تعريف مصطلح الدين وضوابطه عند العلماء المسلمين مقارنة بالعلماء الغربيين
Defining the Concept of “Religion” and Its Scholarly Parameters in Muslim Thought: A Comparative Study with Western Scholarship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33102/jmqs.v21i2.561Keywords:
Religion, Sociology of Religion, Islamic ThoughtAbstract
Many Western scholars have sought to explain the origins of religion and have proposed a range of influential theories. However, much of this literature is not grounded in objective empirical evidence, nor does it consistently employ systematic induction from religious data. In addition, several accounts rely heavily on observations of contemporary “primitive” societies as proxy evidence for early human religiosity, despite the methodological limitations of treating such societies as direct analogues of prehistoric communities. In contrast, Muslim scholars developed a more determinate conceptualization of dīn, articulated through definitional discussions and disciplinary criteria within Islamic intellectual traditions. Accordingly, this study compares how Western scholars and Muslim scholars define “religion,” and it clarifies the principal parameters used by Muslim scholars in delimiting the concept. Methodologically, the study adopts an inductive approach to collect and trace scholarly statements concerning the definition of religion, followed by descriptive and analytical methods to examine their underlying assumptions, conceptual boundaries, and implications. The study concludes that, in the usage of many Muslim scholars, the term dīn is not treated as a generic label for any system of belief or practice; rather, it primarily denotes the true religion revealed from God.
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