Posted on 06/11/2007 1:54:35 PM PDT by Valin
Literal interpretations of the Koran emerge when Islam finds itself in moments of crises and are at the root of extremist violence. The Imams further its’ spread. Muslims must be encouraged to reject this invasive interpretation. The second in a series of articles.
Islamism, not to be confused with Islam, is a threat to the survival of the very religion it claims to represent and to the entire world. Until thirty years ago, there was one single word in the Arab language to refer to “Muslim”, and it was Muslim. Then, starting with Egypt, a second noun came into use which quickly spread, Islamiyy, separate from Muslim, which referred to a radical or fundamentalist Muslim who aims to create an Islamic project based on sharia. This neologism has been in place since, to define this new tendency within Islam, a tendency which has become increasingly strong, dynamic, and invasive and in the end violent and intolerant.
I propose to that European languages begin to discern between these two appellatives: “Muslim” and “Islamist”, and to abandon the term “Islamic” when it refers to a “Muslim” but to use it only as an adjective.
Let us defend Islam from Islamism
Given the evolution in the islamic world over the last 30 years, we must clearly distinguish Islam (which I will write with a capital “I”), as a religion which first appeared in Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century (Muslim history dates to 622, when Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdallah fled from Mecca to Medina – the higra,– and created the city founded on the principles of Islam) from islamism (which I will write with a lower case “i” ) which is a recent trend within Islam.
This is the meaning of the title: islamism is a current which is disfiguring the nature of the religion, Islam. It is not just chance that many young Arabs, Iranians, Asians distance themselves from the Muslim traditions because of islamism’s terrorist violence.
How this current was born and why it was born, I will have to leave for further discussion. Either way, it has distant roots, which have always existed in the Islamic society, but which are reawaken each time the islamic world is in crises: thus islamism presents itself as a “re-awakening” of the religion, in the arab-islamic world it is referred to as “sah-wah” or “rebirth”.
Today we are living one of the most dramatic moments in the Arab and islamic history. Why? Because the drowsiness, the period of our civil and cultural decadence, which we call “asr al-inhitât”, has gone on for too long, more or less from ‘300 to ’800. At the end of the ninetieth century there was the “Renaissance”, Nahdah, which was slowed down if not totally blocked in 1928 with the birth of Hassan al-Banna’ movement “the Muslim brotherhood”, to then be fully blocked by the creation of Israel in 1948 with all the wars and conflicts that it spawned, as well as the Egyptian revolution (1952), Iraq (1954), etc. The islamist tendency was further reinforced in 1974 with the arrival of the petrol dollars of the Saudi Arabians, rather, by the wave of petrol dollars and the consequent wahhabism.
Disease of the Arab and Muslim world
But islamism is not Islam: it is only an extremist tendency which presents itself as the true spirit of Islam. How does it succeed in attracting so many Muslims though? The military defeat, economic crises, dictatorships, political divisions of the arab-islamic world, western imperialism, cultural invasions, etc.. Fail to properly explain islamism fatal attraction for the Muslim masses. These are but a few pieces to a lager puzzle that allow us to understand why people search for derivatives; they are not the root of the problem, no, of the evil. They are all external elements to the Muslim world. The roots of the problem need to be sought within this world; otherwise we simply confuse the symptoms with the cause of this disease. Because the Arab and Muslim society is diseased. Gravely so!
The roots are part of the tree. Thus the disease is to be found within the tree, not without. The roots of the disease are to be sought within Islam itself, not outside. This root is double. The first is some of the texts of the Koran and some sayings and practices taken from the Sunnah (the muhammadiana tradition), which are the foundations of the official teachings of Islam. The second are the teachings of certain “men of religion” (rigâl ad-dîn) – an Arab – islamic term which corresponds to the western “clergy” – based on a certain determined choice made in the Koran and the Sunnah. These two roots need to be examined, if we want to identify the cause of the illness, better, if we – like good doctors – want to diagnosis the origins of the disease.
