Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran? (NPR report)

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
for NPR
March 18, 2010

Listen to story

As the hijackers boarded the airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, they had a lot on their minds. And if they were following instructions, one of those things was the Quran.

In preparation for the suicide attack, their handlers had told them to meditate on two chapters of the Quran in which God tells Muslims to "cast terror into the hearts of unbelievers."

"Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them," Allah instructs the Prophet Muhammad (Quran, 9:5). He continues: "Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites! ... Hell shall be their home, an evil fate."

When Osama bin Laden declared war on the West in 1996, he cited the Quran's command to "strike off" the heads of unbelievers. More recently, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan lectured his colleagues about jihad, or "holy war," and the Quran's exhortation to fight unbelievers and bring them low. Hasan is accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, last year.

Given this violent legacy, religion historian Philip Jenkins decided to compare the brutality quotient of the Quran and the Bible.

Defense Vs. Total Annihilation

"Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible," Jenkins says.

Jenkins is a professor at Penn State University and author of two books dealing with the issue: the recently published Jesus Wars, and Dark Passages , which has not been published but is already drawing controversy.

Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says. "Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide."

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: "And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them," God says through the prophet Samuel. "But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

"In other words," Jenkins says, "Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God's law if you do not."

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

'Holy Amnesia'

But Jenkins says, even though the Bible is violent, Christianity and Judaism today are not for the most part.

"What happens in all religions as they grow and mature and expand, they go through a process of forgetting of the original violence, and I call this a process of holy amnesia," Jenkins says.

They make the violence symbolic: Wiping out the enemy becomes wiping out one's own sins. Jenkins says that until recently, Islam had the same sort of holy amnesia, and many Muslims interpreted jihad, for example, as an internal struggle, not physical warfare.

Andrew Bostom calls this analysis "preposterous." Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad, says there's a major difference between the Bible, which describes the destruction of an enemy at a point in time, and the Quran, which urges an ongoing struggle to defeat unbelievers.

"It's an aggressive doctrine," he says. "The idea is to impose Islamic law on the globe."

Take suicide attacks, he says — a tactic that Muslim radicals have used to great effect in the U.S., Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. It's true that suicide from depression is forbidden in Islam — but Bostom says the Quran and the Hadith, or the sayings of Muhammad, do allow self-destruction for religious reasons.

"The notion of jihad martyrdom is extolled in the Quran, Quran verse 9:1-11. And then in the Hadith, it's even more explicit. This is the highest form of jihad — to kill and to be killed in acts of jihad."

'Out Of Context'

That may be the popular notion of jihad, says Waleed El-Ansary, but it's the wrong one. El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

"All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad," he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf "are going to hell."

So what's going on here? After all, we all have images of Muslim radicals flying planes into buildings, shooting up soldiers at Fort Hood, trying to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day. How to reconcile a peaceful Quran with these violent acts?

El-Ansary says that in the past 30 years, there's been a perfect storm that has created a violent strain of Islam. The first is political: frustration at Western intervention in the Muslim world. The second is intellectual: the rise of Wahhabi Islam, a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam subscribed to by Osama bin Laden. El-Ansary says fundamentalists have distorted Islam for political purposes.

"Basically what they do is they take verses out of context and then use that to justify these egregious actions," he says.

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn't be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

"The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead," he says, "and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence. Whether they can evolve out of it is another thing altogether.

---

Excerpts: "Jesus Wars"

by Philip Jenkins

Dark Passages: How the Quran and the Bible can be mis-read

Dark passages

Does the harsh language in the Koran explain Islamic violence? Don't answer till you've taken a look inside the Bible

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/dark_passages/?page=full

WE HAVE A good idea what was passing through the minds of the Sept. 11 hijackers as they made their way to the airports.

