The danger of seeing Islam as ‘a religion’ is that it is likely to become just something that you have. For example, I have a house, I have a car, I have a cat, I have a job and I have a religion. Seeing Islam as ‘a religion’ means that it is more likely to be connected in your mind with ‘having’ rather than ‘being’. Seeing Islam as ‘a religion’ is more likely to turn it into something that you put in a box and use only when strictly necessary, such as once a week on Fridays, when you go to the communal prayer; or once a year during Ramadan, when you suddenly change your programme for a month.

Seeing Islam as ‘a religion’ means that you see it as just one religion among many others, or one ideology among many others, or one way of life among many others, or one inherited faith among many others, or, or, or, or….

Seeing Islam as ‘a religion’ boxes it, diminishes it, cuts it down in size, relativises it, atomises it, historicises it, particularises it and, most dangerously, secularises it.

Islam is not just ‘a religion’. Islam is no less the default setting of the whole of creation It is the order underlying the cosmos and the pattern on which all of existence is based.