Dark Zarak wrote:You are over-reacting.
Not really...
In a pure, unedited translation of the Koran from ancient Arabic, Muhammed does a lot of talking. For one thing, the Koran is written as a conversation between Muhammed and Allah in Meccan and Medinan phases... basically chronological. One big difference between these two phases is the support that Islam had.
In the beginning, Muhammed was at the very start of gaining support for the new religion and therefore had no backing to make bold statements or actions against anyone. However, once the following became greater and greater, the rhetoric became more violent. That is a fact proven by the Koran itself. Muhammed did not preach such love. For example:
In that time period there was a Jewish poet named K'ab bin Al-Ashraf, who according the Muhammed's first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, "composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about the Muslim women". Ibn Ishaq for those who don't know, was a Muslim historian accredited with "the first to collect the accounts of the expeditions of the Messenger of Allah and record them".
In response, Muhammed asked his followers, "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt allah and His Apostle?" - According to "Sahih Muslim" - in my citation here it is the version translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi and Kitab Bhavan with the revised edition of 2000. the Sahih Muslim is one of the Sunni Six Major Hadith collections.
In response to that Muhammed found a follower named Muhammad bin Maslama who offered and did indeed kill K'ab, afterwhich Muhammed issued a blanket command saying "Kill any Jew that falls into your power."
The Koran has many war-like verses. And due to the fact that a vast amount of these verses appear in much later parts of the Koran, according to Islam they abrogate, or cancel, verses which may contradict them. Such as having a peaceful view, then a more violent view, towards a situation. Since the more violent view is the most latest way of looking at the situation it therefore takes the place of the earlier peaceful view. Another example:
Verse 9:5 says "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful". The "poor-due" is "zakat" which is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and regulates religious tithes. Such a payment as expressed in verse 9:29 "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of the Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued".
It is a glaring view compared to what some may think. In the Meccan phase, which was the first segment of Muhammed's career as prophet he just called people to Islam. The later Medinan suras are less poetic and are much longer, and deal with law and ritual, as well as exhortations to jihad warfare against unbelievers. This is where the Islamic doctrine of abrogation, known as "nashk" comes in, that tells that Allah can change or cancel what he tells Muslims, as stated for example in verse 2:106 "None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?" That leaves the ninth sura, including the Verse of the Sword (9:5) as the last sura revealed, which implements abrogation by what it says compared to earlier suras.
In such violence and jihad, Muhammed said himself, according to the writing "Surat at-Tawba: Repentance" stating "Muhammad was firm about the necessity of jihad not only for himself personally, but for every Muslim. He warned believers that 'he who does not join the warlike expedition (jihad), or equip, or looks well after a warrior's family when he is away, will be smitten by Allah with a sudden calamity."
These teachings are also Islamic law, and are not allowed to be reinterpreted, or looked at for more than one meaning. The vast majority of Muslims worldwide belong to one of the four principal schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence, the Maliki, Hanafi, Hanbali, and Shafi'i. Centuries ago these schools formulated their own laws on such matters of jihad and how it was to be conducted. With that, it is a commonly accepted principle in the Islamic world that the "gates of ijtihad," or free inquiry into the Koran and Islamic tradition in order to discover Allah's rulings, has been closed for centuries. Islamic authority has never allowed these "gates" to be reopened, and therefore not allowing new meanings to be looked at.
Ibn Kathir was an Islamic scholar who was famous for the commentary he wrote on the Koran which linked certain Hadith, or sayings of Muhammed, and sayings of the sahaba, Muhammed's companions, to verses of the Koran. According to him, tolerance came in the form of Christians making a pact with Umar ibn al-Khattab who was caliph from 634-644, and pleding to:
"We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monestary, church, or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims."
Facts are everywhere. Facts according to Muhammed's own words, according to the Koran itself, according to Islamic law and authority...Islam is not open for interpretation. That's the law and ruling of the religion. With the citations I made, there are plent more of them out there.
That is exactly what you were doing. You have yet to draw any distinction between a Terrorist who cherry picks his holy book to find justification for the evil he carries out, and an average Joe who believes in a philosophical viewpoint that makes him a better person (in some cases). Your opening posts were outright attacks against Moslems. You are painting all of them with the same brush. Surely you have enough intelligence to understand things aren't that black and white. And as for me attempting to "villify" Christianity, there is no need to twist my words. I drew a paralell. If you read those verses in context with the entire chapter they are not nearly so damning as one cherry picked line. Times back then were crappy, as the texts point out. People did terrible things, most of the time without dragging religion into the equation. As many will tell you, I have defended Christians on many occasions when the topic drifted off subject and into Christian bashing. Humans murder each other for land, money and (in some parts of New Jersey) for someting as small as a pair of shoes. Should shoes, land and money be stopped as well.
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