response to Kat & Mike by reader Daisy

Submitted by Mike (United States), Feb 1, 2007 at 20:00

Note:

a) Some verses in Koran discussing admission of women to paradise:

48:5, 57:12, 33:35

b)verse punishing those who falsely accuse women: 24:4

c) verse prohibiting the mocking of women: 49:11

d) Muhammad's hadith saying : "The best of you is he who is best to his wife"

Your statement that "Islam has been a militant movement since its inception" is false. For over 9 years the early Muslims were persecuted and brutalized in Mecca but, even though their ranks came to include some fierce warriors, the affect of Islam on them was not to inflame their violent propensities but rather to cause them to restrain themselves from retaliation in kind. Every verse in the Koran has a historical context in which it was revealed. Unless a person combines their reading of the Koran with a knowledge of the history of the Muslims during the 23 years over which the Koran was revealed they will misunderstand the message of the Koran again and again. No sincere and impartial student of history can deny the miraculous transformation brought about in Arab society by Islam and the Koran. It is sheer folly to think that this miracle could be caused by a book which does not contain great substance.If Islam were about military conquest and oppression then Muhammad"s conquest of Mecca with 10000 Muslims would have included one of the greatest slaughters in history,but how did he treat his enemies who had been responsible for the slaying and oppression of his relatives and fellow Muslims?While we are at it ,we might ponder the relative moral superiority of Muhammad verses the president who gave the order to drop the second atomic bomb on Japan when the first one had already killed over 200000 men, women, and chidren and guaranteed a surrender.

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