So the Florida group planning to burn the Quran has backed down. That's good. But does anybody doubt some other group will soon realize how gullible the media is to grant free publicity for irresponsibility and extremism, and try it again?
It's not enough to stop burning one another's holy texts: we need to start learning about them and learning from them.
I'm embarrassed to say that it wasn't until a decade or so ago that I actually read the Quran. Sure, I had read selections extracted by anti-Muslim critics, all intended to cast Islam in a negative light. And sure, I had read selections extracted by others, intended to cast Islam in a wholly positive light.
Christians and Jews know that a hostile critic could do the same -- extract Bible verses to make their religions seem truly barbaric, just as they know that a sympathetic kind of extraction could hide some of the discomforting bits that our best theologians find ways of sequestering so that they aren't abused.
When I read the Quran itself in its entirety, I got a more holistic impression than either the hostile or sympathetic digests could offer. And the same would happen if a Muslim or Jew were to read all four gospels, or better yet the whole New Testament, just as it would if a Muslim or Christian read the Law and Prophets from start to finish, seeking not to find faults to pounce on and extract, but to learn. (Thankfully, the recent media frenzy has prompted many people to do just that.)
But even so, it's not enough to learn about and from one another's holy texts. A note from a Muslim friend in the Middle East made this clearer than ever to me this week. He was trying to calm some of his Muslim brothers about the threats of Quran-burning here in the U.S., and he said something like this to them:
Where does the Holy Quran really exist? If someone burns a copy, do your beliefs suddenly disappear from your mind and heart? Isn't the place where the Holy Quran truly resides in the minds and hearts of believers, not simply in words on a page?
Yes, the words on a page are important and should be respected, but what will happen when most of us read the Holy Quran in digital form on our laptops? Will it be an outrage for someone to hit delete? Couldn't this whole episode remind us that what matters most is not the words on paper but the message alive in our hearts? Could this be what God wants us to learn?
Whatever the Holy Quran says on paper about peace, if we are violent in the name of the Quran, doesn't that speak more loudly to the world about what we believe? And whatever the Bible says on paper about loving neighbors, strangers, and enemies, if Christians burn the Quran, doesn't that speak more loudly to the world than anything else?
My friend's wisdom explains why I say that beyond learning about and learning from one another's sacred texts, we need to learn how those texts are embodied in real people. We need to learn from people. And when we do, we will see that for every Christian who wants to burn Qurans, there are millions who would never do so, and for every Muslim who ... you get the point.
The most important translation of our texts is the translation into daily life -- in acts of kindness, generosity, courage, humility, justice, self-control, respect, reverence, fidelity, and compassion. If we stop burning texts and comparing "our best" with "their worst," we can start learning not only about each other, but with each other. And by God's grace, perhaps we can translate the best of our texts into our lives, communities, and world. That is my hope, my plea, my prayer.
Fla. pastor will 'not today, not ever' burn Quran - Yahoo! News
Pressure rises on pastor who wants to burn Quran - Yahoo! News
Florida pastor says he's 'rethinking" canceled Quran burning - CNN
STOP THE BURNING OF THE QURAN | Facebook
The Associated Press: Pastor cancels Quran-burning, then reconsiders
Now you are asking for blasphemy laws and political protection for religions. Religions do not have fundamental rights and dignity; only human beings have. Belief systems can not have.
1) the right to divorce her husband, Hindu Scripture forbid this
> If the wife files divorce papers unilaterallly, the husband will decapitate her, either in Pakistan or in India. As the owner of the Bridges TV did. Hindu law permits. Take the law and not the butcher knife.
(2) shares in the inherited property of her parents
> Fifty percent of what the son gets
(3) equality of opportunity to do trade and commerce in her own name
> Fully veiled and escorted by a close relative
(4) allowed widow remarriage, this is a sin in Hinduism
> Now widow remarriages more common among others.
(5) allowed women even to take part in wars supporting the fighting men
> This has happened even in Mahabharath days; now women form separate divisions and they are in commando units in India.
(6) to seek education and knowledge
> If Talibans and other fanatics do not bomb the schools
(7) to read the holy scripture and give interpretations, in Hinduism women are dirty and can not touch the scripture
> I wish it had been so; women would have made the rulings more humane and compassionate. The world would have been safer. Hey, In Hinduism we have godesses.
(8) to be the leaders in conducting prayers for other women.
> Why they can not lead prayers for men? They are unclean and majority of those who are in hell are women.
All these Islam gave 1400 years ago?
Nothing to boast.
> Name one country in the world where muslims have coexisted with community peacefully and productively, either as a majority or as a minority.
