[UriyVlasov]

Mandatory, obligatory, compulsory... they mean the same thing in English.

As a recent convert from secular humanism, I find that often the English translations of Islamic concepts are not the best, or worse, they are misleading to an English-speaker. It's best to not get too hung up on them. A lot of times, we’re not speaking the same language. And here I digress on my tangent with examples:

When the secular Westerner hears the word ‘deity’, he imagines: a cartoon of an old man in the sky, a mythological concept with no relevance to daily life.
When the Muslim says ‘ilāh’, he actually means: something worshipped, something you ultimately serve and obey, whether intentionally or not, even if not a physical object. “Have you seen the one who takes as an ilāh their own desire?” (Sūrat al-Jāthiyah, verse 23)

When the Westerner hears ‘innovation’, he imagines: cutting-edge technology, new solutions for the future, Steve Jobs.
When the Muslim says ‘bidʿah’, he actually means: a made-up ritual, religious invention, incompatible addition to the religion, new practice that has no basis in the Qurʾān or Sunnah, cultural superstition added into Islam.

The ‘royal we’ hardly exists in modern English. Because of this, translating Allāh’s ‘naḥnu’ as ‘We’ gives the utterly false impression that Allāh is many. This feature of Arabic is used to convey the majesty of Allāh, not the multitude of Allāh. A plain English equivalent would be ‘in My Majesty, I’.

Part of the reason that I was guided to Islam is, Allāh willing, to make the message of the Qurʾān and Sunnah accessible in plain English that non-Muslim Westerners can understand and relate to.

But I still have much to learn about my new religion.