Word: qur'an
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Homework is usually controversial only for the students who have to do it. But this summer the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which customarily assigns a book to its incoming freshmen, chose Approaching the Qur'an, a set of heavily annotated excerpts from the Muslim Holy Writ. Chancellor James Moeser reportedly asked his trustees, "What could be more timely?" And what could be more predictable than the brouhaha that followed: the rumbling overture on Christian websites; the brassy solo by Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, who compared the assignment to having students read Hitler's Mein Kampf...
...Qur'an--Islam's holist book--talks about Jihad, which can be translated as "holy war." The term refers to the kinds of wars that took place between Muslims and Christians during the Crusades...
...surprising that a class full of mostly non-Muslims was familiar with the Qur'anic term. After all, Americans are taught about Islam in high school. They are taught that Muslims pray in a funny way and that the Muslim mission is Jihad. Of course, this leaves a lot of gaps--gaps that the American media eagerly fills...
...should not be necessary to remind America that when the Taleban destroyed the statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, they invoked an interpretation of the Qur'an that is insulting to Muslims and contrary to the fundamental tenets of Islam, which preaches tolerance for other religions: Let there be no compulsion in religion (2:256), Whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever does not will, let him disbelieve...
...should not be necessary to remind America that these beliefs were not only written in the Qur'an, but Muslims also practiced them. The most powerful Muslim empires to have existed--the Arab dynasties, Mughal India and the Ottoman empire--all allowed minority religions to flourish. Non-Muslims living in the Arab dynasties even reserved the right to be tried under their own religious laws--a feature not duplicated in any other system...