It is He Who sent down to thee, in truth, the Book (Quran), confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (Quran) (of judgment between right and wrong). - Holy Quran 3:3
Anyone who has learned the Quran and holds it lovingly in his heart will 'value his nights when people are asleep, his days when people are given to excess, his grief when people are joyful, his weeping when people laugh, his silence when people chatter and his humility when people are arrogant'. In other words every moment of life will be precious to him, and he should therefore be 'gentle', never harsh nor quarrelsome, 'nor one who makes a clamour in the market nor one who is quick to anger'.
Killing a bunch of Jihadis may be morally justified, to save humanity from their wrath, but it won't terminate Jihad for long. Jihad or Holy war would keep festering one way or another, until religious fundamentalism is eradicated from the human society. Until the whole humanity learns to scrutinize its most revered scriptures with the sharp tool of reasoning, Jihad will keep on striking over the world. If one does not have the basic conscientious capacity to refute the primitive textual verses of the scriptures that demand one to kill or torture another being for holding a different belief system than one's own, then that entity is no being of the civilized human society, it is merely a pest from the stone-age. No Quran, no Bible, no Gita, no Cow, is greater than the human self. There shall be hope for harmony and peace in the world, only when fundamentalism is destroyed forever. Harmony is not a luxury, it is an existential necessity of the species. And to achieve it, if a hundred Bibles have to be sacrificed, then be it. But for no Bible, Quran or Gita, can harmony be compromised.
...The Qur'an cannot be translated. ...The book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Qur'an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Qur'an-and peradventure something of the charm in English. It can never take the place of the Qur'an in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so...
The sacred texts of human history from all over the world, can never be perceived by the rational mind as texts of historical accuracy. They can only be a glaring representation of the traditions and ideals of the people. Now, it is up to the rational mind, to analyze those texts and thereafter consume the good elements from them, while discarding the rest.
Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
We don't have the luxury to say that, there is no hope for reform in Islam, because by saying this, we would be disavowing the entire peace-loving Muslim population of the world. We cannot leave our Muslim sisters and brothers behind to be oppressed by their own priestly tyrants, while the rest of the world keeps progressing with an open mind. The entire civilized society of the world, must put their heart and soul to get Islam liberated from the shackles of fundamentalism. Conscience must triumph over orthodox barbarianism, otherwise there would be no hope for the progress and wellbeing of humanity as a truly wise species.
Inside a jihadi brain, the neuropsychological elements of aggression and rage run rampant, due to socio-political conditions. These overwhelming mental elements of young souls, when attached to the sacred texts of the Quran, by the authoritarian groups of fundamentalists, become weapons of mass destruction in the pursuit of the exclusive supremacy of one religion over the others.
Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.
There are certain verses in the Quran which convey injunctions similar to the following: 'Kill them wherever you find them.' (2:191) Referring to such verses, there are some who attempt to give the impression that Islam is a religion of war and violence. This is total untrue. Such verses relate in a restricted sense, to those who have unilaterally attacked the Muslims. The above verse does not convey the general command of Islam. (pp. 42-43)
As for the negation of the Christian Trinity in the Quran - and this negation is extrinsic and conditional - we must take account of certain shades of meaning. The Trinity can be envisaged according to a "vertical" perspective or according to either of two "horizontal" perspectives, one of them being supreme and the other not. The vertical perspective- Beyond-Being, Being and Existence - envisages the hypostases as "descending" from Unity or from the Absolute - or from the Essence it could be said - which means that it envisages the degrees of Reality. The supreme horizontal perspective corresponds to the Vedantic triad Sat (supraontological Reality), Chit (Absolute Consciousness) and Ananda (Infinite Beatitude), which means that it envisages the Trinity inasmuch as It is hidden in Unity(1). The non-supreme horizontal perspective on the contrary situates Unity as an essence hidden within the Trinity, which is then ontological and represents the three fundamental aspects or modes of Pure Being, whence the triad : Being, Wisdom, Will (Father, Son, Spirit).Now the concept of a Trinity seen as a deployment (tajalli) of Unity or of the Absolute is in no way opposed to the unitary doctrine of Islam ; what is opposed to it is solely the attribution of absoluteness to the Trinity alone, or even to the ontological Trinity alone, as it is envisaged exoterically. This last point of view does not, strictly speaking, attain to the Absolute and this is as much as to say that it attributes an absolute character to what is relative and is ignorant of Maya and the degrees of reality or of illusion ; it does not conceive of the metaphysical - but not pantheistic - identity between manifestation and the Principle; still less, therefore, does it conceive of the consequence this identity implies from the point of view of the intellect and the knowledge which delivers.(1) The Absolute is not the Absolute inasmuch as it contains aspects, but inasmuch as It transcends them; inasmuch as It is Trinity It is therefore not Absolute.
