Piety is a journey while religiosity is a destination, because piety is divine while religiosity is manmade; piety is peaceful while religiosity is belligerent, and finally piety is compassionate while religiosity is cruel. No wise person ever said that the opposite of love is hate and hatred, because it is indifference, and indifference leads to suicide, homicide and finally to genocide.
Before we tackle the never-ending family feuding between ourselves and among the descendants of Abraham and others, it is appropriate to delve, in general, into the notion of what din (religion) stands for including its wide concepts and desired tenets.
There is at least one mystical, man-made or deified spirit “god” or deified human “god”, and road map to every religion, belief, system, way, creed, conviction, faith etc. Each assigns qualities, functions and powers through attributes to their god or gods. To understand the diversity, let us try, I repeat try, to define religion, as there is no one definition that can satisfy the appetites of zealous followers of any religion. Various encyclopedias and dictionaries give little if not arbitrary definitions. It is easier to describe what religion is not than what religion is. According to the encyclopedia of Religions: “the word religion is derived from Latin root religio, either from Religare: “tie back” or Relegere: “being bound”. The American College Dictionary’s definition is: “Religion is fear of God or gods, religious awe, sacredness, scrupulousness.” Din is Arabic for religion, which means a way of life, a system, or a religious conjecture.
A religion comprises followers, united by their spiritual identity either through a universal religious setting or in legalistically communal, national, territorial, cultural environments, while being ready and willing to embrace scripted mystical theologies coupled with ordinances, doctrines, set rules and rituals for worship, as well as laws and statecrafts to be promulgated and approved by their founders.
In either case, first and foremost, it is up to the psychological and sociological and even political connotation of faith given to the word “religion” by different groups within the same religion, let alone the other faiths, citing different understandings, interpretations, cultures and traditions. All faiths claim practically that their deity created religion to serve mankind in love, co-habitation and tolerance. Nevertheless, the word is best associated with the devoted desire that denotes earnest observance of ritual obligations, sense of belonging as well as an inward spirit of reverence and discipline.
