And the Prophet Mohammed said: "Whoever speaks about the Quran without knowledge should await his seat in the Fire."
~ Jami` at-Tirmidhi Book 44 Hadith 2950


You likely have read (or viewed) discourse about the Quran and what it requires of Muslims. You likely have read some (or perhaps quite a number) of verses from the Quran that were singled out for discussion. It's not altogether unlikely that your thoughts on this topic are no more (and no less) than what is conveyed by this widely circulated "visual" :




If you are already satisfied with the completion of your thoughts on this topic, there is nothing more for me to offer in the way of immediate discourse.

If you are, however, not already satisfied with the completion of your thoughts on this topic, you may find what comes next of some interest.


I have copy-and-paste here, of what I think are the most provocative statements in this new report from CNN Online. The entire report is about twice the length of what I have duplicated in this post.

Could this Quran curb extremism?
Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor; November 27, 2015
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/...extremism/index.html


COPY AND PASTE STARTS HERE

"I never advise a non-Muslim who wants to find out more about Islam to blindly grab the nearest copy of an English-language Quran they can find," Mehdi Hasan, a journalist for Al Jazeera, said during the panel discussion at Georgetown.

Ten years in the making, "The Study Quran" is more than a rebuttal to terrorists, said Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian-born intellectual and the book's editor-in-chief. His aim was to produce an accurate, unbiased translation understandable to English-speaking Muslims, scholars and general readers.

The editors paid particular attention to passages that seem to condone bloodshed, explaining in extensive commentaries ["training wheels", so to speak, for newcomers to the Quran] the context in which certain verses were revealed and written.

"The commentaries don't try to delete or hide the verses that refer to violence. We have to be faithful to the text, " said Nasr, a longtime professor at George Washington University. "But they can explain that war and violence were always understood as a painful part of the human condition."

The scholar hopes his approach can convince readers that no part of the Quran sanctions the brutal acts of ISIS.


Retailing at $60, "The Study Quran" may be pricey for many readers, particularly the young Muslims its editors and publishers are keen to reach. But Mark Tauber, HarperOne's senior vice president, said presales were strong enough that HarperOne recently printed 13,000 more copies in addition to the first run of 10,000.

The book was also expensive to produce, requiring outside funding from philanthropists such as King Abdullah II of Jordan and the El-Hibri Foundation, which promotes religious tolerance. The donations paid the salaries of three translators while they took sabbaticals from university jobs to spend six years digging into centuries of commentary on the Quran, Nasr said.

On many pages of "The Study Quran," that commentary takes up more space than the verses, making the book resemble a Muslim version of the Jewish Talmud.

And for the first time in Islamic history, said Nasr, this Quran includes commentary from both Shiite and Sunni scholars, a small but significant step at a time when the two Muslim sects are warring in the Middle East.


Understanding Islam, to a degree, means comprehending the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed orally to the Prophet Mohammed 1,400 years ago. But the book, which was originally written in Arabic, can be hard to grasp and is notoriously difficult to translate, with many words conveying multiple layers of meaning.

The Quran itself says that some verses are clear, while others are allegorical**, the ultimate interpretation known only to the Almighty. Likewise, some passages are poetic, describing the grandeur of God and pleasures of paradise. Others detail how Mohammed captured territory and defended his new community, at times with force.


ISIS presents itself as a return to the roots of the religion, back to a time when the Quran was the only guide for Mohammed and his companions -- no commentary, no debates. But its brand of Islam, known as Wahhabism, emerged in the 18th century. It is a relative latecomer to the tradition and has always been a minority view among Muslims, scholars say.

By contrast, early Muslims revered the Quran as the literal word of God but knew that not every verse should be interpreted literally, argue the editors of "The Study Quran." Disputes and commentary about sacred scripture are not a modern, liberal betrayal of Islamic tradition. They are the tradition.


