[belugagirl]

Hello, everyone. Don't blame KevinG for placing this thread here. I asked him to. I was involved when it got started elsewhere, and I suggested the new thread here under the general category of "changing the world."

And so, in respect to "changing the world" for the better, I pose two questions:

1) IF KevinG and Amadeus are correct, and there is something about Islam that provokes violence against non-Muslims, then how can we change/prevent this? (If, as I think more likely, it is actually Islamic "fundamentalism" warping the teachings of the Koran to falsely justify violence for other reasons, then how do we discourage such dangerous "fundamentalism"?)

2) Or, if they are wrong, and Islam "proper" does not encourage violence against non-Muslims, then how do we change the "hearts and minds" of people who are misinformed/prejudiced in this way?

I believe they are mistaken.

I have done a little research on one of the passages of the Quran that Amadeus has claimed advocate killing the "infidel." The gist of the sources I have consulted is that such passages are often removed from context to supposedly prove that Islam advocates killing non-Muslims. However, these sources have explained that this particulare invocation of violence in the Quran, for example, is given in the context of a description of a war--a war against an enemy force that happened to be of another religion. Thus when Allah commands the Muslims to kill their enemies in the war, the command is given as kill the ___________ (Jews, Christians, something else).

The other major point that I believe and that most sources I have found in my brief search support is that the Quran is interpreted by many (most?) Muslims within its cultural context, just as the Bible is interpreted by many (most?) Christians as inspired sacred literature produced within a specific cultural context. So just as I could call myself a Christian even if I do not believe that God created Adam and Eve without going through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, a Muslim can believe in the tenets of the Quran without literally interpreting every word of it.

True, my research has not been of a scholarly caliber, because I'm in the middle of the last few weeks of a very busy semester. However, information and impressions that I have accumulated over the years that I am not able to cite this very moment support my interpretation, which is that "pure" Islam advocates submission to God, not subjection of others. The fact that a minority of Muslims warp certain tenets and practices to suit their personal, educational, or cultural prejudices no more defines the body of Islam than a Christian is defined by the KKK or those cruel so-called "Christians" who show up at soldiers' funerals protesting homosexuality.

Minnie, I am looking forward to an eventual post from you offering an explanation of the Quranic verses. I believe this will be the kind of thing I read about, and you are more qualified than I to explain it "from the inside."