In response to Graham Spence

Submitted by Saminah A. (United States), May 3, 2003 at 21:29

We do not alter our Holy Book to suit whomever we meet like the Bible. You are in effect asking us to twist the Quran just as the terrorists have twisted it. The Quran cannot be changed simply because we are not the authors.

As for the verses you have quoted, all I can say that will fit here is that to quote them without an understanding of the historical context in which they belong is very misleading to the general population that reads your comments, something which I am sure you would never do.

The Quran and Islam is a way of life. Life includes love, peace, happiness but also hate, violence, and death. The Quran addresses all these issues. You readily quoted the pieces on violence, but you conveniently forgot the ones on peace and love, which comprise the vast majority of verses in the Quran.

As for the Jewish question, Jews and the more dominant idol-worshippers that were present at the time the Quran was revealed made several attempts on the life of the Prophet and generally made life literally a living hell for the adherents of the new religion of Islam. These are the people the Quran addresses in these verses. To say that the Quran tells Muslims to kill the Jews of today is making the same grave mistake as the terrorists.

I am a Muslim, but I do not find it necessary to condemn terrorism just because you tell me to. Terrorists are not my responsibility, anymore than McVeigh is the responsibility of Christians or Irish Americans, or the KKK the responsibility of every American from the deep South. I will condemn terrorism because it endorses the killing of innocent people, but I will not condemn Islam because some twisted people have developed a mutated ideology from it and its teachings.

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