Take, for example, [Quran] verse 47:4, a text that ISIS has used to justify its brutal beheadings of its captives in Iraq and Syria. It reads:

"When you meet those who disbelieve, strike at their necks; then, when you have overwhelmed them, tighten the bonds. Then free them graciously or hold them for ransom, till war lays down its burdens. ..."

Taken alone, the first sentence could be read as condoning the killing of non-Muslims wherever ISIS encounters them, whether it be an Iraqi desert or Parisian cafe.

But the context makes clear that the verse is "confined to the battle and not a continuous command," Lumbard said, noting that the verse also suggests prisoners of war can be set free, which ISIS apparently ignores.


It's sometimes hard for outsiders to grasp how complex Islamic tradition is. There is no central authority, such as the Pope, to hand out edicts or excommunicate heretics. Islam is more akin to Judaism than Christianity. Schools of interpretation revolve around charismatic scholars.

Many Islamic institutions have faltered, though, opening the door for fundamentalists and making it easier for ISIS to peddle its view of the Quran. It preys on the religiously ignorant and keeps recruits isolated from mainstream Muslims.


At the Georgetown celebration, Imam Suhaib Webb, a popular American cleric, said the book was designed not to counter violent extremism but to help Muslims encounter their souls.

In a phone interview the day after the Paris attacks, Webb sounded exasperated that ISIS is tarnishing Islam and twisting the tradition's teachings, he said, to meet its violent ends.

A reporter asked: How could "The Study Quran" help?

Webb said he imagines a young Muslim man -- the kind of lost soul who grasps for the nearest certainty he can find. He imagines that young man watching ISIS or al Qaeda propaganda online, alone in his room, listening to them quote the Quran, trying to coax him into violent action.

And then Webb imagines the young man opening "The Study Quran," and reading scholars' commentaries on those perplexing verses, and finding that most of them, perhaps all of them, disagree with the terrorists.


** The Quran itself says that some verses are clear, others are allegorical ...
http://corpus.quran.com/tra...sp?chapter=3&verse=7

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 11-29-2015).]

Rinselberg, stop. All the chaos and horror that the muslims do is because of the original verses. Remember, the verses about killing people came toward the end of Mohammad's life... meaning that they abrogate the previous peaceful verses. Along with the hadith's (the commentary of the koran), you have madness.

The muslims doing the terrorist attacks are the same as other muslims, they just take it to the furthest extent... the other muslims are too scared or don't really believe.

Islam is the core of the problem.

If it's just bad translations, then Muslims all the way back to the Prophet didn't understand what it really meant. I doubt you'll find many Muslims anywhere who will agree that the Prophet didn't understand what was in the Quran.

quote Muhammad's campaigns Conquered Mecca in his lifetime, among others. Byzantine–Arab Wars: 634–750 Wars were between the Byzantine Empire and at first the Rashidun and then the Umayyad caliphates and resulted in the conquest of the Syria region, Egypt, North Africa and Armenia (Byzantine Armenia and Sassanid Armenia). Under the Rashidun The conquest of Syria, 637 The conquest of Armenia, 639 The conquest of Egypt, 639 The conquest of North Africa, 652 The conquest of Cyprus, 654 Under the Umayyads The conquest of North Africa, 665 The first Arab siege of Constantinople, 674–678 The second Arab siege of Constantinople, 717–718 Conquest of Hispania, 711–718 The conquest of Georgia, 736 Later conquests The conquest of Crete, 820 The conquest of Sicily and incursions into southern Italy, 827

History has recorded the truth in the blood of the conquered. Whether or not conquest was the lesson being taught, it was the lesson learned and put into practice since the dawn of Islam.

[This message has been edited by Formula88 (edited 11-29-2015).]

Ya; ill run right out and read that bullshit.

What part of "go **** yourself " is Islam too stupid to understand ?

quote Originally posted by Formula88: If it's just bad translations, then Muslims all the way back to the Prophet didn't understand what it really meant. I doubt you'll find many Muslims anywhere who will agree that the Prophet didn't understand what was in the Quran. History has recorded the truth in the blood of the conquered. Whether or not conquest was the lesson being taught, it was the lesson learned and put into practice since the dawn of Islam.

