| Kursad | Re: success and god
quote:
"That may be true of Islam which commands its followers to kill non Muslims," |
I guess that phrase is misunderstood in two ways: first it does not command to kill non-Muslims, the *literal* meaning of that phrase in the book is that it commands to kill non-believers (which would mean literally *Atheists* not *non-Muslims*), second, the phrase needs to be understood in the context of the time the book that was written, which was a time where Arabs were a horribly sick and corrupt society and that situation was the reason of the rise of Islam. It follows that the phrase does not actually mean to kill Atheists either, it just declares a war against to the corrupt Arabic society of the time and corruption was due to their corrupt believes which was some sort of idolatry, and the ones whom were the opposing side of that war were the ones who practiced idolatry, and atheists probably did not even exist. Thus it follows, historically correct interpretation is that the sentence commands to kill the ones who worshipped idols and practiced idolatry at that time. The sickness of the society was to the extent that Arabs would bury newborn girls alive just because they are not male children. It is entirely reasonable that some sane men who deserve the title "human being" would normally be full of hate against that situation and written the sentence that you mention and claimed that it's the word of God, to be able to gain political power to be able to implement their plans and thus correct the horriable situation. The phrase can easily be misunderstood because the Islamic holy book does not set the context but just gives directions, but that does not mean that the context wasn't there at the time the book was written. |
10/17/2005 11:42 AM