Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran

New York Times ^ | Saturday, March 2, 2002 | By ALEXANDER STILLE

[Kozak]

The Quran might be..the most demented book ever written!

Uh not demented, Psychotic
As in Mohammed, who after all had voices speaking to him. Nowaday we could fix that with a little Haldol or Navane. And just think of all the grief if would save us...

[aculeus]

,i>I'm defending my thesis next week ...

Good luck.

[crazykatz]

Shouldn't that be, "WHERE ARE THE WHITE RAISINS AT?"

[Revolting cat!]

White raisins? Dude, I wanna get off! How do I get my membership fees back? I think we've been had, my brothers in Allah. It's only white raisins. Sheesh!

[mathurine]

Raisin Toast for the fallahs.

[Revolting cat!]

72 freaking white raisins! Imagine that. Still, I think the author is wrong (or I hope he is, I've been looking forward, so to speak.) "houri", he says. Well, that's much closer to "whore" and to "ho" or even to "hurray" which you'd shout upon meeting the 72 virgins, than it is to "raisin". Either way, the finding is troublesome, because if we go with the cat's theory, as expounded above, we can't help but ask: are they virgins or are they hos?

[xm177e2]

"When I teach the history of the interpretation it is eye-opening to students the amount of independent thought and diversity of interpretation that existed in the early centuries of Islam," Mr. Rippin says. "It was only in more recent centuries that there was a need for limiting interpretation."

In other words, the further away from the seventh century they got, the MORE sure they knew exactly what happened in it.

And, the less literally the Quran was interpreted, the more peaceful they were.