The recent furor over alleged desecrations of the Koran by Americans at Guantanamo Bay makes me wonder: I don’t think I’ve ever met a Christian who would wince at seeing a copy of the Bible desecrated. The words might be holy, but not the ink and paper that record them; and you can always get another Bible. Why do Muslims have such reverence for a copy of the Koran as a physical object? Isn’t any veneration of a physical object a form of idolatry, which Islam purports to abominate?
Well, because they do. Sorry for a snappy come-back, but is just one of those things.
Of course the Q’ran itself tells you how to handle a Q’ran. So do the accounts of Mohammed’s life. Sort of like the Bible saying such things in the Ten Commandments.
Further, the Q’ran is much more central in Islamic theology than the Bible is in Christian counterpart. Most Christians accept that the Bible has a literary history. That is to say we accept that the Song of Solomon was not really written by a single man named Solomon. When the Bible says the world was created in a week, we now (mostly) think that this is a metaphor.
The Q’ran however is the absolute and perfect word of God. The Q’ran mentions a woman who is in hell because she mistreated a cat. That is considered to be literally true. No discussion of that case is allowed. No interpretation.
The treatment of the Q’ran ‘like that’ is a long-established custom. We have found Q’ran graveyards all over the world (between the walls of a mosque’s dome is a popular place) where old tattered copies are laid to rest…
Are the rules violated? Sure. I guess. Lots of copies are ruined or tossed in the trash. Still, you are not supposed to.
(Some people here will not take their wallets into the bathroom with them. Our banknotes have Q’ranic verses on them.)
As I remember the explanation I received in a class based primarily around the Qu’ran a few years back, the book itself is held in as high esteem as its word precisely because it is the earthly, physical record of the word. The book, by transferrance, holds the same revered state as its message. Similarly, you would never see a copy of the Qu’ran placed underneath another book in a stack, because it symbolically states that the words of this book are less immediate and less high than the book on the top. Remember that in far more concrete language does the Qu’ran state that it is the final message of God, than either the Jewish or Christian texts (that is, the Torah and the New Testament, respectively), both of whose followers strayed from God’s desire. (I’m too tired to pull out my copy of the Qu’ran to find a representative verse as a cite, but I’m sure there’s something early in the second surah that says as much)
As to why this is a bigger deal to the offended culture than somebody in the Muslim world burning (or urinating) on a copy of King James’, I have nothing concrete, but would guess the argument could go somewhere along the lines of the Qu’ran, being chronologically after the Bible, and stating that it is the final, unambiguous word of God, is the book of a people who see themselves as the final, highest, and truest followers of God’s word. For representatives of an earlier religion, who are described at best in the Qu’ran as misled and confused and at worst as infidels deserving nothing better than death (maybe I should pull down my copy), to actively desecrate a prophecy they do not believe, is tantamount to waging war on Islam.
Until I actually find some cites to confirm my statements, I expect to be assaulted.
Don’t Jews (at least historically) put a similar value on the Torah? I seem to remember stories about Rabbi’s rushing back into burning buildings to save a copy of the Torah during the progroms.
Try throwing a Bible, Torah, or Book of Morman into a toliet :eek: during an interrogation and you’ll see headlines tomorrow as well. Lots of people, not just Muslims, take thier religious beliefs very serious.
I think that only applies to the handwritten Torah scrolls every synagogue keeps in the tabernacle at the end facing Jerusalem and takes out for worship services – not to an ordinary printed copy one would use for study.
Special handling applies to any rendering of the sacred text. This would include an ordinary Chumash (full text of the Torah and haftorah, in Hebrew, usually amended with commentary and translation in the reader’s native language) or to a Siddur. One doesn’t carry these works into the bathroom, set them on the floor, set stuff on top of them, etc. If you drop one of these volumes, you kiss it when you pick it up.
I believe the same protocol applies to volumes of Talmud, etc. I don’t know if it would apply to a volume more removed from the Torah, such as a book on Jewish spirituality in general. I suspect it would, because such a book probably contains exceprts from Torah. Strictly speaking, this might not apply to an English-only translation of Torah, since it’s not the “original” text. However, my practice is to treat such books as though it does apply, since I’m not sure.
