Our buddy, Secular Apostate, posted this video. It should give you pause.
If what it says is true - that later sections of the Koran override earlier ones and that the calls for violence come in the later sections, then our perception of Islam is backwards. It's not that the violent Moslems are misreading the book, it's that the peaceful ones are.
Coming soon to my Audible.com - the Koran.
4 comments:
Heh. Good luck getting through it. I tried reading the Koran once, and man, was that tedious. I gave up less than a quarter of the way through. Although, maybe it will be more manageable as an audiobook - then you can just kind of veg out during the deadly boring parts while it is read to you.
For reference, I succeeded in reading both the Bible and the Book of Mormon all the way through. The Koran (or at least, the translation that I had) was more tedious than either of them to read. And considering what the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers are like, that's saying something.
Incidentally, I'm not so sure how a casual reader would sort out which parts of the Koran were earlier or later - the surahs are traditionally arranged by length, not chronologically.
Incidentally, this site has an annotated version of the Koran, which points out pretty much the same objectionable bits as the video did, plus a lot of others.
I would note, though, that the above site also has similar analyses of the Book of Mormon and the Bible, which don't come out of it looking much, if any, better.
It is absolutely true. Islam has a doctrine called "abrogation." If there are any parts of the Koran which are contradictory, then the later ones supersede the earlier ones.
It's a wonderful catchall that takes care of things like the "Satanic Verses", the parts of the Koran the devil duped Mohammed into including in this most holy book.
And the hippy-friendly verses Muslim apologists are fond of quoting to credulous westerners? Yeah, they come earlier than the neck-smiting ones.
I think it would be more correct that the doctrine of abrogation exists in *some* sects of Islam. I understand that there is argument about that between the various sects.
There are lots of different kinds of Muslims, and I think it is just as wrong to tar all of them with the same brush, as it is to claim that all Christians are fundamentalist creationists.
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