Their Al Qaeda handlers had instructed them to meditate on al-Tawba and Anfal, two lengthy suras from the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam. The passages make for harrowing reading. God promises to "cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks!" (Koran 8.12). God instructs his Muslim followers to kill unbelievers, to capture them, to ambush them (Koran 9.5). Everything contributes to advancing the holy goal: "Strike terror into God's enemies, and your enemies" (Koran 8.60). Perhaps in their final moments, the hijackers took refuge in these words, in which God lauds acts of terror and massacre. (Click here for a better understanding of those verses)

On a much lesser scale, others have used the words of the Koran to sanction violence. Even in cases of domestic violence and honor killing, perpetrators can find passages that seem to justify brutal acts (Koran 4.34).

Citing examples such as these, some Westerners argue that the Muslim scriptures themselves inspire terrorism, and drive violent jihad. Evangelist Franklin Graham has described his horror on finding so many Koranic passages that command the killing of infidels: the Koran, he thinks, "preaches violence." Prominent conservatives Paul Weyrich and William Lind argued that "Islam is, quite simply, a religion of war," and urged that Muslims be encouraged to leave US soil. Today, Dutch politician Geert Wilders faces trial for his film "Fitna," in which he demands that the Koran be suppressed as the modern-day equivalent to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Even Westerners who have never opened the book - especially such people, perhaps - assume that the Koran is filled with calls for militarism and murder, and that those texts shape Islam.

Unconsciously, perhaps, many Christians consider Islam to be a kind of dark shadow of their own faith, with the ugly words of the Koran standing in absolute contrast to the scriptures they themselves cherish. In the minds of ordinary Christians - and Jews - the Koran teaches savagery and warfare, while the Bible offers a message of love, forgiveness, and charity. For the prophet Micah, God's commands to his people are summarized in the words "act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Christians recall the words of the dying Jesus: "Father, forgive them: they know not what they do."

But in terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races - of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted. One cherished psalm (137) begins with the lovely line, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept"; it ends by blessing anyone who would seize Babylon's infants and smash their skulls against the rocks.

To say that terrorists can find religious texts to justify their acts does not mean that their violence actually grows from those scriptural roots. Indeed, such an assumption itself is based on the crude fundamentalist formulation that everything in a given religion must somehow be authorized in scripture. The difference between the Bible and the Koran is not that one book teaches love while the other proclaims warfare and terrorism, rather it is a matter of how the works are read. Yes, the Koran has been ransacked to supply texts authorizing murder, but so has the Bible

If Christians or Jews want to point to violent parts of the Koran and suggest that those elements taint the whole religion, they open themselves to the obvious question: what about their own faiths? If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery. Of course, they are no such thing; nor is Islam.

But the implications run still deeper. All faiths contain within them some elements that are considered disturbing or unacceptable to modern eyes; all must confront the problem of absorbing and reconciling those troubling texts or doctrines. In some cases, religions evolve to the point where the ugly texts so fade into obscurity that ordinary believers scarcely acknowledge their existence, or at least deny them the slightest authority in the modern world. In other cases, the troubling words remain dormant, but can return to life in conditions of extreme stress and conflict. Texts, like people, can live or die. This whole process of forgetting and remembering, of growing beyond the harsh words found in a text, is one of the critical questions that all religions must learn to address.

Faithful Muslims believe that the Koran is the inspired word of God, delivered verbatim through the prophet Mohammed. Non-Muslims, of course, see the text as the work of human hands, whether of Mohammed himself or of schools of his early followers. But whichever view we take, the Koran as it stands claims to speak in God's voice. That is one of the great differences between the Bible and the Koran. Even for dedicated fundamentalists, inspired Bible passages come through the pen of a venerated historical individual, whether it's the Prophet Isaiah or the Apostle Paul, and that leaves open some chance of blaming embarrassing views on that person's own prejudices. The Koran gives no such option: For believers, every word in the text - however horrendous a passage may sound to modern ears - came directly from God.