I believe Jews and Muslims are more picky about the handling of these volumes because we regard these texts as being a more or less accurate rending of the word of G-d in the original language. On the other hand, most Christians understand that the Bible was not written in the language in which they read it. They may regard an translated Bible as being somewhat removed from the original word of G-d (the same way that we understand that a photocopy is a perfect copy of the original, but it is NOT the original).
Either my father or grandfather once told me to never write in my Bible as it was a desecration.
Of course mine are all scribbled in with stuff and stickers and whatnot (I highlighted favourite passages, and in the circles I travelled at the time it was the thing to write notes of encouragement and friendship to each other in our Bible’s at the end of the camp/retreat).
No, it does not. It has no such story.
You’re thinking of a hadith.
What’s with the new spelling all of a sudden? Did you drop the vowel u from Qur’an because it became the fashion to drop the vowel o from God? (I see non-Jews writing “G-d” around here a lot lately; is this sort of thing starting to spread?)
I can never decide from one instance to the next. I try to be internally consistent, but have used Qu’ran, Qur’an, Koran, Kuran, and have seen others (including Paul’s in this thread). It’s a very imperfect English attempt at a phoenetically coherent printing of an Islamic word, and as long as it’s recognizable, I don’t worry much.
G-d, of course, was a sign of respect and awe, not daring to print His name (same deal with the capitalization), and might be spreading because one does not want to insult the poster who believes buying a vowel is sacrilige. In other words, it’s a quick, easy, PC maneuver.
!!!
You made that up, right? Thinking it funny?
He didn’t make it up. I already knew this, but if you want a citation, search Google on drop kiss Siddur Torah Chumash and you’ll see that it’s widely considered proper to kiss these volumes when they are opened, closed, or dropped.
I realize this isn’t GD so I’ll try to stick to facts. All of the above explanations have merit, but basically the problem is that Islam is only about 1300 years old and hasn’t had a reformation yet.
Treating an object, any object, like this is called idolatry and it is not something to be valued or, in extreme cases, even respected. It is something to be discouraged as it goes hand in hand with intolerence, ignorance and a simple excuse for violence.
What about the folks who vandalized this work of art, then?
I’ll remind you that there are a lot of Americans who venerate their flag as a physical object, to the extent of wanting to prosecute those who deliberately damage one. There is a transference from what is symbolised to the symbol itself; it’s clearly a common human trait and not particularly surprising in the circumstances.
I made that comparison to somebody else recently, so I think it’s a good one. Flags and Qurans are both not supposed to touch the ground, one of the prescribed ways to destroy them is by burning, since throwing it in the trash is disrespectful. Given the Islamic interpretation of the commandment against idolatry I think Hail Ants’s post is, uh, interestingly put. In the strictest sense it’s wrong, since the object being venerated is not just an object but the word of god, but I’ve got no dog in that one.
No, that’s absolutely true.
I keep a copy of the Tanakh (in Hebrew, natch) by the computer, for SDMB reference. Occasionally, I knock it over with my elbow; I pick it up, kiss the cover lightly, and put iy back in its place. I’m not that religious, either.
Look, Judaism and Islam don’t believe in holy objects. We don’t have crucifixes, Communion, Holy Water, relics, icons and whatnot. Venerating those things is too close to idolatry in our eyes. What we do have is the written word. For Muslims, it’s the Koran, which is the entire word of God. For Jews, it’s any text that contains the letters YHVH - to treat it cavalierly is a grave act of disrespect.
No it is no idoltary. Idoltary is when one worships an object as a god. I can assure you that Muslims most certainly do not worship the Koran. We believe that the Koran is the actual word of Allah, as transcribed by the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). As such, to treat it with disrespect is to treat the words of Allah with disrespect. Hence the reason why we do’t allow the Koran to touch the ground, why if its knocked over it should be kissed before being put back on its shelf, basically, why we treat the Koran the way we do. We don’t worship it, we just have respect for the direct word of Allah.
It is a hadith. Sorry.
I grew up in a home where I was taught that if I dropped a book I should pick it up and kiss it. Words, thoughts, images and ideas are important; books contain knowledge and ideas that were precious to their authors and we should respect them.
I’ve taught my children (both are now adults) the same thing.