From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time in absorbing it." (Orpheus, Salmon Reinach, 1932. See page 175 of the book here)
Jerusalem! My Love,My TownI wept until my tears were dryI prayed until the candles flickeredI knelt until the floor creakedI asked about Mohammed and ChristOh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophetsThe shortest path between earth and skyOh Jerusalem, the citadel of lawsA beautiful child with fingers charredand downcast eyesYou are the shady oasis passed by the ProphetYour streets are melancholyYour minarets are mourningYou, the young maiden dressed in blackWho rings the bells at the Nativity Church, On sunday morning?Who brings toys for the childrenOn Christmas eve?Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrowA big tear wandering in the eyeWho will halt the aggressionOn you, the pearl of religions?Who will wash your bloody walls?Who will safeguard the Bible?Who will rescue the Quran?Who will save Christ, From those who have killed Christ?Who will save man?Oh Jerusalem my townOh Jerusalem my loveTomorrow the lemon trees will blossomAnd the olive trees will rejoiceYour eyes will danceThe migrant pigeons will returnTo your sacred roofsAnd your children will play againAnd fathers and sons will meetOn your rosy hillsMy townThe town of peace and olives
Killing, raping and looting have been common practices in religious societies, and often carried out with clerical sanction. The catalogue of notorious barbarities – wars and massacres, acts of terrorism, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the chopping off of thieves’ hands, the slicing off of clitorises and labia majora, the use of gang rape as punishment, and manifold other savageries committed in the name of one faith or another — attests to religion’s longstanding propensity to induce barbarity, or at the very least to give it free rein. The Bible and the Quran have served to justify these atrocities and more, with women and gay people suffering disproportionately. There is a reason the Middle Ages in Europe were long referred to as the Dark Ages; the millennium of theocratic rule that ended only with the Renaissance (that is, with Europe’s turn away from God toward humankind) was a violent time.Morality arises out of our innate desire for safety, stability and order, without which no society can function; basic moral precepts (that murder and theft are wrong, for example) antedated religion. Those who abstain from crime solely because they fear divine wrath, and not because they recognize the difference between right and wrong, are not to be lauded, much less trusted. Just which practices are moral at a given time must be a matter of rational debate. The 'master-slave' ethos – obligatory obeisance to a deity — pervading the revealed religions is inimical to such debate. We need to chart our moral course as equals, or there can be no justice.
The Book revealed to Muhammad is one and unique of its kind. It has left indelible impression on the hearts of humanity. Nothing can overcome its majesty. The Quran has given new dimensions to human thinking - Surprising reforms, stunning success! The power that created in Muslims a ravenous appetite for knowledge sprung from the Quran.
In each of the early surahs, God spoke intimately to the individual, often preferring to pose many of his teachings in the form of a question - 'Have you not heard?' 'Do you consider?' 'Have you not seen?'. Each listener was thus invited to interrogate him or herself. Any response to these queries was usually grammatically ambiguous or indefinite, leaving the audience with an image on which to meditate but with no decisive answer. This new religion was not about achieving metaphysical certainty; the Quran wanted people to develop a different kind of awarness.
Breath control is crucial to most of the contemplative traditions... Qur'anic reciters chant long phrases for meditation. It is natural for the audience to adjust their breathing too and find that this has a calming, therapeutic effect, which enables them to grasp the more elusive teachings of the text.
You cannot simply read the Quran,not if you take it seriously.You either have surrendered to it already or you fight it.It attacks tenaciously,directly,personally; it debates,criticizes,shames and challenges.From the outset it draws the line of battle, and I was on other side.
Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrowA big tear wandering in the eyeWho will halt the aggression?On you, the pearl of religions?Who will wash your bloody walls?Who will safeguard the Bible?Who will rescue the Quran?Who will save Christ, From those who have killed Christ?Who will save man?يا قدسُ، يا مدينةَ الأحزانيا دمعةً كبيرةً تجولُ في الأجفانمن يوقفُ العدوان؟عليكِ، يا لؤلؤةَ الأديانمن يغسل الدماءَ عن حجارةِ الجدران؟من ينقذُ الإنجيل؟من ينقذُ القرآن؟من ينقذُ المسيحَ ممن قتلوا المسيح؟من ينقذُ الإنسان؟
Humanity should be our Religion and every Human should be our God, This world should be our Temple and doing good to fellow Humans should be our Prayer.Quran Bible and Bhagwad Geeta all have this message if not just read but also understood properly.Share it, even if one misguided person reads and understands it and gets back to humanity you will for sure be blessed!
Religion is the most powerful entity on earth. A phenomenon that has conscripted millions to give or sacrifice their lives without so much as a minuscule query about their chosen beliefs or particular ideology. And today thousands of years on despite the huge advent, discovery and the advance of science forensic or otherwise, millions are still prepared and equipped to fall or kill in the name of their God, their Holy Scriptures, their messengers, their prophets and their faith’.
But the most catastrophic display of misogyny in all religion lies at the very heart of Christianity—in the story of the Virgin Mary. That Jesus was born of a virgin is a fundamental narrative upon which all Christianity is based. It is one that is carried through to Islam, where the Quran holds Mary in great esteem.The implications of this have historically been devastating to women....Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ as a virgin, with no man ever having touched her. She is therefore described as pure, chaste, undefiled, innocent—being the product of an “immaculate conception” herself (as per Catholic doctrine), and now hosting God’s immaculate son in her unblemished womb.What does this mean for women who are touched by men? Are their conceptions corrupted? Are their characters and bodies now impure or unchaste? Have they been “defiled”?...Was all of Mary’s beauty, sanctity, chastity, and innocence confined to her vagina?Fetishizing Mary’s virginity—as Christians and Muslims both do—is a sickness that directly leads to a dangerous, unnatural glamorization of celibacy and sexual repression.”Excerpt From: Ali A. Rizvi. “The Atheist Muslim.” iBooks.
They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.' Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff.
I would clarify regarding these verses as God mentioned in some Swras. In Swra of Al-Nisaa verse 15 says { And those who come to the obscene of your wives, testify four witnesses among you{believers in God}, if they testified keep them in the house till death or the God make a path for themIn the Swra Al-Israa verse 32 God says {Do not get close to fornication it is an obscene and a bad path}In the Swra Al-noor verse 2 God says {The adulterers female and male whip each of them a hundred whips and do not mercy them in the religion of God if you are believers in God and the end day let some believers to testify their punishment {2} the male adulterer only comet sexual intercourse with female adulterer or polytheists and the female adulterer only comet sexual intercourse with male adulterer or polytheists and that prohibited for believers{3} and those who accuse chaste woman and do not provide four witnesses whip them eighty whips and do not accept their testimony ever and those are the defiantly disobedient{4} only those who repent after that and reformed God is forgiven and merciful{5} And those who accuse their wives and do not have any witnesses their testifying will be four testimonies by God as he is honest{6} And the fifth {oath and testimony by God} a curse of God on him if he was not honest(7) And the punishment will not occur on her if she gives four testimonies by God that the man is a liar(8) And the fifth (fifth time giving testimony by God) the anger of God will be on her if he was an honest . Dear brothers and sisters in the God’s regulation there is not the punishment by stoning till death {hitting by stone} the punishment for married or unmarried is one hundred lashes although a group of believers in God have to be present and witness their punishment. The clarification has been made by Kamaran Ihsan Salih on 11/07/2017
