Correcting Myths About The Koran
Hamid corrects misinformation about the Koran. He corrects three commonly misunderstood topics including the following:
- Does the Koran instruct Muslims to kill non-Muslim?
Hamid explains why not. All interpretations of the Koran which concludes otherwise, he explains, ignore the article "the", or its Arabic equivalent "al-". For example, Koran uses the term "al-Kafereen" ("the infidels") to refer to those who initiated hostilities during early phase of Islam, not any "infidel" in perpetuity.
He quotes verse 2:190, which reminds good Muslims not to initiate violence under any circumstance against anyone and to restrain themselves in the event the enemy initiates hostilities.
- Does the Quran support anti-Semitism?
He shows examples of the Jews being praised and that "pigs" and "monkeys" are not to be taken literally.
- Are we allowed to judge others or condemn them as "Infidels"?
He says that only God knows everything and so humans should not judge others on necessarily incomplete information.
Read more about this topic: Tawfik Hamid
Famous quotes containing the words correcting and/or myths:
“I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.””
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)