture it. The Quran says that the dīn with God is Islam (3:19). At the end of the Prophet’s mission it says that God has perfected the dīn for believers and completed His favour on them (5:3). The word also means judgment, as in yawm al-dīn, the Day of Judgment (1:4), where the same root points to accountability.
Often misunderstood as
That it translates as “religion” in the sense of a private matter, when it is a whole way of life with a day of reckoning.
What the sources say
The root d-y-n carries the senses of obedience, debt and judgment, which scholars find joined in the single concept.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 32, listed as AL DĪN. The definition is restated here.