First off, apologies for not approving comments earlier - I'm a very busy man ya know? :-)
Secondly, as mentioned near the bottom of this article, I had a couple of interesting dreams. They've changed my view on islam. I am still of the opinion it has what appears to be hateful message, even in its original, unaltered form, but as you may gather from this article, that might
not mean that the quran was created by a hateful person, or that the quran is inherently evil. Confused? Think I'm talking out my backside? Then read on (
whilst this is quite a long article, it needs to be read until the end to be fully understood)...
When any book is translated from one language into another, it will usually give the general gist of the general meaning. But becomes languages are not created in conjunction with one another, and because of the way each individual language develops over time, adding new words, using the same word for different meanings, a translation, however brilliant, can never be completely true to the original text.
The same is true of the quran – no matter how intelligent the person who translates it from Arabic to English, the English version will never show the exact meaning of the original, simply because of the way languages are created and used. For example, in an English version of the quran, there is a passage which states: “
Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.” Sura number 4:34, chapter: The Women.
The above passage clearly states that a woman should be beaten if a man fears that the woman will leave him. However, this is, of course, translated from Arabic. The original word in Arabic can actually be translated into other words, apart from ‘beat’, which means that the passage may be actually advising men to do something different, rather than beat women.
In addition to the mistakes in translation, there is also the very real possibility of misinterpretation. For example, so-called ‘
jihad’ (supposed ‘holy war’) is supported by the quran. But what certain people fail to recognise is that this is only allowed as a
defensive measure – in other words, if you are being attacked or oppressed, you may defend yourself in this way. Now let’s take a look at suicide bombers: they believe, rightly, that the quran tells them that if they kill themselves as part of ‘
jihad’, it will be an act of martyrdom – but what they fail to realise is that they are actually going
against the quran when they bomb Western countries, as this is an attack on innocent humans who are not oppressing them and is not a defensive measure at all.
It could be argued that it is defensive in the sense that in the suicide bomber’s country of origin, they are being oppressed by Westerners, but the quran states that the burden of responsibility is on
the person who is committing the act (of oppression, for example), not on people who happen to come from the same country but are actually not oppressing the people in the suicide bomber’s country of origin. The reason suicide bombers who kill innocent people
(such as ordinary citizens living in England who have nothing to do with oppressing muslims, and even if they are related in some way because they are not deliberately trying to stop such oppression they are not actually taking part in or deliberately allowing such oppression – and as previously stated, the burden of responsibility is on the person committing the act, according to the quran) are going
against the quran is because suicide is explicitly forbidden, unless it is a
defensive measure against attackers – in other words, a muslim who bombs a Western country just because the oppressors in their own country happen to be Western, is not committing
jihad in any way shape or form, but is actually murdering people and committing suicide, thus committing haram.
It could be said that, even in Arabic, the quran spreads a message of hate, nothing to do with God. Whilst whether the idea of whether the quran is in any way related to God is very much debatable, especially by people of other religions, does it really spread an overall message of hate? There may indeed be some passages in the quran that appear hateful even in the original Arabic form. But there are also verses within the christian bible that appear to spread a message of hate. But when one looks through the whole of the bible, it becomes evident that the overall message is one of peace – to love your neighbour, to forgive those who do bad things against you rather than seek revenge, to lend (money, for example) without expecting it back – therefore avoiding threats in relation to regaining the money. But if the quran and the bible both spread an overall message of peace, what of the hateful verses?
The ideas of mistranslation and misinterpretation have already been mentioned, but now we are concerned with the verses in their original Arabic form. The quran and the bible, whilst they may both have
originated from God, were actually written down by other people – not by God. What God had said was written down by those who heard it (or at least by those who heard it and were told to write it down). And whilst the writers may have been able to read and write perfectly, they had to write down
from memory. With regards to the quran, remember, mohammed was not revealed to be perfect – it is God who is considered perfect within the quran, and mohammed is considered to be a powerful being by the quran, but
not perfect. This means that, even if mohammed himself wrote down what God had said, he still had to write down from memory, and it would be very unlikely that what he wrote would be
exact – it would usually put across the general gist of the words, but would not be exact.