Not "bad" translations.

If you are still with me, let me condense the writeup (from CNN) even further. If you want to understand the meaning of this CNN report, this is all you need to parse or come to grips with:

quote The book was ... expensive to produce, requiring outside funding from philanthropists such as King Abdullah II of Jordan and the El-Hibri Foundation, which promotes religious tolerance. The donations paid the salaries of three translators while they took sabbaticals from university jobs to spend six years digging into centuries of commentary on the Quran, Nasr said. ISIS presents itself as a return to the roots of the religion, back to a time when the Quran was the only guide for Mohammed and his companions -- no commentary, no debates. But its brand of Islam, known as Wahhabism, emerged in the 18th century. It is a relative latecomer to the tradition and has always been a minority view among Muslims, scholars say. By contrast, early Muslims revered the Quran as the literal word of God but knew that not every verse should be interpreted literally, argue the editors of "The Study Quran." Disputes and commentary about sacred scripture are not a modern, liberal betrayal of Islamic tradition. They are the [Islamic] tradition

I am not so muddle-headed that I would call this new English language edition of the Quran any kind of short-term "game changer".

This is meant to be a discussion about what the Prophet "Mo-hammered" would have to say about how Muslims are to interpret the message of the Quran, if he were to somehow magically return to the living world and join us here today.

It's a theoretical discussion .

The actual or real-world resolution of any of the questions or alternatives that are inherent to this discussion is squarely upon the shoulders of the Ummah --Muslims all around the world.

If the pendulum were to move discernibly in the direction of Muslims mostly acting like humans (instead of animals), then I think it would be realistic to consider whether this new edition of the Quran (and the thinking behind it) is part of what is driving a positive trend.

If, however, the pendulum were to continue to swing in the other direction, and the number of Muslims that persist in acting like animals--ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Harum, the dumbazz Islamic courts of Saudi Arabia where they still convict people on chicken s**t charges of blasphemy, apostasy or adultery and pronounce dumbazz punishments such as lashings or death by stoning; "jihadis" that cause s**t like what happened just over two weeks ago in Paris; etc.--if that number of Muslims does not shrink (like a successfully treated hemorrhoid) until the Animal House Muslims (so to speak) become a thing of the past and not the present or future--then I would have to concede that this new Quran and the thinking behind it is not having any positive impact on the reality of how Muslims "do" Islam in the same world that Pennock's message board luminaries (such as ourselves) inhabit.

I know about the distant past, and the recent past, and the reality of just the last few weeks, but if I want to consider the possibility of any positive impact from this new edition Quran and the thinking behind it, then I have to equate my Baseline or Day One to now.

Anyone (obviously) can dismiss this new edition Quran project as a "non-starter" or an already hopeless case.

I just want to set up the framework of this discussion--should there be any further discussion --using a transparent and structurally logical methodology.

Am I making myself clear?

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 11-29-2015).]

Perfectly clear.

quote then I have to equate my Baseline or Day One to now.

In even the moderate Islamic world, that is blasphemy, and is tantamount to proclaiming Mohammad never lived or prophesied. Another Rinselburg pipedream that will never get any real traction.

quote Originally posted by rinselberg: Am I making myself clear?

What CNN or you or I think is irrelevant. What matters is what the adherents of Islam think and have thought and have practiced. History has shown that and it's been a consistent message for 1400 years.

Apparently they haven't been making themselves clear to you. But don't worry, they intend to.

Remember the much vaulted contributions of Muslims in science? About that...

[This message has been edited by Formula88 (edited 11-29-2015).]

I don't want to invest my time and energy on a line of inquiry that is somewhat tangential to the Focal Point of this discussion, but I think that the manner in which Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about the decline of the Islamic world's global leadership in the sciences, which dates to about 1100, and the way in which the ever popular astrophysicist attributed this decline so heavily to the influence of a single Islamic theologian and philosopher, namely Al-Ghazali, has not been particularly well received by a number of scholars with expertise in Islamic history and philosophy and academic preeminence in the History of Science.