We don't have to range too far to find passages that horrify. The Koran warns, "Those who make war against God and his apostle . . . shall be put to death or crucified" (Koran 5.33). Other passages are equally threatening, though they usually have to be wrenched out of context to achieve this effect. One text from Sura (Chapter) 47 begins "O true believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads."

But in such matters, the Bible too has plenty of passages that read painfully today. Tales of war and assassination pervade the four books of Samuel and Kings, where it is hard to avoid verses justifying the destruction of God's enemies. In a standard English translation of the Old Testament, the words "war" and "battle" each occur more than 300 times, not to mention all the bindings, beheadings, and rapes.

The richest harvest of gore comes from the books that tell the story of the Children of Israel after their escape from Egypt, as they take over their new land in Canaan. These events are foreshadowed in the book of Deuteronomy, in which God proclaims "I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh" (Deut. 32:42). We then turn to the full orgy of militarism, enslavement, and race war in the Books of Joshua and Judges. Moses himself reputedly authorized this campaign when he told his followers that, once they reached Canaan, they must annihilate all the peoples they find in the cities specially reserved for them (Deut. 20: 16-18).

Joshua, Moses's successor, proves an apt pupil. When he conquers the city of Ai, God commands that he take away the livestock and the loot, while altogether exterminating the inhabitants, and he duly does this (Joshua 8). When he defeats and captures five kings, he murders his prisoners of war, either by hanging or crucifixion. (Joshua 10). Nor is there any suggestion that the Canaanites and their kin were targeted for destruction because they were uniquely evil or treacherous: They happened to be on the wrong land at the wrong time. And Joshua himself was by no means alone. In Judges again, other stories tell of the complete extermination of tribes with the deliberate goal of ending their genetic lines.

In modern times, we would call this genocide. If the forces of Joshua and his successor judges committed their acts in the modern world, then observers would not hesitate to speak of war crimes. They would draw comparisons with the notorious guerrilla armies of Uganda and the Congo, groups like the appalling Lord's Resistance Army. By comparison, the Koranic rules of war were, by the standards of their time, quite civilized. Mohammed wanted to win over his enemies, not slaughter them.

Not only do the Israelites in the Bible commit repeated acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but they do so under direct divine command. According to the first book of Samuel, God orders King Saul to strike at the Amalekite people, killing every man, woman, and child, and even wiping out their livestock (1 Samuel 15:2-3). And it is this final detail that proves Saul's undoing, as he keeps some of the animals, and thereby earns a scolding from the prophet Samuel. Fortunately, Saul repents, and symbolizes his regrets by dismembering the captured enemy king. Morality triumphs.

The Bible also alleges divine approval of racism and segregation. If you had to choose the single biblical story that most conspicuously outrages modern sentiment, it might well be the tale of Phinehas, a story that remains unknown to most Christian readers today (Numbers 25: 1-15). The story begins when the children of Israel are threatened by a plague. Phinehas, however, shrewdly identifies the cause of God's anger: God is outraged at the fact that a Hebrew man has found a wife among the people of Midian, and through her has imported an alien religion. Phinehas slaughters the offending couple - and, mollified, God ends the plague and blesses Phinehas and his descendants. Modern American racists love this passage. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins used the story as the basis for his manifesto "Vigilantes of Christendom." Hoskins advocated the creation of a new order of militant white supremacists, the Phineas Priesthood, and since then a number of groups have assumed this title, claiming Phinehas as the justification for terrorist attacks on mixed-race couples and abortion clinics.

Modern Christians who believe the Bible offers only a message of love and forgiveness are usually thinking only of the New Testament. Certainly, the New Testament contains far fewer injunctions to kill or segregate. Yet it has its own troublesome passages, especially when the Gospel of John expresses such hostility to the Ioudaioi, a Greek word that usually translates as "Jews." Ioudaioi plan to stone Jesus, they plot to kill him; in turn, Jesus calls them liars, children of the Devil.