> Name one muslim country in the world where Islam tolerates others and has given equal space to them
> Islam is only a belief system and why should it remain poliotically protected, while remaining to be the greatest menace to the civilised world
> Why no reform has been attempted during the last 1400 years? Dr.Zakir Naik's claim that it is the perfect religion and no reforms are needed, is plain chicanery.
> I can understand the pain I cause in you when I criticise Islam; but that is a small issue, when my seccurity and the security of the future generations is threatened.
> Even now the objection to the mosque or minaret or bukha is only symbolic. If others force tthe issue, the results may be bloody.
In short it is a choice between the believers reforming the system or others use force to reform the system or others get subsumed by the barbarism. You may prefer but I want to avoid the third.
"Why not bring uniform civil code in Hinduism before pointing fingers at others."
Since you are in 7th century, you are unaware that Hindu civil code was passed in 1951. Uniform civil code for all communities can not be legislated because still muslims want to marry four wives; want to marry children brides; want to maintain slave girls; want fgm; want to keep the wives in house arrest in slavery conditions; want to keep them as children producing factories; want triple talaaq; want intermediate and muta marriages; in general refuse to move into 211st century.
Yet one more!!! This time in France. Read:
"The bomb threat, which followed France’s ban last week on the Muslim burka headdress, was being taken ‘extremely seriously’, said an interior ministry source.
Stop-and-search tactics were being used at all major transport hubs, including the Eurostar terminal, and British tourists and other visitors were warned to be on their guards.
‘Women have successfully carried out kamikaze attacks in other parts of the world, including the Middle East, and there is a great fear that one is planning such an atrocity in France,’ said the source.
‘Middle Eastern desert dress is often used to hide explosives in cases like this.
‘Everything possible is being done to find this woman before it’s too late.’
The ban on the Muslim face veil has prompted threats from radical Islamist groups including al-Qaeda."
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/841510-woman-threatens-france-with-suicide-bomb-attack-after-burka-ban
Do what we say or face violence. Good policy, keep it up.
There are violent passages in Lord of the Rings and most Tom Clancy novels but I would not compare those to the Koran, they are not quite as boring for a start. And they are also not used to justify violent acts of terror across the world.
We should not burn it, but we shouldn't be talked into thinking it's just lovely either.
Rubbish. It was an Hindu named Raja Ram Mohan Roy who got it abolished. Sati itself was the result of muslim invasion and the Quaran ordained ruling of kidnapping women and raping them. "Those captured in war, whom your right hand possesseth."
Yes. That is what muslims did in Afganistan when they burnt the books and the Buddhist monks.
Evidence,please.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.
Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
Sir Winston Churchill
(The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50, London: Churchill saw it coming.)
Yes. Equally important is that you do not go about burning churches and Christians.
Your claim was that kodmirpal should not burn churches and Christians implies that he or she is responsible for such acts.
All religions must respect each others feelings rather than they burning each others flags with the result that a vicious circle of offence, outrage and anger develop. If the conflict contimues this vicious circle of hatred will continue and we should not undeestimate how serious and tragic its long term effects might be in terms of vendetta, revenge and in some cases senseless terrorism causing the lives of innocent people.
It was the Jewsih poet Heinrich who said that people who start by burning books will end by burning people
We should also recognise that absolute docrines of freedom are themselves rigid. The West is developing an intellectual culture which has many marks of insensitivity and callousness. This has as much potential for cruelty as the talibans or the Al-Qaeda madness. Why do some activits give encouragement to those who claim a high and holy right to injure the most precious religious feelings of Muslims because some people will inevitably interpret this as a permission to injure Muslims.
Anyone who has read it in the original is forced to admit that this caution seems justified. No translation however faithful to the meaning has ever been fully successful.
Arabic when expertly used is a remarkably tense, rich and forceful language.
And the Arabic of the Quran is by turns, striking, soaring, vivid, terrible, tender and breathtaking.
As Prof Gibb has put it, “No man in 1500 years has ever played on that deep toned instrument with such power, such boldness and such range of emotional effect.”
It is meaningless to apply adjectives such as “beautiful” or “persuasive” to the Quran, its flashing images and inexorable measure go directly to the brain and intoxicate it. It is not surprising then, that a skilled recitor of the Quran can reduce an Arabic speaking audience to helpless tears.”
QUOTATION TAKEN FROM THE BOOK:
TITLE: Islam
AUTHOR: John Alden Williams ( a non-Muslim Arabic scholar)
PUBLISHER: Prentice Hall International, London 1961