# "People who live by the Koran are backwards" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074 "2004-02-19T21:54:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ms.Fisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Ms.Fisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Fisk)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/1 "2004-02-19T21:54:11Z")
I just had to share the following comments made by a coworker of mine: “I’ve read parts of the Koran [in English] and it’s gobbledegook. I know in the original Arabic or whatever it’s supposed to be poetic and flowery–but I don’t know how a translation in itself can make it into the really unattrative prose that it is.” “People who live by the Koran are backwards. Their religion hasn’t experienced an enlightenment yet. Granted, there are pockets of Christians and Jews who haven’t experienced enlightenment either.” “As long as those people want to sit in the desert and study a 600-year-old book, that’s fine with me. It’s when they start killing my neighbors by the thousands that I object.” Oh, where do I start? ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/2 "2004-02-19T22:25:42Z")
Fundamentalists of any stripe are backwards, whether they be Muslim, Christian, Jewish. My personal beef is with baseball fundamentalists, myself. If a population allows fundamentalists to dictate policy, their worst ‘sin’ is apathy. Witness much of American politics. Pretty much everything else I could say about your co-worker’s ignorance should go to the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/3 "2004-02-19T22:25:39Z")
Hmmm. Well, not very helpful, I suppose, but there’s a considerable amount of gobbledygook in the Bible as well, and since the bulk of it predates the Koran, seems to me that would make people who live by the Bible even more backward. But that probably won’t advance the debate much. If it were me, I’d grit my teeth and let him display his ignorance to all and sundry, but if you’re feeling a bit antagonistic, you might ask him where, in the bits he read, he saw the part about muslims being commanded to kill his neighbors by the thousands. As an aside, if I were a supervisor and and heard what your cow-orker was saying, I’d probably just bark at him to knock off the hate speech and get back to work. But hey, that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/4 "2004-02-19T22:45:28Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > Oh, where do I start? You could correct your coworker on the age of the Koran. It was written in the 600s, not 600 yrs ago. So it’s actually 1400-1500 years old. Do you think that will help. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ferngully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d07c76/32.png) [@ferngully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ferngully)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/5 "2004-02-19T22:50:56Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > Oh, where do I start? Unless you’re both a benevolent and masochistic soul, I wouldn’t start. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/6 "2004-02-19T22:54:22Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > I just had to share the following comments made by a coworker of mine: > > “I’ve read parts of the Koran [in English] and it’s gobbledegook. I know in the original Arabic or whatever it’s supposed to be poetic and flowery–but I don’t know how a translation in itself can make it into the really unattrative prose that it is.” i’ve read that the King James version of the compilation of christian/jewish texts is poetic > [@](#): > > “People who live by the Koran are backwards. Their religion hasn’t experienced an enlightenment yet. Granted, there are pockets of Christians and Jews who haven’t experienced enlightenment either.” Fundamental Christians today don’t scare me. They definitely would if I was gay. That is my number one problem with them. Fundamentalist Muslims scare me, and I wish to hear from Muslims who take pains to disassociate themselves from fundamentalists. But I’m not holding my breath. > [@](#): > > “As long as those people want to sit in the desert and study a 600-year-old book, that’s fine with me. It’s when they start killing my neighbors by the thousands that I object.” Try at leat twice 600. ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Fisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Ms.Fisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Fisk)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/7 "2004-02-20T01:53:43Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > As an aside, if I were a supervisor and and heard what your cow-orker was saying, I’d probably just bark at him to knock off the hate speech and get back to work. But hey, that’s just me. The offender _is_ the supervisor. And after making a few rational objections, I did give up and let his rant take its course. But his is a really scary type of ignorance–he has a PhD and is a voracious reader. The fact that he took the effort to read any of the Koran is something that I would normally respect, but he has massive cultural blinders on, he doesn’t SEE anything. This is the same supervisor who said if he was an advertising executive he would hire a “Mike” over a “Muhammad” or a “Bimpe” or a “Dimple” based on the name alone because the non-Mikes could have a cultural background not conducive to understanding American advertising. I told him that rationale was devoid of content, and asked him “What cultural behavior could Bimpe possibly exhibit that would indicate a failure to understand advertising?” He didn’t have an answer for that, but he’s still holding tight to his prejudices. (Can’t you judge someone’s competency better by a resume than by their name?) ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/8 "2004-02-20T02:05:45Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > I just had to share the following comments made by a coworker of mine: > > “. . . . People who live by the Koran are backwards . . . . Their religion hasn’t experienced an enlightenment yet. Granted, there areAs long as those people want to sit in the desert and study a 600-year-old book, that’s fine with me. It’s when they start killing my neighbors by the thousands that I object” > > Oh, where do I start? You start, I think, by reflecting on the fact that anyone who thinks the Koran is 600 years old, and who himself cannot distinguish between “backward” and “backwards”, is not well-positions to make judgments about whether _others_ are backward. You could carry on by wondering whether he appreciates that a Muslim living in, oh, say, Iraq might object when _his_ neighbours are killed “by the thousands” by Americans, and whether he thinks that kind of action might have more to do with promoting terrorism than reading the Koran does, however unattractive the prose of the Koran may be. Oh, do you mean where do you start with _him_? Well, you could start by putting that last point to him - tactfully, of course. But since, for an educated man, he seems astonishingly ignorant and lacking in insight on this matter, you have to guess that, at some level, he has _chosen_ to be ignorant and lacking in insight. So you’re probably not going to get anywhere with either facts or rationality. Given that he’s your supervisor, the wisest course may be to keep your head down and talk about the weather. If he’s in a position to hire, and he’s really hiring on the basis that the applicant is called “Mike” and not “Bimpe”, find a new job. Odds are that the business is heading down the tubes. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/9 "2004-02-20T02:26:55Z")
Ask him how old he thinks the bible is; you might get a laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Belrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@Belrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrick)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/10 "2004-02-20T02:40:51Z")
All religions are backwards. A great place to see a country held back is India. When a member of the NZ cricket team toured there they saw a motorcyclist killed on the motorway. 5 days later at the end of the test the body was still there. Why? Because its against there religion for anyone but family members to remove the body. Religion has no place in matters of state. Unfortunately in NZ we have yet to kick religion out of the workplace as well. A business recently got fined $60,000 for punishing a worker who had broken his contract and refused to work saturdays. He was a recent 7th day adventist convert… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/11 "2004-02-20T02:41:04Z")
He’s right. People who live by the _literal text_ of the Qu’ran _are_ backward. Those who interpret it as a guide to life, rather than an absolute set of laws, fit in quite well in Western society. Anybody who lives life entirely according to the text of _any_ book is backward- forward (as opposed to backward) implies a willingness to accept new influence. Just say, “No more than people who live by the Bible, or the Gita, or Talmud, or whatever…” ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/12 "2004-02-20T04:07:08Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > This is the same supervisor who said if he was an advertising executive he would hire a “Mike” over a “Muhammad” or a “Bimpe” or a “Dimple” based on the name alone because the non-Mikes could have a cultural background not conducive to understanding American advertising. I told him that rationale was devoid of content, and asked him “What cultural behavior could Bimpe possibly exhibit that would indicate a failure to understand advertising?” He didn’t have an answer for that, but he’s still holding tight to his prejudices. > (Can’t you judge someone’s competency better by a resume than by their name?) Did he really say he would decide based on the name alone? Also, to echo **dutchboy208** ’s post, anyone who tries to live according to a set of fixed-weight moral rules (such as religious fundamentalists of any stripe) is missing out on the complexity of human existence. ---
**Author:** ![Erasticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3e96dc/32.png) [@Erasticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erasticity)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/13 "2004-02-20T11:17:11Z")
> [@Ms. Fisk](#): > > . > (Can’t you judge someone’s competency better by a resume than by their name?) OT Answer : Not if affirmative action is in Overdrive in said firm… ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Fisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Ms.Fisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Fisk)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/14 "2004-02-20T14:25:07Z")
> [@dutchboy208](#): > > He’s right. Well, not exactly. We both acknowledge that we know several Catholics, for example, who would describe themselves as living by the Bible; and we would describe those people we know as modernists (i.e. not “backward”). This is due to Christian enlightenment, and living by the Bible is based on a different interpretation than the interpretation of a thousand years ago. Plenty of Muslims who describe themselves as living by the Koran do not mean the literal translation. My supervisor’s point is that even a non-literal translation is not enlightened, and therefore Muslims are backward. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/15 "2004-02-20T14:44:22Z")
