This is the tolerance of the Koran, repeated in many early and some late passages. Basically, the Kafirs (unbelievers) are going to hell, don't bother with them, god will take care of them. When people speak of tolerance, I don't think this is what they have in mind. Its akin to the tolerance of the christian fundamentalist who screams that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Its not an outright call for murder, but neither is it a positive affirmation of another persons right to make decisions for themselves. The 'tolerance' of the Koran is 'bide your time until they're punished.' In the later Medinan chapters, when Mohammed has significant military power, he takes matters into his own hands. The assasinations, raids, beheadings, and wars of aggression against non-believers are numerous (an incident about once every other month according to statistics in one of the appendices).It's a good thing Shane doesn't work for NPR. He'd have been fired along with Juan.
H/T: Our Monastery of Miscellaneous Musings.
9 comments:
Now maybe it's not what you mean to sound like, but you're coming across as saying that, because the Koran is full of horrible stuff, that means that Muslims must therefore be horrible people.
I hope that's not what you mean, though. After all, it would be wrong to claim that Christians must be horrible people just because of the horrible stuff that's in the Bible, wouldn't it?
And as far as that goes, I expect that the average Muslim has about the same level of understanding of the Koran as the average Christian has of the Bible - a kind of vague passing familiarity.
My point was not so much that the Koran is full of horrible stuff, but that (as far as Kafirs are concerned) there's no good stuff. The bible, since its more of an anthology than one long diatribe by a single author, is more contradictory. The bible has a mixture of violent and peaceful passages and different sects can pick and choose. The Koran is a 'mixture' of violence and laying in wait to do violence. My admittedly shallow understanding of sectarian differences in Islam (Sunni vs. Shia) is that they are not differences over violence, but over the rightful heredity following Mohammed's death. So I think there's a pretty strong argument that most, perhaps all devout muslims fall into the violent, laying in wait, or silently condoning violence camp. That's why the 'moderate' muslim is so hard to find. Violent muslims or muslims advocating Sharia (itself a violent set of practices) are in abundance. And the rest are simply silent. Only a very small handful are open advocates of peaceful coexistence. Mohammed certainly was not a moderate. Jesus on the other hand, except for his assault on the moneylenders, was not violent.
And I think you're wrong about the average muslim. Their education in many countries consists in memorizing and studying the Koran, Sira and Hadith many hours a day. The average muslim knows many times more about the Koran and Mohammed than the average Christian knows about the Bible and Jesus. That's why they have battlecries referencing hundreds of years old fights and are completely understood by their compatriots (e.g. 'remember khyber').
Two more things.
Unlike for Islam for which its hard to find someone who'd disown the violent passages, it would be hard to find a Christian leader that would support the literal meaning of the violent passages in the bible. The difference in current views and practices is pretty black and white, despite the somewhat less distinct differences in the books themselves.
And thanks for the link btw. Fascinating.
Well, as regards to the "average Muslim", it might be useful to keep in mind that the average Muslim is Indonesian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Nigerian, not Arabic. The Arabic countries make up a relatively minute fraction. And, I understand that Muslims are strongly encouraged to study the Koran in the original Arabic. Which means that most Muslims are reading a book that is not in their native language, and are probably paying as much attention to what it actually means as one would expect in this situation - which is to say, not much.
First, Arabs do not make up a "minute fraction" of world Muslims. They anywhere from 20-40% of all Muslims, depending on how many Muslims you believe there are.*
Second, give non-Arab Muslims credit. Just because a person's scriptures are not written in their native language, doesn't mean they don't take it seriously. Christianity's founding documents are spoken by pretty much none of its adherents, and that make not one whit of difference.
Finally, I don't really see your point. Shane's point is that, taken seriously, the Koran can foster a dangerous (to non-Muslims) world view. What that means is that a significant number of muslims (in the millions) are going to adopt this world view. If you are not alarmed by that, fine. But the rest of us are not irrational to be concerned.
* There has been a concerted effort to inflate the count since 911, both here in the U.S. and the world.
Jeff:
Do you want to know what I'm concerned about? Well, it's this: I think that by stirring up fear and distrust of Muslims, we are playing right into the extremist muslims' hands.
Right. Into. Their. Hands.
They want to claim that the US is the enemy of all Muslims everywhere, so that they can get the huge majority of non-extremist Muslims on their side in the holy war that they fantasize about. To make this argument credible, they need the US to go absolutely overboard in fearing/hating Muslims in general. And when we get seriously into protesting mosques, harassing Muslims in the US, and ranting on about how horrible the Koran is, that's a good start on what they need to get their credibility.
Do you really want to do that?
Personally, I want to focus in on actual enemies, and prevent other people from sympathizing with or supporting them. Not broaden their support among about a quarter of the world's population by painting with too wide of a brush.
What concern me about not learning about the Muslim faith is that you can easily lump it in with other religions. All religions are not the same. I'm just beginning to learn about Islam and from what little I see, in a strict reading of the Koran, it's the peaceful Moslems that can be branded as heretics, not the violent ones.
If that's the case, then our mental models of the world and cultural interactions are all wrong and our decisions based on the hope that someday there will be mutual understanding without a major shift in at least one culture. Such shifts don't occur without enormous prices being paid.
Right. Into. Their. Hands.
You could say that about any effort to stand up to tyranny, violence, and oppression. I guess if that's the price of resistance, I'll pay it.
Wrt to the 'playing into their hands' comment. It is true that identifying the real motives of radical muslims (and Mohammed himself) might force the silent, unthinking muslims to make a choice. But its a choice they ought to have already made and their existence doesn't change the fact that we are at war with radical islam. Not naming that war in the hope that it'll just go away on its own is suicidal.
And who knows, maybe some of those silent ones will make the right choice and themselves turn against the wife-beating, child abusing, suicide bombing radicals. Then we would actually have some moderates to point to.
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