Various authorities approach the word differently: I might prefer, for instance, to interpret it as "followers of the oppressive Judean religious elite," Or perhaps "Judeans." But in practice, any reputable translation has to use the simple and familiar word, "Jew," so that we read about the disciples hiding out after the Crucifixion, huddled in a room that is locked "for fear of the Jews." So harsh do these words sound to post-Holocaust ears that some churches exclude them from public reading.

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions . . . all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in the Koran. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized, no less than in the Muslim scripture.

Whether they are used or not depends on wider social attitudes. When America entered the First World War, for instance, firebrand preachers drew heavily on Jesus' warning that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. As it stands, that is not much of a text of terror, but if one is searching desperately for a weapon-related verse, it will serve to justify what people are going to do anyway

Interpretation is all, and that changes over time. Religions have their core values, their non-negotiable truths, but they also surround themselves with many stories not essential to the message. Any religion that exists over long eras absorbs many of the ideas and beliefs of the community in which it finds itself, and reflects those in its writings. Over time, thinkers and theologians reject or underplay those doctrines and texts that contradict the underlying principles of the faith as it develops. However strong the textual traditions justifying war and conflict, believers come instead to stress love and justice. Of course Muslim societies throughout history have engaged in jihad, in holy war, and have found textual warrant so to do. But over time, other potent strains in the religion moved away from literal warfare. However strong the calls to jihad, struggle, in Islamic thought, the hugely influential Sufi orders taught that the real struggle was the inner battle to control one's sinful human instincts, and this mattered vastly more than any pathetic clash of swords and spears. The Greater Jihad is one fought in the soul.

Often, such reforming thinkers are so successful that the troublesome words fade utterly from popular consciousness, even among believers who think of themselves as true fundamentalists. Most Christian and Jewish believers, even those who are moderately literate in scriptural terms, read their own texts extraordinarily selectively. How many Christian preachers would today find spiritual sustenance in Joshua's massacres? How many American Christians know that the New Testament demands that women cover their hair, at least in church settings, and that Paul's Epistles include more detailed rules on the subject than anything written in the Koran? This kind of holy amnesia is a basic component of religious development. It does not imply rejecting scriptures, but rather reading them in the total context of the religion as it progresses through history.

Alternatively, one can choose to deny that historical experience, and seize on any available word or verse that authorizes the violence that is already taking place - but once someone has decided to do that, it scarcely matters what the text actually says.

Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University. He is the author of "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died."

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.


Read more:

Letter to the Editor: Bible, Quran easily quoted out of context

Urban Legends on Islam: The 9/11 verse in the Quran

Beware sensational translations of holy verse, torn out of context

When Ignorance is not bliss, but rather pure bigotry and shame

A recent Associated Press story stated that about two dozen Oklahoma lawmakers plan to return copies of the Qur'an to a state panel on diversity created by Gov. Brad Henry after a lawmaker claimed the Muslim holy book condones the killing of innocent women and children.

The lawmaker, Rep. Rex Duncan, is obviously ignorant. Hey, there is no shame in being ignorant. We all are ignorant about many things. But it is a disaster when one is in denial of his/her ignorance and even makes judgments and bigoted decisions based on that ignorance. There is absolutely not a single verse in the Qur'an that condones the killing of any innocent people, including women and children. If anything, Islamic teachings clearly and strongly stresses the value and sanctity of every human life. Even in times of defensive just wars, Muslims are unequivocally forbidden from harming women, children, the old, non-combatants, the wounded, animals, and even the environment.

Rep. Duncan went on spewing more lies and hate, saying: "we never hear those...Muslims opposing the practice of violence on innocent people".
Mr. Duncan, do yourself a favor and read the following site to learn about some of the efforts Muslims undertook in face of terrorism.
http://www.cair.com/AmericanMuslims/AntiTerrorism.aspx

Well, this lawmaker's shameful ignorance did not stop here (some politicians just don't know when to stop talking). When asked if there was any double standard since lawmakers received a Centennial copy of the Bible earlier in the year from The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, Rep. Duncan was quoted saying:

"Mine is proudly on my desk on the Capitol and I don't think I ever read a part of it that condones the killing of women and children in furtherance of God's word."

