A Quran photographed in a mosque (2012). Credit: RNS photo by Sally Morrow
Posted on 08/21/2012 11:38:08 AM PDT by NYer
(RNS) This year during Ramadan — the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad — I was in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers throughout the world by reading the Quran. But here's the thing: I am a Roman Catholic.
My copy of the Quran, with more than 1,700 pages, has sat on the top shelf of my bedroom bookcase among other sacred texts for 14 years. Typically I would use it as a sporadic reference and resource to better understanding Islam, reading a few short passages at a time.
A Quran photographed in a mosque (2012). Credit: RNS photo by Sally Morrow
However, this Ramadan something at the core of my being was calling me to read the Quran in its entirety. And so my monthlong Ramadan journey began.
Each day and evening, the prayerful poetry in the Quran held me in a meditative mode of peace as I read without being aware of the passage of time.
When I finished reading a week before the end of the month, I felt as if the Quran was almost endless, reaching beyond the confines of my calendar days. I didn’t want to read the last page. I didn’t want to be finished.
The Quran inspired me, taught me and helped me to remember my essential holiness and how that holiness in the image of God should be reflected in the world.
As Ramadan comes to a close this weekend (Aug. 18-19) with Eid al-Fitr, I find myself focusing on the blessings I have been given through the grace of God while reading the Quran.
The Quran encouraged me to continuously be aware of a gracious and merciful God who cherishes humanity and cherishes all of creation. I came to believe more firmly during my humble Ramadan experience that being cherished by God is an example of divine love beyond the limitations of any one language, symbol and imagination.
Certainly this has implications for how we treat each other and care for the world.
Many chapters, or surahs, in the Quran had me reflecting on the diversity and opposite realities in nature (night/day, male/female, darkness/light, beginning/ending, life/death) and reaffirming that God is found in both. This insight into sacred polarity is a perfect teaching paradigm for respectful interreligious dialogue, which is never about win/lose, right/wrong profiling and divisiveness.
Among my greatest lessons from the Quran was to be reminded to have faith, seek the truth, praise God, pray, forgive, be kind, be peaceful and take care of people who are most vulnerable — those who are oppressed and often forgotten.
Perhaps the commentary found in the conclusion of my Quran says it best:
“What can we do to make Allah’s light shine forth through the darkness around us? We must first let it shine in our own selves. With the light in the niche of our inmost hearts we can walk with steps both firm and sure: We can humbly visit the comfortless and guide their steps. Not we but the light will guide. But oh the joy of being found worthy to bear the torch and to say to our brethren: I too was in darkness, comfortless, and behold, I have found comfort and joy in the grace divine."
After reading the Quran during Ramadan, I am again convinced that there are more commonalities between and among religions than there are differences that isolate and divide.
The “apes and swine” references are beyond any rational explanation.
Don’t get too excited, our bishop officially resigned over a year ago and we still don’t have a new bishop.
Money is fungible. Money spent somewhere is money not spent somewhere else. Apparently the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Albany thinks it is doing so fantastically in all “Catholic” aspects of its mission that it has “exceess” funds it can spend on someone who pines:
“I was in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers”.
“as even in Arabic it is slightly more comprehensible than the New Roman Missal...”
Like this one, which has always guided my path to living a Godly life, leading to Heaven:
Quran; Surah 004: Ayah 089:
Take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. Seize them and slay them wherever ye find them.
The Koran is not a sacred text. There is no moral equivalency with the Bible or Torah.
This guy probably has "Dianetics" among his 'sacred texts'
Good gravy ,how could anyone read the Koran and Hadiths and come to that conclusion.
Perhaps her reading is colored by her belief in another supernatural being that is a forgive and forget love your neighbor, be kind, help other people out advocate.-Tom
Having observed the behavior of the followers of the Koran,
I have decided that I need to read it, for the same reason that I read the Communist Manifesto, On Guerilla Warfare, and parts of Mein Kampf and Das Kapital.
Know your enemy.
///
agreed. it is VERY educational.
however, it can also be very confusing.
...first, the Koran is not in chronological order.
it is in... order of size of chapters!
further, some of the events are not explained.
to understand those, you need to read ahadith.
Bukhari is one of the best collections.
...and, the Sira (biography), is also essential for true understanding.
when you read of the encounter with the “angel of light”,
who CHOKED Mohammad (pbuh), and terrified him...
(instead of reassuring him, as EVERY angel in the Bible does)
...when you read of Mohammad (pbuh) ordering to innocent merchants tortured with fire, to reveal where they hid their wealth...
...when you read of Mohammad(pbuh) marrying a girl age 6 (but waiting until 9 for “full” sex...)
then, you will understand what that silly woman in the article, will NEVER understand:
Islam is the religion of Satan himself.
he IS the angel of light in the cave.
(just as Jesus warned, that Satan could still appear that way.)
-
...probably, that foolish woman, when she didn’t understand the Quran, without those other sources, she asked her muslim friends... who were happy to lie to her...
as the Quran COMMANDS them to do, to deceive kuffirs...
-
Andrew Bostom, and Robert Spencer, could educate her quickly... IF she had any brains, and an open mind.
I guess he missed the over hundred verses calling for death to non muslims.
What is it with the West, why do some feel that we have to appease muslims, our ways and views and appease the homostapo in order to think we might become friends with them.
Islam is the new kid on the block and which bows, worships a child molestor , i guess such facts like this are just not seen or heard to many of the dopes.
ARF
The author is a moron. And probably a liar as well. I dont believe for a minute that she actually read that demonic screed and came away wanting to sing Kumbya with Muslim savages.
Forgot the child molester they worship too.
Aisha a girl of 6 married to the dirty old man and then he had sex wiht her age 9, how nice of him to wait till age 9 the sicko.
Islam has since it;s creation been spread through the sword and which the koran calls for and there is no proof of most of the koran, hell no one even knows what the child molesting sicko even looks like.
“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
Manuel II Paleologus
Jesus died for our sins, but Mohammed wants you to die for his. That’s all I need to know.
You don’t have to be a chicken to know when an egg is rotten.
Yes, but how to dispose of the egg is the next step.
Fine.
Don't understand your enemy. Be ignorant of his motivations, his methods, his likes and dislikes. Have no knowledge of how he has acted in the past, and why he did what he did. Be completely unaware of what he has learned, how he has adapted, how he plans to avoid past mistakes, repeat past successes, and capitalize on his opponents' (that would be YOU) vulnerabilities. Lack any concept of his likely future actions.
If that's good enough for you ... fine.
It's NOT good enough for me.
“The Quran inspired me, taught me and helped me to remember my essential holiness and how that holiness in the image of God should be reflected in the world.”
This individual is either illiterate and a fake or a consumate liar who has serious comprehension deficit with regard to the volume claimed to have been read.
There is no possible way to interpret Sura 1. . .the first chapter as not denegrating all non-believers . . .and continue to believe that book in its entirety is "reflecting an image of God in the world."
To her everlasting shame, this deceit is unforgivable.
The Quran encouraged me to continuously be aware of a gracious and merciful God who cherishes humanity and cherishes all of creation. I came to believe more firmly during my humble Ramadan experience that being cherished by God is an example of divine love beyond the limitations of any one language, symbol and imagination.
///
except that all the sweet brotherly “warm fuzzy” verses,
written earlier in Medina, are abrogated...
replaced, by the later “sword” verses.
...that is something else, her Muslim friends will never tell her...
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