This is for those who follow the God of Abraham and use the Koran,
Old Testament and/or New Testament – the texts that are to be the ‘Word of God’. To those who defend those books, they are as
beautiful as you say… in parts; to those who criticize those books, they are as
wicked as you say… in parts. If isolated
verses are looked at, they can be either beautiful or horrid; if we bring
context, the stories will still be beautiful or horrid, though possibly in
different ways and for different reasons.
‘You who believe’, is a sentiment oft repeated in both the Holy
Bible and Koran (for example Mark 11:23
& Ephesians 1:13, and The Women 4:59 & Iron 57:28, among other examples for
each). Who you are as an individual is
not what is in the books; however, when you look at the books and their verses,
individually and contextually, which parts you focus upon will show how you believe to make you who you are. How you believe is a crucial question for we
are not referring to a superficial level (not just taking the title of
Christian of Muslim, for those terms are amorphous, having multiple schisms
within Christianity and Islam, such as Protestant/Catholic & Sunni/Shia),
but at your base where your daily actions and interpretations of life events,
emerge from and actions are based. How
do you live your life according to the Holy Book you hold?
This will be a non-exhaustive review – it will be enough to
show the issue.
Verses taken individually:
[Bible] 1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another; for
love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth God; for God is
love.
[Koran] The
Disbelievers 109:1-6 Say, ‘O Disbelievers,
I do not worship what you worship. Nor
are you worshippers of what I worship.
Nor will I be a worshipper of what you worship. For you is your religion, and for me is my
religion.’
[Bible] Luke 14:26
If any man come to me, and hate not his father,
and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple.
[Koran] The
Repentance 9:123 O you who have
believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in
you harshness. And know that Allah is
with the righteous.
Individual lines provide very little outside of being
support for what one already believes – ways of ‘preaching to the choir’. Lines without context are meaningless when
the verses are to be critically reviewed.
Context is crucial for without it, any sinner can sound a saint and any
saint a sinner. What constitutes a saint
and a sinner is a topic for another discussion, but for this point we’ll just
say they are dichotomous. A final point
on context: what context are we referring to?
There is the context within the work itself – how does the verse align
or contrast to other verses within the same book; there is the context of the
environment that the work was written – what was the socio-political situation
that the author(s) was (were) living in at the time the work was written.
[Bible] Matthew 5:21
Ye have heard that it was said of old
time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the
judgment (referring to the Commandment Exodus
20:13).
[Koran] The Table Spread 5:32 (a segment often
gets quoted) …whoever kills a soul unless
for a soul of for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain
mankind entirely. And whoever saves one
– it is as if he has saved mankind entirely.
Whether looking at a verse from the Bible or the Koran, both
state – when viewed out of context – the prohibition of killing other
people. However, books are more than
just selected verses and more can be understood when verses in question are
compared to other verses. When context
is applied, definition of who constitutes a person that should not be killed
emerges, as well as who should be
killed and for what reasons. Both the
Bible and Koran were not using the prohibition against killing universally.
The admonition in biblical context: (leaving aside the
textual criticism of whether it was ‘thou shalt not kill any living thing, for
all life is given to all by God…’, or ‘Thou shalt not kill’, or ‘Thou shalt not
murder’) will show that the application of the law was not universally
held. Moses had killed every male and
female who had known a man, when taking over the Midianites (Numbers 31: 17-18); Joshua was quite prolific (Chapters 12 & 13) in the amount of
killing done in service of God, for those people were not God’s chosen people, and
were in the lands ‘God had given’ to His people. Furthermore, even the chosen people could be
killed if not acting appropriately – Jesus himself even said as much. When confronted by the Pharisees in Matthew 15 about which is more
important – following the law of men or of God – Jesus specifically references Exodus 21:17 that children who are
disrespectful to their parents are to be put to death (Matthew 15:4). Here Jesus not
only stated that disrespectful children are to be killed – there is no
rejection, but on the contrary it is an example of what is to be followed. There is also in Jesus’ Parable of the 10
Minas, a call for those who worship improperly to be ‘killed at his feet’ (Luke 19:11-27).
Some may say that Jesus had two commandments (Matthew 22): 1) to love God with your
whole heart, soul and mind; 2) love thy neighbor as thyself. However, these were to be summaries of the
rest of the law, for the complexity of God’s law cannot be so nicely
succinct. Jesus was not changing the
law: he was a Jew who knew Jewish law and scripture, and wanted to see it
implemented properly. In Matthew 5:17 he said: Think not that I am come to destroy the
law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but fulfill. To fulfill the old law of God means ‘the
others’ [non-chosen people] could be killed, as could those who were not
properly following the law. Some may
reference John 8 with the woman
caught in adultery who was to be stoned, and Jesus’ challenge of ‘he who is
without sin cast the first stone (8:7),
to which no one casts a stone and Jesus says ‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more’ (11).