Here is another proof that Duncan does not read much, if any. To say that Christian teachings (like that of Islam and Judaism) forbid the harming of innocent people, including women and children, will be accurate. But to say that he never read a part of the Bible that condones such killing is definitely inaccurate. Either Duncan never really opened the Bible gift given to him (what kind of a claimed Christian must he be? Probably a politician who panders to the Christian Right!), or he is reading a different Bible than the one I studied in my Christian schools.

Like all scriptures (and probably more than others), the Bible carries many verses dealing with violence. Such verses tend to be manipulated by extremists to justify their radical and violent views and actions. The Holocaust, slavery, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and even the murdering of abortion doctors are all a result of such twisted interpretations. Rep. Duncan, don't feel singled out, such radicals exist in every religion. But to claim that such text does not exist is really dumb. Sorry, I had to use that word.
I strongly suggest reading: Beware sensational translations of holy verse, torn out of context

Here is a sample of such verses in the Bible:

In the New Testament, Jesus was quoted saying:

I come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled (Luke 12:49)

But those my enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me (Luke 19:27)

The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all thing that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be they wailing and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13: 41-42)

But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword (Matt 10: 33-34)


The Old Testament includes:

Ezekiel 9:4-6. And the Lord said unto him... Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women; ...and begin at my sanctuary.

I Samuel 15:2,3. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ...Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Isaiah 13:15-16. Everyone that is found shall be thrust through; ...Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

Hosea 13:16. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child shall be ripped up.

Numbers 31:17-18. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that has known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves (as concubines).

Psalm 137:9. Happy shall he be, that takes and dashes their little ones against the stones. [the Babylonians' children.]

Exodus 35:2 states the anyone working on the Sabbath should be put to death.

Leviticus 20:13 "If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Deuteronomy 13:6-8, 8-9 'If your brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife tries to secretly entice you, telling you to go and worship other gods, gods of people living near you, or far from you, or anywhere on earth, do not listen to him.' 'You must kill them. Show them no pity. And your hand must strike the first blow.'


Again, such verses do not define the Christian teachings of peace and forgiveness. But the truth is that those verses are part of the Bible. As a Muslim, I am taught to learn about others based on their interpretation of their religious beliefs, not based on the actions of the fringe followers. (I wish Rep. Duncan follows that rule too)

The ignorance expressed by Rep. Duncan is certainly not bliss this time. It is pure bigotry and shame. There was a time when lawmakers were true leaders; leaders who were expected to be intelligent, informed, wise, uniting, and with common sense. Gone are the good old days.
Today, some of those false "leaders" lead by their ignorance and by the fear of the "other" that they instill in their constituencies.

Fortunately, most Christians that I know and closely associate with (including family members and friends), do not follow Rep. Duncan's deformed brand of Christianity which preaches hatred toward others.

At the end of the AP story, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was quoted saying:

"It just points to the amount of education about Islam and the American Muslim community that is needed in all levels in our society, including elected officials."

I could not have said it any better. He just is much more diplomatic than me.

Letter to Editor: Bible, Quran easily quoted out of context

Letter to the Editor
August 29, 2006
North County Times
www.nctimes.com

Andy McIntosh ("Islamic history, words at odds," Community Forum, Aug. 24), posed questions to Muslims, and I am more than happy to respond, in efforts to dispel myths about Islam and counter ignorance and Islamophobia.

The Quran, like other scriptures, cannot be understood except within its context. A verse in the Quran that Mr. McIntosh quoted specifically refers to Muslim armies involved in a defensive battle.

Similarly, one verse in the Bible can easily be taken out of context. It says, "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep..." (1 Samuel 15:3)

Islam forbids aggression and, like Christianity, has rules for a just war. Those rules are limited to self-defense or protecting people who encounter injustice, as stated in the following verses in the Quran:

"Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! God loves not aggressors." (2:190)

Additionally, the Prophet Muhammad said, "Do not kill women or children or noncombatants and do not kill old people or religious people. Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees and do not poison the wells of your enemies."

