Word: koran
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...Alliance also points to schools like the one in Yang-e-Qale, a remote hamlet a half-hour's jeep ride from Khoja Bahauddin, as proof that it promotes women's rights. More than 50 veiled girls crowd the Yang-e-Qale school's first-grade class, reading the Koran. But in the eighth-grade class, only 12 students sit at the desks, their burkas hanging on hooks in the back of their classroom. Many parents believe a couple of years' education is all their daughters need to become good housewives. Other girls in the area attend classes only because...
...wars of the early caliphate that saw the Muslim Empire spread from Persia to Morocco. But, there is no call in the religion for a “glad heart” in war, as Douthat claims, no “war-like spirit.” The Koran proclaims fighting to be a grave sin, exceeded and justified only by the graver evil of oppression and tyranny...
...Koran declares that if a non-Muslim group is at peace with the Muslim community, then the Muslims should treat them with justice and kindness. Douthat insinuates that the Prophet’s example declares “irrevocable enmity” between Muslims and non-Muslims. Yet all evidence speaks to the contrary. Consider for example, the Charter of Privileges to the monks of the St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai, in which the Prophet swears to “hold out against anything that displeases them” and promises that Muslims shall defend the monks. Property...
...injunction to “slay...the unbelievers” that Douthat cites regarding violence against non-Muslims is not to be found in the Koran. This quotation is a pure fabrication—the writing of an artifical “Koran” to support a flawed argument. Although Douthat did not make this error intentionally, his failure to check his sources on such a fundamental matter results in misinformation and bad journalism. However, reading these verses in these terms would make sense if and only if the rest of the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet...
Verses of the Koran cannot be decontextualized or interpreted independent of the entire tradition. For 14 centuries, scholars of the religion have perfected a science of Islamic jurisprudence that is both elaborate and subtle. Yet both Douthat and bin Laden ignore contexts, misquote texts and elaborate as they will without any respect for a tradition that is both developed and tested...