compare translations

Submitted by Abdul Rahman Reijerink (Australia), Jun 6, 2006 at 09:07

Dear Francis,

you think you know, but you don't.

Even many native arabic speakers think that they understand the Qur'an by virtue of the fact that it is written in "their" tongue. It is not. It is written in CLASSICAL arabic. when my wife (a non-arab) talks in arabic, native speakers can have serious difficulty understanding her, this is not because of her accent (very crisp clear and cosmopolitan), it is because she learnt Arabic from the Qur'an, an arabic they just don't speak, meanings of words have shifted as well as fashions in what words to use amongst other things.

I know without even asking which translation you got your "dirt" from, check the translation that brother Saladin (? my memory fails me sorry if it was someone else) gives, his rendering of "spouses of equal age" is more faithful to the meaning than "full breasted" tarts as you have been led to believe.

Also the drink is not some toxic (ie the medical meaning of the word) substance that inebriates.

Paradise is not some big frat party in the sky with an open bar and girls too drunk to know what they are doing.

Lastly, this is not an actual descrition of paradise, as paradise is part of the unseen and therefor incomprehensible to us, these stories are parables (you know like with Jesus AS) for simple folk. afterall the message is for everyone and needs to be conveyed in a way that all people can understand. ie message = paradise good, hell bad. Every verse has an apparent meaning and a deeper meaning for those endued ( the word most often used in translation) with the understanding (it says so in the Qur'an).

Francis you seem to have an obsession with sex. get over it.

You do not know the truth, so stop saying that you have the truth about my religion and that we have to own up and stop covering up. read some books written by Muslims for a change not just hate propagnda that is just plain ignorant. here is a tip for free, Allah tells us to look for the best meaning in the Qur'an, so if all you want to find is baseness, then that is what you will find. Ali RA said that if he lost his camel he would find it in the Qur'an. Just like the bible you can search for evidence to back up any ideas, this does not mean that you are being faithful to the authorial intent. Allah also says that the Qur'an leads some and misleads others, based on their intentions. It is a test in itself, to distinguish those who want to know Allah from those who claim to already do so like bin Laden and his religious similars and strangely enough, people like you.

If you read the Qur'an properly, as I try to do with the bible (which I read for divine guidance, not just to trash your faith), you might actually learn something instead of acting like a tape recorder (showing my age here)playing the same old tunes, which from reading your posts is what you seem to do. stop being so belligerant and listen to what we have to say about our religion, we are not just making excuses. the islamo-facists do not have a monoploy on how to interpret our texts, we like you oppose the ugliness they are bringing so sinfully into the world, do not emulate them by perpetuating the myths that we are so different and mutually exclusive. we are to take what is good and leave what is not.

peace be with you.

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