Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 01-11-2008, 01:26 PM

I have just learned of this:

Blogging the Qur'an

The Guardian has started project in which a believing, but not fundamentalist, Muslim "writer, broadcaster and cultural critic," Ziauddin Sardar, will spend a year blogging about the Qur'an. Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting will help frame the debate by posing the questions that non-Muslims have.

The first post is here:

The Qur'an and Me

The structure of the blog is a little hard to follow. Comments are collected and posted in groups.

Joan of Bark · 01-11-2008, 10:15 PM

I sent Mr. Sardar an e-mail in response to one of his points. Naturally, coming from me, it was TEGA-based.

Quote:

God has given us free will: we have freedom to do as we wish. We can become angels or embrace evil. It is our choice as human beings. So it is we who create evil by the choices we make. The problem, as I see it, is not why God does not intervene to prevent evil but why humans do not, and perhaps cannot, organise themselves to banish evil.

Yeah, we really should organize ourselves and do something about those earthquakes ...

You are guilty of using the common apologetic of practising Jews, Christians and Muslims. God is responsible for natural disasters and diseases. He is the one who has given us malaria, which tortures and kills a million young children a year. Yahweh/God/Allah gave us smallpox, which killed more people in the twentieth century than all the wars of Man in history. Add in influenza, polio, cholera, yellow fever, bubonic plague, AIDS and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and you have a litany of torture and mass murder which would make Hitler blush.

So I will ask you the question in a slightly different way. Why would a loving Allah inflict us with all these horrors?

Salam · 01-13-2008, 09:07 AM

I'd like to see discussion about some of the material covered in the blog.

Thanks Toto.

Dyz · 01-13-2008, 09:18 AM

Robert Spencer is also doing a Blogging the Quran for yet another viewpoint.

Joan of Bark · 01-19-2008, 10:09 PM

No response yet to my TEGA e-mail question. I'll check again on Monday.

The blog isn't laid out very well. I have difficulty determining who is saying what sometimes. The italics are over-used.

Salam · 02-10-2008, 06:38 AM

Here's a really good observation by Richard Kimber about the difference between the bible genesis and the Islamic genesis. I find it interesting.

Quote:

The reason can be seen in the Qur'anic version of Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise (eg sura 7, 19-25), which is a clever and deliberate reworking of the story as told in Genesis.

In Genesis, the blame for Adam and Eve's fall is placed squarely upon Eve, who is the first to be tempted and to succumb. When challenged by God with his disobedience, Adam in a distinctly ungentlemanly fashion pleads that Eve made him do it. Their subsequent expulsion from paradise is clearly represented as a punishment for their disobedience, with mankind henceforth condemned to labour in a harsh world for a living and womankind condemned to the labours of childbirth.

The Qur'an will have none of this. Adam and his partner (as she is referred to in the Qur'an, and not by any name) are both tempted together and both succumb together. Their reaction to being found out is radically different from that in Genesis, for both immediately repent and plead for forgiveness. The implication is clearly given that this forgiveness was forthcoming, underlining one of the Qur'an's most important themes that repentance is an open door to salvation. This does not prevent Adam and his partner from being expelled from paradise into the world, but the meaning of the expulsion is again radically changed, and again in order to stress a fundamental Qur'anic theme. The expulsion is no longer a punishment, for the two are forgiven and carry no sin with them into the world. It is, however, a test to which God has decided to put his human creatures, to see if from now until the last day they will remember with gratitude the one God who created them and provided for them, and refrain above all from setting up false gods beside him.

This test is just a test, and not a trial. The world as represented in the Qur'an is not a hard environment but on the contrary is generously furnished by a benign creator with everything humankind requires for its survival and comfort. This very suitability of the world for human existence is indeed one of the Qur'an's repeated proofs for the existence of God. Humankind, in other words, is not to be tested with hardship but with prosperity, the test being whether they remember that their prosperity was the gift of a generous God and not the fruit of their own merits and industry. Here lies perhaps the principal theme of the Qur'an, that all God really requires of humankind is acknowledgement and gratitude. That is the essence of belief. The basic meaning of "kufr", conventionally translated as unbelief, is ingratitude, the denial of favour given.

The Qur'an makes it plain that God has no wish to see humankind fail the test, though an exasperating series of dismal failures on their part is another major Qur'anic theme. God never expected them to find their own way to salvation in the world, but on the contrary provided Adam and his partner from the start with all the guidance they needed. Even when later generations still managed to go astray, God's first response was always to send further guidance and reminders in the persons of his prophets.

The radically egalitarian sense of the Qur'anic story of the expulsion from paradise was evidently - one might say unfortunately - lost on the early commentators. Clearly well versed in the Genesis story, they solemnly wrote back the account of Eve's culpability into their amplifications of the text. That is why the qualification given above, "so far as the Qur'an is concerned", is necessary. I do not know to what degree Muslims today are influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by this interpretative tradition as opposed to the text itself. It would be an interesting exercise to ask ordinary Muslims what they intuitively understand to have happened in paradise. Perhaps Mr Sardar could give us some insight in this respect.

Best wishes
Richard Kimber

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/quran/20...our_say_9.html

01-11-2008, 01:26 PM	#1
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Blogging the Qur'an I have just learned of this: Blogging the Qur'an The Guardian has started project in which a believing, but not fundamentalist, Muslim "writer, broadcaster and cultural critic," Ziauddin Sardar, will spend a year blogging about the Qur'an. Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting will help frame the debate by posing the questions that non-Muslims have. The first post is here: The Qur'an and Me The structure of the blog is a little hard to follow. Comments are collected and posted in groups.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-13-2008, 09:07 AM	#3
Salam Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Saudi Arabia Posts: 440	I'd like to see discussion about some of the material covered in the blog. Thanks Toto.

01-13-2008, 09:18 AM	#4
Dyz Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Onthebrink Posts: 32	Robert Spencer is also doing a Blogging the Quran for yet another viewpoint.

01-19-2008, 10:09 PM	#5
Joan of Bark Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Pua, in northern Thailand Posts: 2,823	No response yet to my TEGA e-mail question. I'll check again on Monday. The blog isn't laid out very well. I have difficulty determining who is saying what sometimes. The italics are over-used.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.