Of course, Arabic reads from right to left. So the Koran is written backwards Wha? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Owes\_Bess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c37758/32.png) [@Alan\_Owes\_Bess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Owes_Bess)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/16 "2004-02-20T14:48:57Z")
originally from Ms. Fisk > [@](#): > > Oh, where do I start? According to you, your supervisor has read “chunks” of the Koran and, unless I have misunderstood you, you have not read any of it. To the extent that you have not read it, that makes you the ignorant one (in the sense of lacking knowledge, of course). A few of the comments you have received seem to be full of sanctimonious drivel lacking content. I doubt that more than a couple of the posters so far have actually bothered to spend the one or two hours needed to actually read the book, which is not long but is quite a tedious chore to read, for reasons that will only become evident to those who make the effort. As a first step, I suggest you browse through a translation of the Koran itself and pick out as many phrases full of sweetness and light as you can find and show them to your supervisor. You don’t even have to buy the Koran. A full translation by Ahmed Ali can be freely downloaded here: [LINK](http://arthurwendover.com/arthurs/koran/koran-ahmed-ali10.html) Or, if you want a chapter by chapter download and a different translation, try this link: [LINK](http://primeguild.tripod.com/quran/english/) After you have read through this, and savoured the love, your next step would be to read the Hadiths, particularly the so-called “authentic” Hadiths. This will give you plenty of information on Ubu’l Kassim (Mohammed’s original name) and the many deeds for which he is so admired in the world of Islam and Cornell. The following link may also provide you with a good general background on Arab Islamic culture, but bear in mind that there still exists a Christian Arab culture that is rapidly disappearing. [LINK](http://business.baylor.edu/Phil_VanAuken//arabcul.html) There are other Dopers who are almost as learned in the intricacies of the Koran as I am. Perhaps you may hear from them shortly. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/17 "2004-02-20T15:07:21Z")
Trying to spin Islam as the “Religion of Peace” is equally incorrect. “Peace” – what you get after killing all the dhimmi or kafir in your midst that won’t convert. Islam is what the extremists make of it also. That would make it a justification for killing women and children. OF COURSE, that’s not exactly fair. I could link to Moderate Islam TM. Seriously. The problem is that blowing up a truck bomb gets far more ink than writing a scholarly article. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/18 "2004-02-20T15:54:06Z")
[QUOTE=Belrick] All religions are backwards. A great place to see a country held back is India. When a member of the NZ cricket team toured there they saw a motorcyclist killed on the motorway. 5 days later at the end of the test the body was still there. Why? Because its against there religion for anyone but family members to remove the body. QUOTE] Hey now, we po’ backwards hindus iz trying. give us a break, ok? \*Disclaimer: Does not actually live in India and would not move back if she were paid. However, still loves the country of her birthplace. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/19 "2004-02-20T16:01:43Z")
**AOB:** _I doubt that more than a couple of the posters so far have actually bothered to spend the one or two hours needed to actually read the book, which is not long but is quite a tedious chore to read, for reasons that will only become evident to those who make the effort._ Well, speaking for myself, I’ve read the Qur’an, parts of it in the original Arabic (which I don’t read fluently, but well enough to get the gist), and I wouldn’t call it a particularly “tedious chore” (at least, only in the sense that reading cover-to-cover **any** religious scripture, especially one pertaining to a faith you don’t personally subscribe to, is a tedious chore). _The following link may also provide you with a good general background on Arab Islamic culture_ Actually, it’s a pretty simplistic thumbnail sketch of various facts (e.g., “The Suez Canal is 100 miles long”) and superficial cultural stereotypes (“Arabs love children; they lavish a great deal of time and attention on them”) that some guy at the Baylor business school seems to think it important for people doing business in Middle Eastern countries to know (“Very often, the first meeting (or first few meetings) will simply be spent on polite small talk. […] During this time, your Kuwaiti counterpart will be trying to evaluate subjectively whether or not business should take place in the future”). I think you’d have to work a little harder to really achieve a “good general background on Arab Islamic culture”. **Beagle:** \*Islam is what the extremists make of it also. \* Well, that too applies just as much to any other religion. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074/20 "2004-02-20T16:23:57Z")
Of course. The problem is the body bags associated with _Islamic_ extremists. Which reminds me, I think that some HR groups are still counting “civilian casualties of the Iraq War” every time al Qaeda blows up a school bus, or whatever. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-live-by-the-koran-are-backwards/230074.md?page=2)