From: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed A Khan)
Subject: Re: CALL OF THE QUR'AN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
Reply-To: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed A Khan)
Organization: Iowa State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 02:17:07 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.175941@IASTATE.EDU>, porayath@IASTATE.EDU (Rajiv Porayath)
writes:
>     > ===============================
> >  irfan@maxwell.ece.wisc.edu (Irfan Alan) writes:
> > 
> > >THE CALL OF THE QUR'AN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK   
> > >(Especially for Christians)
> > >STATEMENT OF INTENTION
> > >
> > >"Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful
instruction;
> > >and reason with them in ways that are best and most gracious:"  
> >      ------
> > >(Qur'an 16:125)
> > 
> > 
> > 	 Sir, what is your "reason?"
> > 	 And, what is your message?
> > 	 Are you certain, that you are in the right newsgroups? 
> > 	 Life, and therefore time, is precious. So, be brief.
> > 
> > 
> > >Ship Example:
> > >-------------
> > >We, Muslims, are told by Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (ASM), that a time
will
> > >come when Christians will eventually join the ranks of Islam by purifying 
> > >their faith.  We are also told in the Most-Wise Qur'an 
> > >that the closest people to
> > >Muslims in friendship will be those Christians who are devoted to learning
> of
> > >the truth, who are not arrogant, and who have denounced the world.  With
> these
> > >information and guidance in mind, we regard 
> > >our Christian friends as travelling
> > >in a ship called "Christianity" in the dark, stormy waters of Western
> > >materialist ideologies and atheism.  However, we see 
> > >that this ship is sinking,
> > >and groups of people are committing suicide by jumping out into those dark
> > >waters.  The ship is sinking because some people inside have been opening
up
> > >holes in it out of their own various reasons, and because secular
> philosophies
> > >outside have been torpedoing it harshly.  We, Muslims, do not want to sink
> the
> > >ship, rather we want to patch up its holes, throw away all the poisonous
> > >weights in it, and change its name to Islam, whose captain will be Jesus
> (AS)
> > >himself, InsaAllah Teala!  . The Message of All Prophets
> > > were all same:  'There is no god but Allah.'
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       Is this not ironical that muslims can ridicule other religions and it 
                                  ^^^^^^^^
> is OKAY,but " Satanical Verses" which is classified as a friction earns the
> author a death penalty.Who is uncivilised and barbaric,hope the Koran did not
> teach you to be so.
> 
> 
> -RAJIV PORAYATH



Gross generalisation Sir! :)

The author of the article you have quoted is only giving his opinion and even he
is
guilty of generalising to all muslims much of what is his own interpretation.
But the opinion which a lot of muslims appear to have is based on the verses
from the Quran
which have been interpreted to mean that Christ was a prophet like
Muhammad,Moses and
very possibly many others who were chosen by God to spread the message of his
will on
the peoples of the earth. Christ is believed by muslims to be merely a prophet
like
Muhammad and had no divinity associated with him to give him a position higher
than any
other human being. Hence the controversy, at least as far as Muslims are
concerned, 
about ascribing any divinity to Christ. Muslims are required to believe that
Christ was
a prophet but nothing more as is the case with Muhammad and hence are supposed
to have
the same respect for Christ or any other prophet as they have for Muhammad. 


In the case of Satanic verses, Salman Rushdie was accused by many muslims to
have intentionally libeled Muhammad and his family behind the shield of freedom
of speech
and fiction. They may be right or wrong but have every right to protest
non-violently
and under law just as Rushdie has a right to fight for his right of free
speech.
Only a court of law could decide whether any one party was wronged. 

As far as the death penalty goes Khomeni was wrong in calling for it and condemn
him
and others like him.

 
But judging from the extreme reactions generated from the rest of the non-muslim
world
to this sentence, its pretty apparent that even they have limits on freedom of
speech.
Its pretty clear that the so called free civilised world has limits on what is
acceptable behaviour; its just that there a divergence of views on what
constitutes 
these limits.

--Javed.
  
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan