JUST READ! |
| The Quran of Pacifists and Quran of Warmongers Posted: 23 Jan 2014 04:02 PM PST Having spent few hours reading various articles and foreign news last nite, I came across some jottings about Islam and the al-Quran, both by Muslims and non-Muslims. However, this one by Akbar Ganji, an Iranian journalist and human rights activist really drew my attention.  Shiites believe that this year the birthday of Prophet Muhammad falls on January 19, while the Sunnis believe that the actual birthday is on January 26. Thus, it may be the right occasion to discuss what the Muslims have done with the Quran, the Holy Nook of Islam, which is the basis for all Islamic teachings, not the Prophet himself, as some Muslims believe. Using a discredited interpretation of the Holy Quran, the fundamentalist "Islamic" terrorists have transformed the Holy Book into a manifesto for war and terrorism. Thus, they have begun a war between the believers and non-believers, Muslims and non-Muslims, the Shiites and the Sunnis, war among the Shiites, war among the Sunnis, etc. Their God is a warrior who orders nothing but war, massacre and terrorism. Acting upon such incorrect interpretation of the Quran has not only led to many bloodbaths, but has also presented to the world violent images of Islam and Muslims. Such distorted images must be corrected. Human beings are not passive when it comes to understanding a text. Understanding and interpreting a text is the fruit of a debate between the reader and the text. Neither the text is silent so that the reader can give it any voice (s)he wants, nor is the reader's mind solely a mirror that reflects the text and only the text. No text, including religious ones, can be understood without any human assumptions and judgments, as the two play a fundamental role in understanding and interpreting a text. Islamic fundamentalists, non-Muslims, and those who oppose Islam consider the Quran a book of laws. This is incorrect. The Quran has 6,236 verses, but according to the commonly-held view, including those of many well-known theologians, including Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) and Imam FakhruddinRazi (1149-1209), there are only about 500 judicial verses regarding the Quranic rulings. That is less than one-twelfth of the Quran. (Akbar Ganji is an investigative journalist who was imprisoned for more than six years in Iran. He currently lives in exile in the United States, and his writings have been banned in Iran. He has been named honorary citizen of many European cities. Ganji has won several international awards, including the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression's International Press Freedom Award, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, the Cato Institute Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and the John Humphrey Freedom Award). continue reading...  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from JUST READ! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Jom berjuang bersama rakan bloggers di Facebook!
Tunjukkan sokongan anda! Sila Like.
No comments:
Post a Comment