The problem with this [delving into textual criticism briefly] is that
this was a later addition to the gospel – was not originally in the bible; it
still is in conflict with numerous other sections of the bible.
There is also in the biblical context the apostle
[proselytizer] Paul who was instrumental in setting the early Christian
traditions. In one of his letters Paul
writes about improper worship, apostasy, homosexuality or false attribution of
the divine to the profane (Romans
1:19-32) ‘that they which commit such
things are worthy of death...’ This
is just more of either not-the-chosen people or not acting appropriately and
deserving death.
The admonition in the Koranic context, but first we should
review the whole verse [The Table Spread
5:32] which reads: Because of that,
We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul
of for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind
entirely. And whoever saves one – it is
as if he has saved mankind entirely. And
our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that,
throughout the land, were transgressors.
Just by adding the full verse, the universality associated
with the segment can be seen to be no longer valid. It is in fact no longer a poetic passage of
peace among men seeking equality and justice, but quite the contrary: it is a
warning. The warning is carried over
through the following verse 5:33 where
it says: Indeed, the penalty for those
who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon the earth [to
cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their
hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the
land. That is for them a disgrace in
this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.
The full verse of 5:32 when paired with 5:33 is saying to the Jews [Children of
Israel] not to ‘cause corruption’ [create apostates of the Islamic faith], for
that is punishable by mutilation or death.
That there are acceptable times to kill someone is echoed in The Cow 2:217 where during the sacred
month where there was to be no violence, Muhammad had followers conduct a raid
whereby one man was killed; Muhammad had a revelation that even though the
killing was during the sacred time where such violence was offensive, the
greater offense was and is the interference with proper Islamic faith
(including being a resource for the primary one who interferes), so even during
the sacred time, murder was justified. Though
in the order of the Koran, both The Cow and The Table Spread are toward the
beginning, chronologically they are books from Muhammad’s Medina [later] works.
In both books, there are also examples of how to treat women
and equality. In the Bible, there is Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there
is neither male nor female: fore ye are all one in Christ Jesus. While in the Koran there is The Bee 16:97 Whoever does righteousness, whether male or female, while he is a
believer – We will surely cause him to life a good life, and We will surely
give them their reward [in the Hereafter] according to the best of what they used
to do.
However, there are verses in other parts in both books where
such equality mentioned in one spot is contradicted. Such as in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 Let
your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to
speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them
ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. In 1
Corinthians Chapter 11, Paul states that as Christ is the head of every
man, so every man is the head of his wife.
In 1 Corinthians 11:5 Paul wrote
about equality with women praying and prophesizing, while still having it noted
as not equal in verse 8 that women
are still to be subservient ‘For the man
is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.’ Later in the New Testament 1 Timothy 2:11-12 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to
usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
In the Koran, men have a higher degree of responsibility and
authority over women in The Cow 2:228,
which can be further exemplified later in the same book in 2:282 where the testimony of a woman is worth half the testimony of
a man; the woman being worth (or deserving) half of a man is in The Women 4:11 with respect to inheritance. To take the role of the woman to an even
lower status, there is the wife who is to submit sexually whenever her husband
wants sex for she is a ‘field to plow’ (The
Cow 2:223), and how absurd it is
to believe sublime beings such as angels could have feminine names, according
to The Star 53:27.
Both books treat women as lesser beings in that polygamy
(multiple wives for a husband; not vice versa) is acceptable, as is taking
female slaves [for sex]. The bible has
numerous figures with multiple wives (and concubines): from a couple wives such
as with Esau, Jacob, Gideon, all the way up to Solomon who had seven hundred
wives and three hundred concubines as stated in 1 Kings 11:3. Moses, held up
as an exemplar in all Abrahamic faiths, conquered, slaughtered the survivors
and then took the female virgins as slaves for his soldiers in the book of Numbers 31. (some may argue that it was not as sex
slaves, but slaves in general – then why only female virgins? – if the girls
were to be slaves for manual labor, wouldn’t males and experienced/older women
be better?). In the Koran, there is The Women 4:3 And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphan girls, then
marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just,
then [marry only] one or those your right hand possesses [slave]. That is more suitable that you may not
incline [to injustice]. (Muhammad
was allowed to exceed the limit of four).