Conclusion
Islam does not identify itself with radical islamism. But radical islamism is not foreign or separate to Islam: it is one of the possible readings of Islam (that is the Koran and the Sunnah); in short the worst possible reading. Yet this interpretation is openly promoted by the imam, who are convinced it is the most authentic, because it is the reading they themselves received, and because it is the most literal. It does not require an intellectual interpretation to reflect on the sayings and practices of the founders of Islam.
This is why it is not only essential that Islam and islamism are not confused, but that Muslims are encouraged to reject islamism as an unnatural alteration of authentic Islam, and to combat this invasive tendency. Western society must also take action to defend Muslims from islamism. Giving in even minimally to the slightest islamist request, means regressing beyond hope of recovery.
Rev. Samir Khalil Samir SJ resides in Beirut, Lebanon.
What a load of garbage. There is only one way to "interpret" what the Koran says, or even make any sense of it at all, and thats by using the Hadith which contains all that is known about Mohammad and Islam, Mohammad's life, his sayings and actions, when and where he said and did the horrible, disgusting things he did during his "pedophile prophet career.
Without the Hadith, the Koran is a useless, disorganized collection of hate, an endless argument directed mainly at the Jews who lived around Medina and Mecca at the time Mohammad was trying to convince everyone he was a prophet of a god named "AR Rahman, which he later changed to "Allah" after he slaughtered the pagan Arabs (His own tribe and relatives) who were using it at the time for the name of their black rock god. After that Slaughter, He dropped the Ar-Rahman name and re-piled the the rock god temple (the Ka-aba) in mecca, placing Allah in the corner of one of it's walls, where Muslims still to this day make a pilgrimage virtually unchanged from it's pagan rock god origin's to go kiss after preforming a bunch of silly meaningless pagan rituals, which include running between 2 landmarks, pitching pebbles at the devil, "circumnabulating" several times around the Ka-aba, and for the final climax, touching and kissing the black rock- "Allah" which is now encased in a silver frame resembling a vaginal opening in which the Pilgrim inserts his head.
As far as the Koran goes, it's "interpretation" follows Mohammads actions, a vilent, murderous thief and pedophile. His many twisted and bizzare beliefs are a fine model of how a muslim should conduct his life.
To the rest of the world, it is a model of a deranged mass murderer, a dangerous offender who should never, ever be let out of a cage.
Then you haven't read "official" korans. All translations say the same thing.
They are all violent.
Qur'an:9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
It's important to know when and where Mohammad said that. It is the last Sura of the Koran, said near the time of Mohammads death. It abrogates any earlier sura which may conflict with it.
Rule of abrogation:
Bukhari:V6B60N8 "Umar said, ‘Our best Qur'an reciter is Ubai. And in spite of this, we leave out some of his statements because Allah's Apostle himself said, "Whatever verse or revelation We abrogate or cause to be forgotten We bring a better one."
Qur'an 33:21 "You have in (Muhammad) the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern of conduct for any one to follow."
And THAT my FRiend, is why Islam can NEVER be a "religion of peace".
It doesn't matter. As I pointed out, the meaning is based on Mohammads actions anyway. The Koran wasn't even written in Arabic until 200 years after Mohammad's death. Arabic wasn't even a language during Mohammads life, it was in it's verbal infancy. The main language was Syriac.(don't know if thats the correct spelling) and in fact many of the "Arabic" words in the Koran are actually syriac. But again, it doesn't matter, because the meaning can be determined by the record of Mohammads actions. Ishaq's Sira (Biography) is the earliest and ONLY record of Mohammads life. The Sirat Rasul Allah was written by Ibn Ishaq in 750 A.D. It was edited and abridged by Ibn Hisham in 830 and translated by Alfred Guillaume under the title, The Life of Muhammad in 1955 by Oxford Press. Referred to as the Sira, or Biography, Ishaq’s Hadith Collection consists of oral reports from Muhammad and his companions. It provides the only written account of Muhammad’s life and the formation of Islam composed within two centuries of the prophet’s death. There is no earlier or more accurate source.
It's available for about $29 if you care to learn what Islam really is.
As far as thye Koran goes, translations by- Ahmed Ali, Pickthal, Yusuf Ali, and Shakir represent the five most respected and universally accepted Muslim translations of Allah's book. They pretty much say the same thing. If you see a non violent Koran, then it's a deception.
Besides, no Koran makes sense without knowing the order in which to read it, which is why you need the hadith (Sirat Rasul Allah) to organise it and understand the circustances surrounding Mohammads "revelation" of the particular sura. Here's a good organized Koran with hadiththe Qur'an in chronological order and in the context of Muhammad's life as it is known through Ishaq's Sira (Biography) and Tabari's Ta'rikh (History)
I’m not referring to the philosophy and history of the Muslim religion.
I’m referring to how it is translated and applied now. That is what matters in determining terroristic Islam vs. peaceful Islam.
>>>All translations say the same thing.
They are all violent.
Nothing in Arabic says the same thing in literal translation. Arabic is translated in contextual use.
The Muslim Student Association has an online Quran, with three translations side-by-side. The violent passages are fairly consistent with each other. For example:
002.191 YUSUFALI: And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.In reading the Quran, you should look at the chronology. The later (war-like) chapters from the Madina period replace the earlier "peace" chapters written in the Mecca period
PICKTHAL: And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.
SHAKIR: And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.
So the people who are most likely to act according to the true meaning of the Quran, are those people who natively speak Arabic and thus can read it as originally written. Namely the Arabs of Saudi Arabia
Now, where was it that 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 terrorists came from?
I can post translations that aren’t violent too. I didn’t say there weren’t violent translations. Did I miss your point?
| Nothing in Arabic says the same thing in literal translation. Arabic is translated in contextual use. So the people who are most likely to act according to the true meaning of the Quran, are those people who natively speak Arabic and thus can read it as originally written. Namely the Arabs of Saudi Arabia Now, where was it that 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 terrorists came from? |
>>>>So you’re saying all the terrorists are just reading the wrong translation. I think we have a solution to terrorism then, don’t we?
Are you saying all Muslims are terrorists?
Or are you saying all terrorists should become islamic terrorists?
A "literal interpretation" is not an interpretation at all - it is a literal meaning. When one takes the literal word as allegory or some other literary device that carries with it hidden meaning, one starts the road to interpretatiion.
>>>>So you’re saying all the terrorists are just reading the wrong translation. I think we have a solution to terrorism then, don’t we?
I don’t know how to reread that. Perhaps you need to reword it?
I can post translations that have Mohammad saying he loves bacon burgers. They just won't be accepted translations.
What are your sources for your "non-violent" translations, and are they accepted as accurate by mainstream Islamic authorities? That's the key. The translations I've posted are taken from the Muslim Students Association, and can be presumed to be considered authoritative by Muslims in America.
Taken in context with the hadith, it paints a pretty ugly picture.
I read them 5 years and 3 computers ago. That specific link I won’t even try to find. There was a translation up at the white House, so that should be good enough.
I'll spell it out for you. The most violent terrorists seem to be those who have no need of translations of the Quran, because they natively speak Arabic and can read it for themselves in it's original form. So for those terrorists, you cannot legitimately say that they are operating off of a "mistranslation" of the Quran, as they read it in the original
No. You are grouping Islam as one sect. It is not.
The hadith are even less ambiguous. They paint a picture of Mohammad as a murderous, raping caravan robber. And this is the ideal that all Muslims are to aspire to?
>>>So you’re operating off of vague 5-year-old memory of passages, while I’m posting translations that are currently available.
Are you saying that the White House had a terroristic translation of the Quran online?
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