Well, if they embraced the parts of their scripture that they liked (in this case, kill the infidel and go to heaven) while ignoring the parts they didn’t like (it’s bad to kill people), then they’d be pretty much like every religious person ever.
Yeah, it doesn’t really matter what the Qur’an is interpreted to say by one person versus another. That’s what religion is. Some Muslims interpret the Qur’an to say they can kill infidels with impunity, others see that as a sin. There isn’t “one true Islam” anymore than there is one true Christianity. Christians have to accept that WBC is a terrible, but Christian, sect, same as Muslims have to accept that about ISIS. You can reject their beliefs, but they still fit under the larger aegis of these religions.
Charlemagne when he conquered Saxony instituted a policy of forced baptism and conversions to Christianity, on penalty of death. He was later given a crown by the Pope. You can interpret the Bible in ways that would justify this, and you can interpret any religious text to justify your desires.
I’m skeptical you know how to apply vague ancient texts to situations not specifically mentioned in them, but most religious people don’t have such a problem.
Fight against those from among the People of the Book who (despite being People of the Book) do not believe in God and the Last Day (as they should be believed in), and do not hold as unlawful that which God and His Messenger have decreed to be unlawful, and do not adopt and follow the Religion of truth, until they pay the jizyah (tax of protection and exemption from military service) with a willing hand in a state of submission. Quran :Ayat at-Taubah 9:29
It’s probably justified as non Muslims can be killed, as for the Muslims they kill, well if they’re killing them they must be the wrong kind of Muslim. :rolleyes: I’ve heard it said that the goal of ISIS is to restore the original Caliphate. Interestingly, the original Rashidun Caliphate believed only Arabs could be legitimate Muslims. The second, Umayyad Caliphate was more progressive and believed that non-Arabs could convert to Islam.
The Muslims of this period lived in relative peace with those they conquered, and Christians and Jews were called Dhimmi or “protected” and seen as people of the book and allowed to practice their religion, later they even extended this protection to Polytheistic Hindus in India. Of course they were not completely equal and subject to a special tax called Jizya. Amazing how progressive these Muslim conquerors of old were compared to modern day ISIS.
You asked what happens to those indifferent to Islam: that verse says those — which applies to christians and jews exclusively, eg: not animists or pagans ( such as those religions of the pre-Mohammedan Arabs ) — who do are indifferent to religion are to be crushed until they submit, after which they can pay tribute.
Should they not submit, bad things happen.
What happens to true believers of those two religions — who are not indifferent agnostics and atheists is separate; but I believe involves paying tribute.
I just read through that Surah (chapter) and it seems like you are taking that out of context. The previous verse is clearly about those who try to enter the Masjid al-Ḥarām, the Great Temple of Mecca. And verse 36 indicates that there’s currently some sort of war going on. “Fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively.” (Wikipedia suggests it was written around the ultimately unfought Battle of Tabuk.
The context appears to be the initial conquering of Mecca. What the verse promotes is killing anyone who would continue living in Mecca who has not made a treaty with them and paid tribute. It says not to trust those who merely say they will not take arms against you. It specifically talks of people who are trying to attack the Muhammad himself.
And, yes, a lot of what is said in this Surah is rather barbaric. But what the Israelites under Joshua did a lot worse when they conquered their land yet no one argues that such commands are universal or even apply today. And the guide I found at al-islam.org seems to indicate it is interpreted as a specific instruction, regarding specific circumstances.
So claiming this says that you can fight all Jews and Christians seems to be completely off base. The same goes for 9:5 and the command to kill all infidels. It appears to apply to a specific situation.
not bearing arms against you, the distinction is the fighters and non-fighters.
yes that is true, but it is true of any written rules. Unfortunately people are people and the ability of people to take self-justify otherwise actions forbidden seems almost boundless.
The utility of the arguments by the muslims against the DAESH drawing on the Quran is to highlight for the youth and the ignorant that the DAESH partial readings and snippings (very much in an ironical way like the bigots do here, the search for justification of the conclusion they already want) goes against the understanding and the reading of long tradition, from the conservative to the liberal. The immense disgustseen for the DAESH shows the utility of these actions.