Just as the Bible has been abused by fanatics to justify the Crusades, slavery and the Holocaust, so have fanatics abused the Quran to further their murderous agenda.

Islam, like other religions, teaches respect, peace and tolerance for everyone. I also wish peace on Mr. McIntosh and followers of all faiths.

Hussam Ayloush
Executive director,
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Southern California

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Read more:

Dark Passages: How the Quran and the Bible can be mis-read

Urban Legends on Islam: The 9/11 verse in the Quran

Beware sensational translations of holy verse, torn out of context

Beware sensational translations of holy verse, torn out of context

Quoting the Quran
Beware sensational translations of holy verse, torn out of context

The Press Enterprise
Friday, July 22, 2005
By HUSSAM AYLOUSH
http://www.pe.com/


Editor's note: When a reader recently wrote to us with a provocative question about the nature of Islam, we sought a response from a Muslim leader from the Inland region. The query and answer are published here.

Peaceful precepts?
Parvez Ahmed's commentary ("Blame Islam game misguided pastime," July 15) states that the bombings in London were committed by "Islamic extremists" and were universally condemned by major Muslim groups throughout the world as being totally against the precepts of Islam.
I have a simple, straightforward question and I'd like a simple, straightforward answer. The Quran, sura 47:4, states, "When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives."
How do Parvez Ahmed and the others reconcile their statements with the command of Allah as recorded in the inerrant word of Allah by Muhammad, His prophet?

WALTER MARTIN CLARK, Riverside


Imagine a letter to the editor asking Christians or Jews to reconcile Christianity or Judaism in light of an out of context verse from the Bible, such as: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (1 Samuel 15:3)

Or this verse: "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." (Hosea 13:16)

This is certainly not a fair or scientific way to understand the Bible nor the peaceful message of Christianity or Judaism. The Quran, like all other scriptures, can not be understood except within its context. Taking a verse out of its theological or historical context can lead to mis-interpretations, often the hallmark of extremists. Just as the Bible has been abused by fanatics to justify slavery and holocaust, so have Muslim fanatics abused the Quran to further their murderous agenda.

The verse that the writer referred to, verse 4 from chapter 47 specifically refers to Muslim armies involved in a battle encounter. Here is a more authentic, and less sensational, translation:

"So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make (them) prisoners, and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom (themselves) until the war terminates."

Islam forbids wars of aggression and, like Christianity, sets strict conditions for a just physical warfare. Those conditions are limited to self-defense or removing injustice against other people, as stated in the following verses in the Qur'an.

"Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! God loves not aggressors." (2:190)

"And why should you not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed? - Men, women, and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You, one who will protect; and raise for us from You, one who will help.'" (4:75)

Moreover, Islam imposes strict rules and ethics on its adherents involved in such just wars. For example, the Prophet Muhammad said: "Do not kill women or children or non-combatants and do not kill old people or religious people, (and he mentioned priests, nuns, and rabbis). Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees and do not poison the wells of your enemies."

The Prophet also said: "whoever unjustly harms a Christian or a Jew will not even smell the scent of paradise."

Islam's core message is to foster good relationship among all people, regardless of race, color, or religion. The Qur'an teaches Muslims to revere all prophets, including Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus and to respect their followers. Peace, respect, and fair cooperation are the basis of all human relationships. The murderous acts of a few, whether Muslims or others, should not shake our eternal faith that we, as human beings or believers in God, can live in harmony on this planet of ours.

I invite those who wish to learn more about the American Muslim community to visit www.cair.com

---
Read more:

Dark Passages: How the Quran and the Bible can be mis-read

Letter to Editor: Bible, Quran easily quoted out of context

Urban Legend on Islam: The 9/11 verse in the Quran