to Jason - re forest for the trees.

Submitted by Rashid (Canada), Mar 19, 2006 at 15:36

Jason,

I've read all your posts. And reread some. To tell you the truth, I couldn't come up with a clear idea of where you really stand on Islam, Judaism, Christianity, the holy books etc.., despite the clarity of your writing. You are literally all over the place, swinging back and forth almost reaching the two poles. It looked so strange to me that I thought maybe you are suffering from bouts of schizophrenia.

I wasn't going to challenge you on anything (no interest and no time) until I came across this of yours :

"""Secondly, be careful which non-Arabic translation you are using. A good example of mis-translation is the use of the word "Fight" in 9.29. The most appropriate word would be challenge or dispute, not fight. Most of the non-Arabic translations available in the West were done by people who had an agenda: portray Islam in the most negative way possible. Be careful of which translation you use"""

Either you don't know what you're talking about, or you are knowingly trying to push (sneak in) something false. And this puts you, in my eyes, in the same league as Bader et al..(may be you are one and the same).
The original Arabic in surah 9.29 is "KILL" (-un-e-qui-vo-cally). Almost every translation in the West, however, has already softened it, and has it as "FIGHT". And now you want to sweeten it even further and render it "Challenge or Dispute". And you speak of people having an agenda ! the gall !!

Now I know where you're coming from. This is no schizophrenia.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".