This is from the English translation of the scholars letter to the DAESH rebuking them for violating the long established Islamic traditions about war, it is a translation from the Arabic risala and is in the style of the argument internal to scholars, meant to convince of course not Baghdadi, but those who might be fooled into thinking the DAESH.
the point of the letter sent was to highlight with learned islamic references that to behave in the way that the DAESH behaves means to rip text out of long established context and to ignore what has been considered - and for centuries, not just some dressing fad for you - to be the letter and the spirit.
of course all such things can be instrumentalised, just like nations with war departments named ‘defense’ can undertake the wars of aggression to supposedly defend themselves against WMDs that did not exist.
I can’t imagine that such a moderate reading will have any effect on the group itself and won’t teach moderate muslims anything other than what they already know.
Are the quotes in the letter actually from the Koran? And can ISIL in response not simply dig up quotes from the book itself that suits their purpose and thus play a game of infallability “top trumps”.
The letter obviously aims at those who can be convinced the DAESH has a good foundation.
DAESH can do all kinds of things so that is not the point. What is the point is this is what is needed as the counter-action.
the sources are given there, this is only one extract from the letter, and I chose it only to show the response that is coming from the leading scholars to the DAESH.
You missed an opportunity there to say “no magic bullet”, surely that would have more in keeping with the SD style of black humour?
I think you are right though. This sort of intervention and this sort of message to the young and disaffected is one way among many of reducing the number of potential recruits. It isn’t a quick fix unfortunately.
Also, it may only be my perception but I think the moderate muslim majority are getting far better at denouncing islamic terrorism loudly and publically. I’d imagine that it pisses them off that they have to do it in the first place but, it is necessary and welcome.
LOL. As with the Tanakh (the book of Joshua is a fine example), plain-text reading of holy scripture for Jews, Christians and Muslims has gobs of examples for why non-believers should be slaughtered.
Jews and Christians have, on average, moved on from using scriptures to defend slaughtering non-believers and find more secular reasons–at least, for public consumption–to kill others.
Islam as a rule is well behind that secular curve. Islam-majority countries generally do not separate church and state and instead consider the state as a major institution to promote Islam. Within Islam, change has been slower to discard scripture as justification for societal behavior.
As science plugs along and more people realize the various holy writs were just one guy’s opinion (and not a conduit to some Greater Truth from Above), the gentlest mechanism of discarding plain texts is to put them “in context.” This strategy is applied by all religions as they evolve, because it’s easier than just calling bullshit on holy texts revered by the preachers and masses within a religion.
If you are a Muslim inclined to kill non-believers, you make the context of a verse suggesting they be killed to be a general defense of Islam, under which guideline any non-believing party by definition opposes Islam. So it’s fine to bump off a two-year old with a suicide vest.
If you are a Muslim not inclined to kill non-believers, you make the context of a verse suggesting they be killed to be a narrow defense against specific attack situations. So it’s not fine to bump off non-believers except in a military-type defense.
It’s human nature to defend one’s religion and its holy texts because that is inculcated into children from birth. Unfortunately, the nutcases who wrote the original texts are no longer around to “interpret” them, so the plain text gets bandied about in diametrically opposed defenses of behavior all the time.
The Qur’an generally supports killing of those who oppose Islam. It takes quite a lot of wiggling to get around that, and as with the Johua’s armies and the Crusaders of yore, it has not been historically difficult to use that support as a religious defense for killing.
It’s nice to see part of the Islamic world catching up with Judaism and Christianity to allow evolution of the religion toward interpretations “in context” that move away from plenary dictums from Above to kill non-believers. Islam is still a few hundred years behind in this evolution, but perhaps the pace will accelerate as science and education move people off of holy writ as the mechanism by which one decides how to behave.
I look forward to a day when we kill one another just because we don’t like what’s happening, instead of killing one another because our holy writ says to do so.
I generally agree with your point of view Chief Pedant. There are two things though …
The people who wrote these text generally had no idea that these text would be referred to for centuries to come. They were adressing their contemporaries. It is *our *contemporaries who need to realize that humanity has moved on and that the message in these texts needs some adjustment (a.k.a. “interpretation”) to account for it.
Maybe it is not “Islam” that is lagging behind but rather the societies dominated by it - and not all to the same extent. We know from history that Christianity has been where the worst parts of Islam are today. But Christianity has moved on, and there are parts of Islam today that really want to move on too. We just have to figure out what we can do to help.