 Dear students, in this module, we are going to discuss the religion, its definition and what it has to do with the concept of sacred and profane. Religion is a social phenomenon that involves beliefs, practices and rituals surrounding the sacred and profane. The sacred refers to the things that are considered holy, transcendent and set apart from the ordinary while the profane refers to the things that are mundane and secular. These are two very interesting concepts that the famous sociologist Emile Derkheim gave while trying to understand the religion from a sociological point of view. The sacredness refers to all the things that we consider sacred and sacred in any society and in any religious ideology. We can define the sacredness with the help of our thoughts and imaginations that what our religious values are. And in opposition to that, all those things come into the zoom of profanity which we can call the secular aspects of our life. For example, praying is a sacred entity. Similarly, the Holy Quran has a sacred value or worth. On the other hand, if we look at it, our daily life, talking to people or engaging in other activities, we can bring it into the zoom of profanity. Derkheim argued that the religion provides a sense of collective identity and moral order for society by uniting individuals through shared beliefs and rituals. So this is very important that Emile Derkheim does not consider the religion as an absolute value or an absolute identity or an absolute ideology. In fact, in his opinion, religion is also a social construction and all the religions in the world, we cannot see them from an absolute point of view. In Pakistan, for example, if we see that Islam plays a very significant role in our daily life and many people believe in the sacredness of holy sites and rituals such as visiting shrines or making pilgrimage. The concept of the sacred and profan also affects how people interact with the environment and the natural world as seen in the reverence of sacred rivers or forests in certain religious traditions. For example, in some religions, there is worship of water, there is worship of trees, there is worship of fire. People reflect sacredness as different symbols and the meanings hidden in it are very important to them. For Muslims, as we see that Hajj or pilgrimage is a very important event for us. For us, it is a very important event. Similarly, for Christians, the cross is the status of sacredness. For us, the hillal is the status of sacredness. So this dichotomy can also be seen in the division between religions and secular law in many societies and scholars have debated the universality of sacred versus profan distinction with some arguing that it is specific to certain cultures or historical periods. It is not that the religion can only be defined on the basis of these two concepts. Many religions, they can have a very complex structure of their life ideology For example, in Islam, it is not the religion of the Rasumat but of the Aqaith and along with the Aqaith, there are practices and moral and ethical values. So the very important aspect of religion that can be seen in the collectivity is its moral system in which the definitions of right and wrong come together. What is good for us? What is wrong? What can we perform? All these things teach us our religion. So it is very interesting to see that from the point of view of sociology, the religion is reflected as a secular entity, whereas it has no absolute value. So in a nutshell, understanding the sacred and profan distinction is essential to understanding the role of religion in shaping different cultural norms, social identities and political power. So different religions and religious traditions have different conceptions of sacredness and profanity. Studying these differences can reveal important insights into diversity of human experiences. So food for thought for you, you can see how different Rasumats are in Pakistan and their sacredness. Along with this, the other things that we see in our practices, we can also see them from the religious point of view. And the second important thing is that the concept of this sacredness and profanity is seen in Pakistani culture. Along with this, we can also see how religion establishes moral values for you. And if you look in Pakistan, the derivative source of moral values is only religion. We define right or wrong only on the basis of our religion or there are other social factors as well. So you need to see that, you need to observe that. It's a food for thought for you.