In The Prohibition 66:5 Perhaps his Lord, if he divorced you [all],
would substitute for him wives better than you – submitting [to Allah],
believing, devoutly obedient, repentant, worshipping, and traveling – [ones]
previously married and virgins.
These are just a few examples that both books have parts
that are both beautiful and horrific.
When looking at the work in full, just as when we review anything, judge
anyone, we take the totality and balance it giving certain aspects or
characteristics weights, and some parts weigh heavier than others. That a man was a loving father and donated
spare time to entertain children, does that make John Wayne Gacy any less of a
murderer? – the murderer aspect outweighs the others. It is the equivalent of saying ‘outside of
the lies, he’s so honest’. There is also
the time where we may separate the wheat from the chaff, and that is never more
important than with books such as these.
Are the Bible and Koran books of beauty expressing spiritual
ways of humanity coming together, or are they books justifying slaughter,
oppression, division and tyranny? The
answer is yes to both.
Biblically: Are we to love our enemies, not just those who
love us back (Matthew 5:44-46)? – or
are we to forsake the nonbelievers, and to even wish them well in life is equated
to committing their evil (2 John 1:9-11)?
Are we to obey the government/State/King for members of the
State are sent by God to direct punishment of evildoers (1 Peter 2:13-14; Romans
13:1-4)? – or are we to rebel against the government for not being aligned
with God (Acts 5:29; end times with Revelations 2)? What is it exactly to ‘render unto Caesar
what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s (Matthew 22:21)?
Returning to the Koran, is there to no compulsion in religion (The Cow 2:256)? – or are we all directed in our life paths (with or
without the correct faith) as Allah ‘guides whom He wills’. But you shall certainly be called to account
for what you used to do (The Bee 16:93)?
(if we act how Allah wills, how can we be held accountable for what we used to
do if we were not the agents of those actions?)
Are we to see those of other faiths and let them continue on their paths
(even if erroneous) for only God/Allah can judge and set proper punishment in
the hereafter (The Cave 18:29; The
Wind-Curved Sandhills 46:8-10)? – or are disbelievers our sworn enemies,
who should be made war with, strike off their heads for those who follow
Muhammad are ruthless to the infidels (The
Women 4:101; The Repentance 9:123; Muhammad 14:4; The Victory 48:29)?
Whichever verse you use to justify your beliefs will make
you correct and faithful to your Holy book.
Whether you are trying to justify oppressing women or equality with
them, you will find it in your Holy Book.
Whether you are trying to justify condemning others or being tolerant
toward whichever group constitutes the others, you will find it in your Holy
Book. For as reviewed briefly here (for
there is much more in both books), both books have beautiful and grotesque
passages. It does take greater work with
selective editing to focus on the beautiful parts than the grotesque, but it
can be done and doing so leaves little wheat for all the chaff. This brings us to the final part: what is in
the book versus what you take from your Holy Book.
Do you follow the laws put forth in the Bible and Koran? –
not just the notable 10 Commandments and 5 Pillars, but the other laws and
foundational aspects that though they do not get the same focus, are decrees
from God/Allah nonetheless. If you say
you follow the divinely handed down laws, then these nondescript laws are to be
followed as well, for they were decreed.
If you do not follow them, then you are either seeing them as invalid
and not truly as divine laws which would have to place the same suspicion upon
the foundational aspects, or just to recognize that you are breaking
God’s/Allah’s laws.
[Bible] Returning to the law to be not changed until fulfilled, do
you focus on the law of Leviticus 24:20
of ‘eye for an eye,’ or follow Matthew
5:39 and ‘turn the other cheek’?
[Koran] With women, is it two emerging from a single soul mentioned in The Women 4:1 or are women to be kept
hidden behind veils and cloaks as in The
Clans 33:50-59? If you do not know
the history of it all, you have to take the text as it is and this is what it
says: spiritual ways of ‘having your cake and eating it too’.
Do you stone homosexuals? – adulterers? Do you wear mixed fabrics? Do you keep near (or not remove yourself if
you are the affected one) menstruating women, instead of keeping the required
distance and cleaning all touched things appropriately? Do you behead apostates and smite the necks
of infidels? Each one of these is a
decree from God/Allah. If you are not
killing the abominations, infidels, shunning ‘dirty’ women and following the
other laws that are listed in the Old Testament and Koran, why not?
If your answer is ‘I didn’t know’, well, now you do and
ignorance is no longer an excuse.
For those who follow the Bible, do you see the nullification
of the law as mentioned in Ephesians
2:15 Having abolished in his flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make
in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. But that is a letter from Paul, a follower
(one who converted years after Christ’s crucifixion); Jesus Christ himself, as
aforementioned, said in Matthew 5:17
that he did not come to change the law, but more as he continued in Matthew 5:18-19 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosever shall do and teach them, the same shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven.