Many current day scholars have a high regard for Al-Ghazali.

The First Crusade was declared in 1096, just about exactly coincident with the commonly accepted (although somewhat conjectural) year for marking the end of the Golden Age of Islamic science.

I can find those who say that the 200 years of Crusader vs Muslim warfare that began with the First Crusade (1100) had a profound and pervasively negative influence on the scientific excellence that had been characteristic of the Islamic world for the 300 years that came before.

I think it is probable that more than one graduate level thesis has been written about how the ensuing 200 years of Crusader vs Muslim warfare contributed to totalitarian trends in governance across the medieval "Islamo-sphere" that was contemporaneous with the High Middle Ages in Europe. I think it has likely been argued that this reactive movement towards a totalitarian style of governance within what could logically be circumscribed (geographically) as the Medieval Caliphate had a reinforcing and cumulatively enlarging effect upon a mounting quasi-tidal wave of intellectual conformity and orthodoxy that impinged heavily upon the philosophical temperament of medieval Islamic scholarship, a circumstance that (indulging that most ubiquitous "Swiss pocketknife" of modern phraseology) "sucked the oxygen" out of the Islamic pursuit of scientific knowledge and advancement, leaving the many unpicked fruits of scientific endeavor to rot fecklessly on their vines; Islamic science, strangled within the ever narrowing and stiflingly formulaic confines of a medieval Islamic precursor to Eisenhower's apocalyptic vision of an Orwellian-esque "military-industrial complex".


Yet bid me return (and far more succinctly) to what I think should be the Focal Point of this discussion; to wit:

quote ISIS presents itself as a return to the roots of the religion, back to a time when the Quran was the only guide for Mohammed and his companions -- no commentary, no debates. But its brand of Islam, known as Wahhabism, emerged in the 18th century. It is a relative latecomer to the tradition and has always been a minority view among Muslims, scholars say. By contrast, early Muslims revered the Quran as the literal word of God but knew that not every verse should be interpreted literally, argue the editors of "The Study Quran." Disputes and commentary about sacred scripture are not a modern, liberal betrayal of Islamic tradition. They are the [Islamic] tradition

PFF's maryjane has already dismissed this line of thought (in a brief post, not far back in this discussion) as pervasively antithetical to what is typically characterized as the "moderate" or mainstream core of Islam.

Perhaps as nascent dawn gives way to the penetrating floodlight of middle day, I will be honored with a second opinion, to stand up beside maryjane's for comparison and contemplation.

Nothing would please me more.


"When the gates of ijtihad are closed, the sons of Adam are sure to turn their gaze upon the sinister entrance to the dark, descending stairway that leads to the netherworld of chaos and extremism."
~ al-rinselberg (2015)

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 11-30-2015).]

quote Originally posted by rinselberg: PFF's maryjane has already dismissed this line of thought (in a brief post, not far back in this discussion) as pervasively antithetical to what is typically characterized as the "moderate" or mainstream core of Islam.

Who defines what is moderate or mainstream and that the two refer to the same thing?

mainstream: the principal or dominant course, tendency, or trend:

1400 years of Muslim conquest make a powerful argument that conquest has been the mainstream since the beginning. The moderate peaceful interpretations go against the recorded history of what has been put into practice for centuries.

Even if all through history it was a tiny minority of Muslims who were the conquest driven radicals, without opposition within Islam the minority radicalized the middle and effectively set the course for the whole. It's the same pattern we saw in a shorter time frame with Nazi Germany. Before WWII a very small fraction of Germans were Nazi party members. After Hitler's rise to power, they pulled 98% of the vote instead of the less than 50% that they could muster before. Even then it was a minority who were party members but they controlled the direction of the nation.

"Could this Quran curb extremism?"

