[QUOTE="ghoklebutter"]
It IS a peaceful religion, there's proof in the Quran.
I doubt this image of Muslims will go away unless Muslims themselves do something about it.
BessenStock
Oh yeah, some of the peaceful quotes from this holy and holy religions:
Surah 47-4 "When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives"
Surah 5:51 "Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends."
Surah 2:216 "Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it."
The people that say this hateful religion is peaceful need to read it's stuff. Nothing but hate the people that aren't Muslim. And we see how many social services this religions puts forth? Oh, that's right. Car bombing school children or blowing up churches. We can claim it's "the radicals" all day long, but then how do you explain all the mandatory violence in it's 'bible'?
We could engage in a quote war all day long, but the fact of the matter is that a good portion of the Qur'an was written when Muhammad was in a war with the Meccans, which was started by the aggression of the latter. So those sections must be read in that context. The word translated into "friend" in Surah 5:51 could be better translated as "protector" or "guardian". The reality on the ground at the time that that section of the Qur'an was written was that Jews, Christians, and Muslims were not exactly on friendly political terms. As such, this command is basically just a reflection of that reality: a Muslim would be foolhardy to go to a group of Jews or Christians and expect them to defend him as though he were part of their group. By no means does this verse even remotely say that Muslims are to be unfriendly towards Jews and Christians. It just means that Jews and Christians are not Muslim, and that Muslims are not Jewish or Christian.
Even with that wartime context, we still find that Muslims are absolutely forbidden from beginning aggression, and are instructed that they must cease hostilities the moment that their enemies no longer wish to fight:
"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors." (Surah 2:190)
"But if they cease, then Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Surah 2:192)
Taking the Qur'an as though every single verse is a complete thought that exists in isolation is just as wrong as doing the same thing to the Bible or the Torah. They are books, not sets of individual quotations. The separation of chapters into verses is purely to aid in the reference to sections of the text, not to identify individual instructions that may be taken as universal commandments that need no contextual examination. Several of the apparently damning verses in the Qur'an have as their context the situation where the person being instructed is at war with someone else. To act as though the instructions found in such verses are intended to be applied to civilians who are just minding their own business is just plain wrong, and to be perfectly honest I must admit I have doubts about whether people who quote mine the Qur'an in this way are really even remotely interested in actually understanding Islam.
The Qur'an even explicitly says that Jews and Christians will have nothing to fear:
"Those who believe, and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians and the Sabians - any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (Surah 2:62)
As for social services, historians are largely in agreement that Muhammad did indeed make substantial improvements over what had been before. He denounced aristocratic privilege and a heirarchical class-based society and made strides to help the poor and downtrodden in society. The idea that Muhammad and the early Muslims were just murderous nutcases is about as wrong as you can get.
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