How exaclty do you take this out of context:
Qu'ran-Sura 5 verse 51:
Do not take Christians or Jews as your friends. They are friends with each other. Anyone who befriends them will become one of their number. Allah will seek out the evil-doer. [Penguin Classic english version].
Seems pretty clear cut to me.
You run into the same problem with lots of Protestant sects. It's probably one reason Luther found it necessary to edit the Bible somewhat so as to better comport with his personal interpretation.
So, at that point, it's just a matter of discerning which of Islam's groups have the interpretation most closely aligned with what other believers (and non-believers) would recognize as "Self-Evident" or universal truths.
It's not JUST that the take of these so-called "radical Muslims" is abhorrent to all ... it's that their "consciousness raising" tactics and clearly materialist and hateful mindset reveal them to be the product of a more insidious "organizing". Despite the overlay of "Islam" under which they operate, they've far more in common with the rest of the world's radicals -- IRA, Black September, Weatherman, Black Panther, Shining Path -- than they do Islam.
That's because they're communists -- militant ATHEISTS -- masquerading under cover of Islam.
The beauty being that -- as with the co-opting and revolution from within of the Church (where the revolution works inversely ... turning heretofore Christian Soldiers into "peace and justice" pansies whose battlecry is "Tolerance!") -- there's a sucker born every minute and plenty of Extras ready to latch on to give the militant atheist top-down vine of organization and control the followers necessary to mask it with "grassroots".
That may seem clear cut to you, but it is most decidedly out of context. I do not want to get into a theological discussion, for I am not a theologian. I certainly acknowledge that there are major doctrinal differences not only between Jews, Christians and Moslems, but between the different sects of each. I find myself in serious disagreement not only with Moslem teachings, but also with the teachings of many Christian and Jewish sects. But none of that has anything to do with the War on Terrorism.
Having said that, I will in fairness make the following additional comments:
A. While you offer three consecutive sentences out of a book of hundreds of pages, they are most certainly out of the context of the whole book.
B. While I cannot pretend to have ever read the Koran, I have skimmed what I believe to be the classic English translation from the Eighteenth Century, and must remark on what you and others who seemingly are trying to make religious war appear acceptable, today, have refused to acknowledge. It so obviously seeks to create a relgion based upon the same Abrahmic covenant, sacred to Jews and Christians, that at least half of the total text appears to be concerned with the major figures in our Bible; those who are also the sacred figures of Islam. The differences are the same sort of doctrinal considerations that have split the older religions. And the rhetoric that you quote is mild compared to some of the things that different branches of Christianity or Judaism have said about each other at one time or another.
C. While your translation uses clear English for most of your quotation, it appears to have deliberately kept the word for God in the Arabic. This is disengenuous. If the words you use for friends are English, so should be the word for God. ("Allah" appears as "God" in the 18th Century translation to which I have referred, and only an idiot who skims even the first few Chapters could fail to see that it is the God of Abraham, Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, Jesus. There is even space devoted to the Virgin birth and to the family of Mary, etc.)
You are picking words out of context to mask what is really involved here, and that is unfair. By all means assail the Moslems for where you feel their doctrine is erroneous. The Koran assails your beliefs where it feels they are erroneous. But that is a vituperative relgious debate. Go for it if you like.
But the War we are in today, is something quite different. Don't try to divert those of us who want to fight that war into your private agenda.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site