What is the ultimate fulfillment of Christ? – Christ’s return as is said
in numerous places throughout the New Testament: John 14:3 And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also; Hebrews
9:28 So Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the
second time without sin unto salvation; amount numerous other verses. And you must take it at its [His] word for 1 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation. Who would be the one
that should be listened to more: the Son of God/Man, or a follower? – the Son
said there would be no change ‘till all be fulfilled’ and there is more to
come, so the law would not have changed.
For those who follow the Koran, along with some of the
contradictions already mentioned, there is the issue of abrogation whereby an
earlier verse is overridden by a later, updated verse. The
Cow 2:106 We do not abrogate a verse
or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or
similar to it. Do you not know that
Allah is over all things competent? Similarly,
The Night Journey 17:86 And if We willed, We could surely do away
with that which We revealed to you. Then
you would not find for yourself concerning it an advocate against Us. Though there are some followers who say there
are no abrogated verses, as the principle of what is said is not to have
changed inasmuch the example used in different times had been changed to make
the same point. Others say there is no
abrogation within the Koran against the Koran, and the abrogation is referring
to the Bible and Torah being abrogated by the Koran. The Old Testament with its patriarchs is also
the inspired word of Allah, it is just in its current form modified from
repeated copying. In any case – and
regardless if there was an actual abrogation or not – there are verses that
contradict one another between the Bible and the Koran, and within the Koran
itself.
Jews and Christians are fellow ‘people of the book’ for they
follow the Old Testament; Old Testament laws are still in effect, and Jesus as
a prophet (not the prophet and not
the Son of God) provided inspired words of Allah. [Koran]The
Cow 2:87 And We did certainly give
Moses the Torah and followed up after him with messengers. And We gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear
proofs and supported him with the Pure Spirit.
But is it [not] that every time a messenger came to you, [O Children of
Israel], with what your souls did not desire, you were arrogant? And a party [of messengers] you denied and
another party you killed.
In the Old Testament, the law of Moses had adulterers to be
stoned to death (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22); however, in the New
Testament, Jesus with the woman caught in adultery in John 8, called for the punishment not to be stoning to death, but
forgiveness. In the Koran, Muhammad
stated in The Light 24:2 that
adulterers are to be given each 100 lashes – without pity, and with witnesses. That is amongst the different Holy books that
have been inspired by God/Allah. There
are contradictions within the Koran itself.
Contrary to the Bismillah [repeated saying throughout the Koran of Allah
the most merciful and compassionate] and verses like The Women 4:110 And whoever
does a wrong or wrongs himself but then seeks forgiveness of Allah will find
Allah Forgiving and Merciful, but later on in the same book is 4:168 Indeed, those who disbelieve and commit wrong [or injustice] – never
will Allah forgive them, nor will He guide them to a path. Additionally, in contradiction to do (The Bee 16:93) stating that all things
are done according to how Allah wills, we have The Romans 30:26 that states And
to Him belongs whoever is in the heavens and earth. All are to Him devoutly obedient, while The Cow 2:34 states And [mention] when We said to the angels,
“Prostrate before Adam”; so they prostrated, except for Iblees [Satan]. He refused and was arrogant and became of the
disbelievers.
The Koran, as the Old Testament [and implied in the New
Testament for Jesus to not change but fulfill the law] states that homosexuals
are to be executed. As following the
same book of laws in these divinely inspired books, that means no mixed
fabrics, shellfish. Furthermore,
witchcraft and sorcery (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 13:5; 1 Samuel
28:9) are reasons for executing someone, and unbelievers are to be killed (The Cow 2:216; The Women 4:74; The Spoils
of War 8:39, among many other verses).
But do not be fooled into thinking that ‘people of the book’ are to be
spared, for ultimately they are not; the Bible, written before the Koran is not
recognized as the final word of God. Christians
altogether follow a false god in deifying a prophet (equating Christ with God),
while Muslims can find verses that reduce other people of the book as other
nonbelievers who are to be killed, such as The
Repentance 9:30 The Jews say, “Ezra
is the son of Allah”; and the Christians say, “The Messiah is the son of
Allah.” That is their statement from
their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before
them]. May Allah destroy them; how are
they deluded?
