the religion of islam:the qur’an’s essential notion of din

the overall aim of this paper is to highlight a transcendental usage of the religion of islamin the qur’an. i will show that the notion of islamas a unitary religion is used in the qur’an as a genus for religions (adyan) which have appeared throughout human history. this usage will show that there is a sense of religion which guarantees the essential unity of all religions and prepares us to understand the apparent plurality and conflicting diversity of world religions; however, it is essentially different from the sense which has emerged within the modern discipline of religious studies in western scholarship which interprets religion as a cultural phenomenon and considers the myriad variety of religions to be mere socio-historical events. in this paper, i will first briefly provide a background on the difficulty faced within this modern western concept of religion, then i will progress to the islamic concept of religion to illustrate a model for understanding the plurality and the diversity of religions, which apparently have their own individual boundaries, yet at the same time enjoy a unitary reality.