No, but it will probably create more infidels in the eyes of Muslims who follow Mohammeds writings.

quote Originally posted by rinselberg: And the Prophet Mohammed said: "Whoever speaks about the Quran without knowledge should await his seat in the Fire." ~ Jami` at-Tirmidhi Book 44 Hadith 2950 And then Webb imagines the young man opening "The Study Quran," and reading scholars' commentaries on those perplexing verses, and finding that most of them, perhaps all of them, disagree with the terrorists.

Rinselberg, I would submit to you that there is still a significant difference between Islam (in this refined version) and that of other Religions. As much as I respect the King of Jordon (as an FYI, I was very good friends for several years with one of his nephews growing up when I was in Prep School), I still believe there is a fundamental flaw in the religion which is unmatched when compared to other religions.

Islam is a religion that demands conversion of the non-Muslim and this actively persists in every facet of their culture. While this new version may suggest somehow (or attempt to explain) that "killing in the name of" is bad, it certainly doesn't believe in the idea of "live and let live." The religion at its core insists that you live your life with the intent to spread Islam. So... for example:
- Have as many children as possible, with as many wives as possible, in order to grow Islam
- Grow huge populations in non-Muslim areas for the sole purpose of gaining voter presence to enforce culture change and spread Islam.
- Lying and cheating are acceptable when done for the purpose of the spread of Islam
- ... etc.


Understand, there are no other religions that share these beliefs. Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. There is no coercion that demands conversion. The most radical, if you will, aside from Islam, is Judaism... and their modern cultural development is nothing more than self-preservation... but they do not actively recruit, just try to maintain.

[This message has been edited by 82-T/A [At Work] (edited 12-05-2015).]

F-Islam..

I don't have a problem with Islam but then I don't have a problem with Catholic, Baptist or any other religion as long as the believers in that religion aren't actively trying to murder my fellow Americans. Should one of the afore mentioned religions or any other have followers that are attempting to kill, maim, or injure myself or my fellow Americans, then, they can expect me to have a problem with that.

This is how we have come to where we are. More explanation should not be necessary.
I really don't care to know more about any of the afore mentioned (or any other) religion.
Behave or, get what you got coming. Doesn't matter to me.

------------------
Ron

Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, his upbringing, his environment, his culture, his mental state but … after a shooting, the problem is the gun?

My Uncle Frank was a staunch Conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died in Chicago. Since then he has voted Democrat. Shrug

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 12-05-2015).]

Guess who we were fighting in 1805.
http://www.history.com/this...he-shores-of-tripoli

quote Originally posted by avengador1: Guess who we were fighting in 1805. http://www.history.com/this...he-shores-of-tripoli

While admittedly, the situation is more complicated now than it was then, a similar response seems to be necessary.
I'm not running for elected office but, if I were, I would propose a plan and let all know of it.
For every American killed by whomever, once determined where the attacker was from, I'd wipe out the village, city or place they call home. Family, friends and everything sacred to the attacker would be destroyed. Eventually, it would end.

Don't want your family, friends, children and everything else you hold as dear destroyed, then don't tread on me. Yes, I've had enough.

All terrorists are willing to die for their cause, few are willing to sacrifice their family, friends and all they have ever had for the same cause.

------------------
Ron

Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, his upbringing, his environment, his culture, his mental state but … after a shooting, the problem is the gun?

My Uncle Frank was a staunch Conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died in Chicago. Since then he has voted Democrat. Shrug

We had another war after that. The War of 1812. The enemy, a mostly Christian lot from the British Empire. Among them the fervently Christian and evangelical; and also among them, the "not so much".

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 12-05-2015).]

quote Originally posted by rinselberg: We had another war after that. The War of 1812. Against a lot of Christians. Among them the fervent and evangelical; and also among them, the "not so much".

My plan does not discriminate.

------------------
Ron

Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, his upbringing, his environment, his culture, his mental state but … after a shooting, the problem is the gun?

My Uncle Frank was a staunch Conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died in Chicago. Since then he has voted Democrat. Shrug