Amir Taheri: How to Read, and Not Misread the Quran

A group of Arab militants fly hijacked 'planes into office buildings. A Kurdish immigrant cuts the throat of his "dishonored" daughter. An Iranian mullah issues a fatwa calling for the murder of a novelist he does not like.

Every one of those cases, and thousands of similar ones, are immediately followed by weeks, months and even years of controversy across the globe in which there is one central question: did Islam and its fundamental text, The Quran, sanction those deeds?

Debate and dispute over texts is as old as civilization itself.

In fact, it is possible to argue that polemics is as old as the art of writing itself. Once noted down, whether on a clay tablet, as was the case in ancient Sumer, or on Egyptian papyrus or, these days, the web pages of the cyber-space, a thought becomes a challenge and an invitation. It challenges the unwritten versions of itself while inviting other thoughts to measure themselves against it.

However, a text could be truncated, twisted, turned upside down- in short, quoted out of context or misquoted. In such cases, it becomes a weapon in what we have learned to call "a clash of civilizations."

Some of us might not think so, but the Islamic scholar Sayyed Zahoor Ahmad believes that we are experiencing such a clash. "There is, indeed, a clash of civilizations and cultures going on," he says.

However, Ahmad makes it clear that this "clash" is multi-dimensional: it is not limited to one between Islam and non-Islam, so to speak.

In many cases, it is also taking place within Islam itself.

Read more here,,,,

Source: Asharq Alawsat

Obama speech quoted jihad verse from Quran

Address to Muslims used Islamic text urging war against nonbelievers

By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – In his major address to the Muslim world last week, President Obama quoted a verse from the Quran that is interpreted as urging Muslims to follow Muhammad in waging jihad against nonbelievers.

The context of the verse – first noticed by Robert Spencer of the Jihad Watch website – was confirmed by Quranic experts contacted by WND.

"I have pointed to this section of the Quran as showing the importance of jihad and to follow the prophet (Muhammad) in jihad even though a war may be difficult," Abu Abaida Al-Ahmed, the imam of a central mosque in Gaza City, told WND.

Obama quoted the verse in question during a section of his speech where he was stressing a "new beginning" between the U.S. and the Muslim world, and the need for a "sustained effort to listen to each other."

Obama continued: "As the Holy Quran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.' That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart."

Obama was reading from chapter 9 verse 119 of the Quran, which deals with the theme of not abandoning Muhammad.

The next Quranic passage continues: "Neither the dwellers of the city, nor the Arabs around them, shall seek to stay behind the messenger of Allah (when he mobilizes for war). Nor shall they give priority to their own affairs over supporting him. This is because they do not suffer any thirst, or any effort, or hunger in the cause of Allah, or take a single step that enrages the disbelievers, or inflict any hardship upon the enemy, without having it written down for them as a credit. Allah never fails to recompense those who work righteousness."

The two passages are part of a Quranic section scolding local Muslims in Medina for refusing to accompany Muhammad on a war expedition to Tabouk in northern Arabia, where he was seeking to fight a Byzantine garrison.

Abu Saqer, the head of Jahidiya Salifiyah, an Islamic outreach movement in Gaza, explained there are two main interpretations of the verse cited by Obama:

"First that you should follow the truth of Allah, but in specific to follow those who are in jihad with the prophet in spite of the great heat of going to war," he said.

Al Ahmed, the Gaza imam, stated, "The verses come from the period of the Al-Tabouk war, the year when the prophet left Mecca for Madina."

The main official Quranic exegesis, or tafsir, concerning verse 119 deals with the importance of speaking the truth. A secondary tafsir, however, uses the verse quoted by Obama to argue for jihad.

That tafsir reads: "(Be careful of your duty to Allah) obey Allah in that which he has commanded you, (and be with the Truthful) with Abu Bakr, 'Umar and their companions when they stay behind and when they participate in jihad."

During his speech in Cairo last week, Obama referred to the Quran as "holy" four times and quoted several verses from the Islamic text. He also used Muslim terminology, such as the Quranic obligation of "zakat" or charity.

The speech, in which Obama referenced his Islamic experiences as a child in Indonesia and the Muslim faith of his paternal family, was a major departure from the tone of his campaign last year, when Obama and his team emphasized the then-candidate's stated Christian faith.

Source: WorldNetDaily

Historacity Corrections

Recently, I spoke to a number of young Muslim about Jesus Christ. They said "Jesus was not crucified" and "It is crusifiction." I asked the for their sources and and they proclaimed the Quran. This brings me to the point that education in contemporary Islam is full of misquotations and false propaganda. Islam its self must correct its education system and listen to the early histories of the world. For example, that Jesus was crusified, and that is a historical fact:

"Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed." Tacitus, Annals 15.44

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time... Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one of which we speak." THALLUS, Chronography XVIII, 47

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day- the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account... It was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers from the moment they are converted and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws..." LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA, The Death of Peregrinus 11-13

It must therefore be noted that the Ancient Historical References all say that Jesus was crusified. Therefore the Quran must also be checked for historical chronology and accuracy.