بسم اللە الرحمن الرحیم {وَكُلُوا وَاشْرَبُوا حَتَّى يَتَبَيَّنَ لَكُمُ الْخَيْطُ الأَبْيَضُ مِنَ الْخَيْطِ الأَسْوَدِ مِنَ الْفَجْرِ ثُمَّ أَتِمُّوا الصِّيَامَ إِلَى اللَّيْلِ} البقرة ١٨٧In the name of God, God says in this Ayah {eat and drink until the white thread appear from the dark thread in the dawn then continue your fasting till night} dear brothers and sisters the appearance of the white thread from the black thread means when the color of the sky changes from the black to dark gray. Until that time you have right to eat and drink and that time the Fajir prayer will begin, the meaning of night in this Ayah is the sunset, there is another important thing to remember glorify God as much as you can before the sunrise and before the sunset because they have specialty for God, God says {وَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ الشَّمْسِ وَقَبْلَ الْغُرُوبِ} 39 Swrah Qaf {means with thankfully glorify your God before sunrise and before sunset} there are also lots of other Ayahs regarding glorifying God before sunset and sunrise. Calrified by Kamaran Ihsan Salih 30/05/2017
Indeed, for the righteous is attainment - Gardens and grapevines And full-breasted [companions] of equal age And a full cup. No ill speech will they hear therein or any falsehood - [As] reward from your Lord, [a generous] gift [made due by] account, [From] the Lord of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them, the Most Merciful. They possess not from Him [authority for] speech.[The Quran, 78:31-37]
The words of the Quran all seemed strangely familiar yet so unlike anything I had ever read before,’ he told us. He embraced Islam in 1977, and changed his name to Yusuf, the Arabic for Joseph. ‘I identified with the story of Joseph in the Quran,’ he said. ‘His brothers sold him like goods in the market place.’ Yusuf felt the music business had treated him not like an artist but as a commodity.
Submission, when it is submission to the truth — and when the truth is known to be both beautiful and merciful — has nothing in common with fatalism or stoicism as these terms are understood in the Western tradition, because its motivation is different. According to Fakhr ad-Din ar-RazT, one of the great commentators upon the Quran: The worship of the eyes isweeping, the worship of the ears is listening, the worship of the tongue is praise, the worship of the hands is giving, the worship of the body is effort, the worship of the heart is fear and hope, and the worship of the spirit is surrender and satisfaction in Allah.
After reading the Qur'an, I realized that I couldn't possibly endorse Islam as a religion, as a philosophy, as a moral standard, as an ethical code, or even as useful fiction. I determined that these philosophies and this image of Allah could only come from an extremely warped and disturbed person who suffered from an aggregation of the most severe and profound human weaknesses.
Mary peace be upon her the Choosen and the Pure women of the Whorld the Honor Women the Chapter 19 of QURAN named by her names Mary Maryam in Arabic : "[Mention, O Muhammad], when the wife of 'Imran said, "My Lord, indeed I have pledged to You what is in my womb, consecrated [for Your service], so accept this from me. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing." But when she delivered her, she said, "My Lord, I have delivered a female." And Allah was most knowing of what she delivered, "And the male is not like the female. And I have named her Mary, and I seek refuge for her in You and [for] her descendants from Satan, the expelled [from the mercy of Allah ]." So her Lord accepted her with good acceptance and caused her to grow in a good manner and put her in the care of Zechariah. Every time Zechariah entered upon her in the prayer chamber, he found with her provision. He said, "O Mary, from where is this [coming] to you?" She said, "It is from Allah . Indeed, Allah provides for whom He wills without account." Quran Family of Imran 3 : 35-37.
This division is not one by religious affiliation, rather it separates the extremists and the peace-loving people.Therefor I'm optimistic: now a humanistic Islam is getting shaken awake. Moderate Islam needs now to finally break cover and explain how to deal with the violence-glorifying parts of the Quran. The (psychological) repression that this has nothing to do with our belief doesn't work anymore. We have to face this challenge.
Yahya related to me from Malik that he heard that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "I have left two things with you. As long as you hold fast to them, you will not go astray. They are the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet.
You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: 'Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.' Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: 'Produce something like it'‽
Islam’s all about knowledge, right? Muslims know everything. We seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. We seek knowledge even if it be in China, Yusef, EVEN IN CHINA! And we’ve reduced our religion to fuckin’ academics. The guy who knows Islam best is the one who really hits the books hard, learns his shit. Muslims brag about having no priests but we’re getting molested by scholars. Yusef Ali, books are not Allah. Even a book by or from Allah is not Allah.