John Grenier missed the point

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Apr 23, 2013 at 21:10

Dear Dr Pipes:

Your reader John Grenier raised a very valid point and his intentions are absolutely on the dot but he missed the whole point. John is trying to prove to himself that an Islamic state advocates equality of all faiths. Toward that goal John quotes the following opinion of many Islamic scholars: "The Quran further says whether it is (those who call themselves) the believers or the Jews or the Sabians or the Christians, if they believe in Allah and the day of judgement and do works which are (deemed) right (by Allah), they will have no fear and no grief[5]. http://quranicteachings.org/the-ultimate-goal-of-islam/".

Then John asks, "If the above is correct, than how do so many extremists find their justification in the Quran? Is it really an extremist view or is it the mainstream." I think John's question does not hold. The above opinion of the Islamic scholars is most likely true. And this opinion not only does not prohibit intolerance, most probably, it is the cause of intolerance. Let us explore. Look at the exceptions that it provides. What does it say about those who are not Jews or Christians (the poor pagans, Hindus, Buddhists and others)? And what about those Christians and Jews who "do works which are not deemed right by Allah"? They sure have something to fear. Right. Now who should they be afraid of? If it is left for Allah in the after life, it is probably fine. But if humans have to execute Allah's wish right here right now, we need to be very afraid. Because Allah for sure does not want to be challenged. But some of us (like Bertrand Russell, Salman Rushdie and many others) choose to challenge him and thus become worthy of an all point bulltin (fatwa) against us. Islamic doctrine is not alone in this kind of judgments. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism all have scriptures which prescribe the God's will for all of us. But these other religions emphasize on other things also.

For example, Judaims has a huge emphasis on righteousness. Christianisty has a huge emphasis on love and forgiveness. Hinduism proposes theory of Karma which mandates bad/good consequences for bad/good actions without the interference of God or other agents. Islam allows human beings to execute Allah's wish (an Islamic ruler is obligated to rule by his interpretation of the sharia) to a greater extant than other religions and that is the cause of the problem.

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