But if the quran puts across the general gist, doesn’t that mean that it is still pretty much what God had said? Perhaps not. Let's take the idea that men are supposed to
maintain women, as written in the quran. Bearing in mind the fact that mohammed would have had to write this down from memory, what if God had actually said that men are supposed to
look after women, eg. protect them, maintaining them (or their virtue) in this way, rather than exercising control over them? What if God had said that men are supposed to
maintain women by protecting them? Mohammed, writing this down from memory, could easily have remembered this as just “men are supposed to maintain women”, as it very similar to “men are supposed to maintain women
by protecting them”. It would be very easy, with so many revelations being told to mohammed, to forget the last few words. In addition, the idea that men are supposed to maintain women by way of
protecting them rather than controlling them is not a new idea. Historically, women have been considered the “weaker sex” and have relied on men to be their protectors (though in certain cases men may have abused their position of trust, it is still true that they have been historically relied upon to protect women). This would fit perfectly with the idea that mohammed had simply forgotten the last few words about protecting women, and would not in any way suggest that the quran is not a Divine revelation – it would keep the idea that the quran is a divine revelation, but simply acknowledge (as stated by the quran its self) that no being is perfect except for God, and that any other being, not having the quality necessary to be perfect (the quality of being God), including mohammed, is capable of forgetting things, or parts of things, even when those things are revealed by God.
So what about the bible? Well, in actual fact, the same theory can apply to every other religion, except any that believe that God wrote their religious book personally by God's own hand. The idea that a person who receives a Divine revelation may forget part of it is not incomprehensible or unjustifiable, especially as the bible and the quran both state that no one other than God is perfect.
I had previously despised islam [
not muslims themselves (though what I had stated was misinterpreted), just the religion, as it appeared, at first glace and first consideration, to be full of hate]. Recently, I had two dreams, both related to either islam or muslims, which,
from what I can remember, were telling me not to view islam in such a way. Now I’m certain that these were revelations to me, whether Divine or not, telling me that basically what I was doing was actually not beneficial and may in fact be detrimental towards peace efforts – however, although these dreams were very significant, I can not remember
all of the content of them – and I can hardly remember any of the first one. So if I was to write down what my dreams told me, I would be unable to write exactly what I had been told. I could write “my dreams told me to not say bad things about islam”, when in actual fact they may have told me to “not say bad things about islam”
and to “say good things about islam”. If I forgot the latter part of the message, I would simply be avoiding criticism of islam, when in actual fact I should be promoting islam (if that is what my dreams had told me to do).
In the same way, as previously stated, it is easily possible that mohammed, not being perfect (otherwise, according to the quran, he would have to be God, as God is the only perfect being according to the quran) could have forgotten parts of what was revealed to him, or even the exact wording of what was revealed to him.
It’s not implausible. It’s not unjustifiable – in fact it’s easily justifiable. It fits perfectly with men’s history of being relied upon to protect women.
And it’s supported by the quran its self.Islamic Links:
And finally, a verse from the quran reminding men to treat women with respect (and no, I'm not a woman, as my genitals prove): O you who believe! it is not lawful for you that you should take women as heritage against (their) will, and do not straiten them m order that you may take part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of manifest indecency, and treat them kindly; then if you hate them, it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah has placed abundant good in it. [Sura 4:19, Chapter: The Women]
P.S. And no, I haven't been brainwashed by anyone from the islamic religion. In fact, as far as I'm aware, I haven't had a conversation of more than a few words with any muslim for some time. Except perhaps in my dreams.
------------------
INFO: Pictures from IslamicFinder (http://www.islamicfinder.org/index.php). Whilst I do not personally believe that the quran is holy, and whilst I am uncertain as to whether the passages referred to in two of the pictures actually originated from God (one of the reasons I will never belong to ANY religion, though I will always believe in God), I thought the pictures were good because the messages were nice, which is one of the reasons I put them in this article. Original article printed by myself in a "Microsoft Word" document, then placed on this blog and modified, then pasted into Word and re-saved over the original article.
Well, not exactly, but something that comes very close, though it might not remain free (if it does, only the basic version may be free) is available. It only has an American-English spellchecker and there doesn't seem to be an option to "redo" stuff after undoing it [you can undo stuff by pressing holding down CTRL or CONTROL and pressing Z (while still holding down CTRL) on a Microsoft/Windows Computer (on Apple it's the weird squiggly symbol I think instead of CTRL)] and it prints a bit different (you have to press the picture instead of going to the normal print menu though), but it's great for using when you need something similar to Microsfot Word and you haven't got access.
Have you ever been feeling pretty crap, then you saw a squirrel, and it cheered you up? I have.
