Posted on 03/04/2015 6:59:48 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Back in 2007 and 2008, I ran a weekly feature at my website Jihad Watch [1]: “Blogging the Qur’an.” Now, with the Obama administration repeatedly reiterating the claim that Islam is fundamentally peaceful and that promoting its true and benign face will ultimately conquer the global jihad, it is time to revive it.
Here at PJ Media I’ll be presenting a new, revised version of the series.
To understand the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, a good place to start is to explore what they themselves say about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what they want. That leads directly to the Quran (or Koran), the Islamic holy book.
The jihadists quote the Qur’an frequently and portray themselves as those who are following pure Islam, the genuine article as it is taught in the Quran and Islamic tradition. Yet Islamic groups in the West — such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations — insist that the jihadis are misusing the Qur’an, and that non-Muslim analysts who trace the jihadis’ activity to the Qur’an are cherry-picking violent passages and quoting them out of context.
The Obama administration has crafted its entire Middle East foreign policy based on this claim.
Obama speaking at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, 2009
From Nigeria to Iran, the administration believes that promoting the “in-context,” complete message of the Qur’an will bring about a peaceful, safer Middle East.
So we’re going to read the Qur’an. All of it. Nothing cherry-picked or out of context.
And we’re going to invite elected officials, journalists, and other newsmakers who have made public claims about the nature of Islam to debate and read along with us.
The inspiration for this, back in 2007, was David Plotzs series on Slate, Blogging the Bible [3]. But this series will be fundamentally different than that one: rather than just write about what I think or feel about a certain passage, as Plotz did regarding his own thoughts, I will refer to commentaries all Muslim ones on the Quran.
Ill try to explain how mainstream Muslims who study the Quran will understand any given passage.
This is important, and is the only point in doing this: I will be posting on what the major translations and commentaries used by the world’s Muslims have to say about the Qur’an.
Not what I say, not what the Obama administration says, not what the terror-tied CAIR says, not what John Kerry says.
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Here [4] is a good Arabic/English text. In Islamic theology, the Quran is essentially and inherently an Arabic Quran (as the Quran describes itself repeatedly: see 12:2; 20:113; 39:28; 41:3; 41:44; 42:7; and 43:3). In Islamic belief, the Qur’an’s meaning can be rendered in other languages, but those translations are not the Quran, which when no longer in Arabic is no longer itself. Some Muslim scholars even claim that the Quran cannot be fully understood except in Arabic.
But the blizzard of translations made by Muslims for Muslims who dont speak Arabic — who are the great majority around the world today — as well as to proselytize among non-Muslims belies that claim.
Two of the most popular and widely used English translations of the Qur’an were written by Muslims: Abdullah Yusuf Ali, and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall. Those can be found here [5], along with four other translations by Muslims and four by non-Muslims.
The Quran is, according to Islamic thought, a perfect copy of a book that has existed eternally with Allah, the one true God, in Paradise: Indeed, We have made it an Arabic Qur’an that you might understand. And indeed it is, in the Mother of the Book with Us, exalted and full of wisdom. (43:3-4). According to Islamic tradition, the angel Gabriel revealed it in sections to Muhammad (570-632), an Arabian merchant. Like Jesus, Muhammad left the written recording of his messages to others.
Unlike Jesus, Muhammad did not originate his message, but only served as its conduit. The Quran is, for Muslims, the pure Word of Allah.
They point to its poetic character as proof that it did not originate with Muhammad, whom they say was illiterate, but with the Almighty, who dictated every word. The average Muslim believes that everything in the book is absolutely true and that its message is applicable in all times and places.
This is a stronger claim than Christians make for the Bible.
When Christians of whatever tradition say that the Bible is “Gods Word,” they dont mean that God spoke it word-for-word and that its free of all human agency — instead, there is the idea of inspiration, that God breathed through human authors, working through their human knowledge to communicate what he wished to communicate.
But for Muslims, the Quran is more than inspired.
There is not and could not be a passage in the Quran like I Corinthians 1:14-17 in the New Testament, where Paul says: I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.)
Pauls faulty memory demonstrates the human element of the New Testament, which for Christians does not negate, but exists alongside the texts’ inspired character. But in the Quran, Allah is the only speaker throughout (with a few notable exceptions).
There is no human element. The book is the pure and unadulterated divine word.
Allah himself tells him this, in the Quran itself: And indeed, it is a mighty Book. Falsehood cannot approach it from before it or from behind it; [it is] a revelation from a [Lord who is] Wise and Praiseworthy. (41:41-2). It is an Arabic Qur’an, without any deviance that they might become righteous. (39:28). In short, it is the truth of certainty. (69:51). Allah, speaking in a royal plural that does not, according to Muslim theologians, compromise his absolute unity, proclaims that indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur’an and indeed, We will be its guardian. (15:9).
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Yet even though the Qur’an says it includes “clarification for all things” (16:89), reading it is not always easy. Since so much of it consists of Allah speaking with Muhammad, it is often rather like listening in on a conversation between two people you dont know, talking about events with which you were uninvolved. Even though a surprisingly large amount of what the Quran says is said more than once, still often the reader cant figure out whats being said, or why, without reference to Muslim tradition.
Also, it has no overarching narrative unity, although there are smaller narrative units within many chapters. With the exception of the brief first chapter (sura), its 114 chapters are arranged from the longest to the shortest.
In the longer chapters, stories are told, laws are given, and warnings to unbelievers are issued, but in them and throughout the book, there is no chronological or narrative continuity. The shorter suras, meanwhile, particularly those near the end of the book that run only a few lines, are poetic and arresting warnings of the impending divine judgment. The longer ones, by contrast, are often ponderous and repetitive — and filled also with similar warnings against unbelievers.
By the end of this journey, I believe we will see more clearly what makes the jihadists tick — and also perhaps understand what we can and must do to resist them.
In the original edition of this series I wrote: “I welcome feedback and criticism in the comments section, in e-mail correspondence, and on other blogs, and will answer questions and respond to the most thoughtful comments, criticism, and challenges.” Above all, I welcome criticism and feedback from Muslims who dispute the understandings of the Qur’an that I will report in this series.
Hamas-linked CAIR says that it’s committed to “dialogue.” Yet neither they nor their allies ever engage in honest dialogue and discussion with those whom they consider their foes.
I invite them here yet again to that discussion.
The rules of context for the Qur'an are, IIRC, that if a part disagrees with another part, the part written later prevails. The peaceful parts are early; the hateful parts are later and thus binding upon Muslims.
Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall???
You couldn’t make that one up!
RE: The rules of context for the Qur’an are, IIRC, that if a part disagrees with another part, the part written later prevails.
Is this just one school of thought? Or is this the prevailing Islamic teaching?
RE: Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall???
You couldnt make that one up!
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From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaduke_Pickthall
Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (born Marmaduke William Pickthall, 7 April 1875 19 May 1936) was a Western Islamic scholar noted for his English translation of the Qur’an. A convert from Christianity, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as a journalist, headmaster, and political and religious leader.
He declared his conversion to Islam in dramatic fashion after delivering a talk on Islam and Progress’ on 29 November 1917, to the Muslim Literary Society in Notting Hill, West London. He was also involved with the services of the Woking Muslim Mission in the absence of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, its founder.
Bookmark
It is in the Arabian published English translation of the Koran in the footnotes and, I believe, in the Hadiths.
Yet the Bible is forever the number #1 best selling book of all time.
Bkmk
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