Deen (Arabic term)

(, also anglicized as Deen) is a Persian  word which is commonly associated with Zoroastrianism and Islam, but it is also used in Sikhism and Arab Christian worship. The term is loosely associated with "religion", but as used in the Qur'an, it means the way of life in which righteous Muslims are obligated to adopt in order to comply with divine law (Quran and sunnah), or Shari'a, and to the divine judgment or recompense to which all humanity must inevitably face without intercessors before God. Thus, although secular Muslims would say that their practical interpretation of Din conforms to "religion" in the restricted sense of something that can be carried out in separation from other areas of life, both mainstream and reformist Muslim writers take the word to mean an all-encompassing way of life carried out under the auspices of God's divine purpose as expressed in the Qur'an and hadith. As one notably progressive Muslim writer puts it, far from being a discrete aspect of life carried out in the mosque, "Islam is Din, a complete way of life".