One more point of contention regarding the ‘Word of God’ in
the Holy Books: are they the inerrant word of God? Though Muhammad was to have received his
revelations from the angel Gabriel, but as an illiterate, did Muhammad actually
write the words? – he had scribes write his other documents, and there is no
evidence he physically wrote the verses of the Koran. Were the words transcribed correctly? Even if it is granted that Muhammad wrote the
actual words, in the Hadith of Bukhari 1:2,
as stated by Muhammad’s favorite wife Aisha (the
mother of the faithful believers) Al-Harith bin Hisham asked Allah's Apostle
"O Allah's Apostle! How is the Divine Inspiration revealed to you?"
Allah's Apostle replied, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a
bell, this form of Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state passes
off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes the Angel comes in the
form of a man and talks to me and I grasp whatever he says." 'Aisha added:
Verily I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed
the Sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over). However, The
Heights 7:184 states that Muhammad is a ‘clear warner.’ This brings us to the Satanic Verses, where
Muhammad first had a revelation in The
Star 53:18-23 where the worship of the three goddesses [the three birds]
would be allowed; later this revelation was deemed to have been Satan giving a
false revelation and a new revelation was given which rejected the three
goddesses.
With the Koran we have an issue with who actually may have
written the text, for it was likely not Muhammad. Even if it was granted that he did write the
text, some revelations came with inspired words which were the ‘hardest’ and revealed
like a ringing of a bell. Or, it could
be instead, the words of Satan trying to deceive. With the Bible we have first and foremost no
original documents to verify what is read today matches the source [original
inspiration] material, which will never be found for the stories were
originally relayed by oral tradition. As
far as what we have today in Biblical texts, there are dozens of different
versions of ‘God’s inerrant Word’ and though some differences are minor, there
are some such as Exodus 32:14 where
the difference is substantial, for did God relent,
as in ease up in his wrath (NIV), or
did he repent, as in show signs of
contrition for acting wrongly (KJV)? The difference is not insignificant. Both Holy Books (Bible and Koran) were
affected by circumstances in which they are written – which would require books
to review (some have been written, see Bart Ehrman, Karen Armstrong, Robert
Spencer, among others).
So with all the aforementioned we again must ask: are you
for stoning homosexuals, whipping adulterers (or stoning if not Muslim)? – do
you see genocide as just, as long as your side wins? – is slavery acceptable? –
killing apostates? Both the Bible and
Koran condone each of these examples.
Are you for letting each person follow their own life path? –
forgiveness? – equality? Both the Bible
and Koran embrace these facets – though you must be a little more selective and
narrowing in getting these, but they are there.
Across the planet, across the centuries, those who carry
their respective Holy Books from their Gods of Love, Mercy and Peace, have
slaughtered those who had been deemed ‘the other’ as in ‘not with my faith’;
however, politics is also involved, but it also must be kept in mind that there
is little to no distinction between church/mosque and State for those who use
bloodshed to achieve their ends. To call
a territory a Holy Land is to blend the spiritual favoritism with material
acquisition – vesting one’s interest both in spirit and in body. Holy books grant a final license to act
against someone else by giving it not just a pragmatic base, but a moral one –
it isn’t just about resources, but good-vs-evil at a metaphysical level (even
though they act the same, they do so to a different deity). People both slaughter others, and come to the
defense of others, with an understanding it (persecution and protection) is
said to come from their Holy books.
But they, as yourself for you who believe and yet do not
stone, flog, or behead someone for not adhering to dogmas of faith – do you do
it because your book says to act in a way (for it says to act in more ways than
one) or when you see the verse that it’s okay for a father to sell his daughter
into slavery, and when a slave has children they become slaves as well [Bible] (Exodus 21:4-7) or beat a slave (Exodus 21:20) and that one way to free
a slave is by one sharing the same faith and waiting for you to accidentally
kill another believer [Koran] (The Women 4:92)? And if you say ‘that was the context of the
time’, how do you respond to: contextually it was acceptable then? Or do you have a sense brewing in you – if reason
has not fully brought to awareness – that the punishments, the killing and
slavery mentioned in both – though historically may have been accepted at the
time committed – is not [ever] an actual moral way of acting? That these were really examples of primate and
tribal man without any real understanding of life and not generally concerned
about rights of others?
In one way or another, it does come down to rejecting part
of your Holy Book. Which will it be? –
the part which you hold and which you let go. Will you hold onto the sexism, homophobia, the
genocidal unreason listed in the pages as you accept the dogma at face value,
or will you see the text as primitive man’s attempt to understand the world –
and that the Holy Books are creations of man – his imperfect attempts to trying
to find perfection through the limits of his understanding in the culture and
world in which he lived.
How you read the books and live your life says more about
who you are, not about the books you hold.
Which one means more to you? How
will you live your life according to what the books say? That is your belief (you as an individual) in
action.
