1/11 Is islām ever the name of a distinct religion in the Qur’an?

Those who think so often cite the following:

“dīn with God is islām” (Q 3:19)
“whoever seeks a dīn other than islām, it will not be accepted of him” (Q 3:85)
But I think these texts simply insist on monotheism.
2/11 In the Qur’an, islām’s basic meaning is “giving all” (not “submission”), namely, giving all of one’s worship to Allāh—AKA monotheistic worship.
x.com/MohsenGT/statu…

And dīn mostly means “worship” (not “religion”), sometimes “recompense.”
x.com/MohsenGT/statu…

1/10 What is the difference between islām & īmān—or between aslama & āmana, mentioned in Q 49:14–17?

TL;DR: islām means to accept monotheistic worship, manifest in ṣalāt & zakāt. This should not be conflated with genuine faith, which is manifest in readiness to fight for God. 2/10 As I have argued, in the Qur’an dīn generally means “worship” (instead of “religion”) and islām denotes “monotheistic worship” (literally, “complete devotion [of one’s worship & self to Allāh]”).


But what did it mean in practice to embrace islām?

https://twitter.com/MohsenGT/status/1763641421800599775

Some thoughts on Q 9:30, which asserts that “Jews say ‘ʿUzayr [?] is the son of God’ & Christians say ‘Christ is the son of God’.”

Most scholars take ʿUzayr to be Ezra, but he is not known as a son of God in the Jewish tradition.

Can the noun refer to the Jewish Messiah?

1/11 This idea occurred to me last year in the light of Q 5:78, which claims: “the unbelievers from the Children of Israel were cursed on the tongue of 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗱 and Jesus son of Mary.”

Why David?

An earlier verse that denounces those who divinized Jesus may furnish a clue.

2/11

@Oneubon4563 Thank you for writing a thoughtful and substantive thread (which would have been even better if the tone was less categorical and dismissive!). I'll say a few things here but hope to respond to some of your points more fully later. @Oneubon4563 1) If we understand islam as exclusive worship, that doesn't make it unrelated to prophecy/scripture. In fact, I think Q 3 links them explicitly. It suggests that if some People of the Book reject the Prophet, it's because they have deviated from strict monotheism.

1/15 It's a common view that 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 means “submission.”

But in the Qur’an, 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 seems to mean exclusive worship of God (𝘪𝘬𝘩𝘭𝘢̄𝘴̣) or “monotheism.”

This view is found in early exegesis & makes better sense of many qur’anic passages.

academia.edu/111333681/Wors…
2/15 For example, Q 3:79-80 asserts that a prophet (like Jesus) would never ask people to serve him or other beings instead of God. “Would he command you to disbelieve after you have been 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮?” The point is that Israelites were monotheists (𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮) before Jesus ...

1/14 “There is no compulsion in religion”
This is a common translation of the beginning of Q 2:256
I prefer: “There is no oppression in the worship [of God]” (cf. Q 22:78)
Meaning, serving God is not subjugation to arbitrary might; it is doing what is right & to our own benefit.

2/14 I have argued that dīn in the Qur’an means “service” or “worship,” not “religion”

In early Arabic texts outside the Qur’an, dīn and the verb dāna sometimes refer to the “service” that subjects owe their king.

https://x.com/MohsenGT/status/1742232515673256096

https://x.com/MohsenGT/status/1655572610954981377?s=20

1/11 It is difficult to escape the gravitational pull of some core ideas.
One is that dīn means “religion” in the Qur’an.
This is doubtful.
I think dīn usually means “worship.”

The difference is subtle but the implications are profound.

Download link: academia.edu/111333681/Wors…
2/11 For example, Q 3:83 wonders if some Christians seek something other than “dīn Allāh.”
Does this mean some Christians went beyond "the religion of God" to seek another “religion”?
Or does it mean some Christians went beyond "the worship of God" in their worship?

Q 5:112-5 relates the story of a table/meal which the apostles of Jesus asked to receive from heaven.

I think the story recounts the Eucharist's institution & is part of a 2-way polemic between People of the Book & Believers over worship.

1/12

doi.org/10.1080/095964…
Worship & its rituals are a major theme of Qur'an's 5th surah. Its beginning prohibits hunting during worship by the Sanctuary (vv. 1-4) & requires purification before cultic prayer (ṣalāt, v. 6). Similar subjects are further treated later in the surah as well (vv. 87-103).
2/12

1/10 The Arabic word for monotheism, tawḥīd, does not appear in the Qur’an.
But the Qur’an has other ways of referring to monotheism.
One is to couple the term dīn, which means “worship,” with words from the root kh-l-ṣ (e.g., mukhliṣ), which conveys exclusivity/purity. 2/10 In early Arabic, dīn (or dāna) can signify “service” or “servitude” (screenshot from the Ṣiḥāḥ)
As an extension of this usage, dīn in the Qur’an often means “(way of) service/worship,” seldom (if ever) “religion” or “faith”

https://twitter.com/MohsenGT/status/1655572610954981377?s=20

1/12 This study argues that quranic dīn, islām, & ḥanīf are deeply connected to rituals of worship.
(inexact) TLDR: dīn: “worship” (not “religion”/“faith”);
islām: “monotheistic worship” (not “submission”);
ḥanīf: “worshiper through cultic rituals” (not “monotheist”/“gentile”). 2/12 Dīn is often translated as “religion” or “faith.” But IMO dīn mostly means “(way of) worship,” reflects the meaning of “service” or “servitude” that is conveyed by dīn or dāna outside Quran, and often evokes cultic rituals (e.g., ṣalāt, sacrifices, Eucharist).

Scholars often view the Qur'an as a universalist document that fosters a purely faith-based identity among its earliest adherents. I have argued, however, that the Qur'an considers physical descent from Abraham as vital to the status and identity of the Prophet and his followers. Let us look at al-Baqarah, which contains an extensive discussion of the emergence of Believers as a new community.
The first half of al-Baqarah refers to God's covenant with the Israelites, criticizing (many of) them for past actions & current rejection of the Prophet.

Islamic literature on the Qur’an reports many textual variants that do not conform to the ‘Uthmanic skeletal text (rasm), often attributing such variants to Companions of the Prophet who allegedly had independent codices of their own. But did such variants really exist? Some academics viewed these variants not as authentic vestiges of a pre-standardization milieu but as the fabrication of later authorities who wanted to advance certain exegetical positions through these variants. (The image is from Wansbrough's Quranic Studies [p. 203].)

In 909 AH (1503-4 CE), the Ottoman scholar Khayr al-Dīn al-ʿAṭūfī put the finishing touches on the massive catalog that he was preparing for the palace library of Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512).

What can we learn from it about Qur'an scholarship at that "post-classical" age? TL;DR: Ottoman scholars were not avid fans of tradition-based exegesis (al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr). They were mostly interested in analytical tafsīr, in particular those of al-Rāzī, al-Zamakhsharī, & al-Bayḍāwī. They were also busy reading & writing glosses (esp. on latter 2).