Is it alright for a Catholic (or any Christian really) to read the Koran?

[Publisher]

Originally Posted by nickybr38

You are right. If you have truth, other religions shouldn't make you afraid. The truth will prevail.

Although in all honesty I don't really see the point of reading other religious texts unless you're into studying other religions and/or active in the apologist field. But if you're just curious I don't see why it would hurt.

For me, I enjoy reading other scriptures from various traditions...it helps me understand how others approach and understand the Eternal....thereby assisting me in gaining a better understanding of why it is that I believe the things I do..

[ZhaneAugustine]

I had a copy once. I also had many copies of holy books from different religions too.

If you have odd feelings that reading it is a danger to your faith I'd say take a break, learn about Islam from some Catholic sources... learning a bit of your faith as well, then return to reading it.

I found a lot I liked in the book Tao Te ching (maybe thats not right?) the Daoist holy book. Though a good deal I didn't either. Mainly bevause I had studied what the early fathers had written, knew a good deal of what the Bible said, and prayed.

Just pray, take time, and trust in God's will.

[sparrowhawk28]

Originally Posted by Bezant

We all agree in my opinion that He exists, he makes covenants with people in varying exclusivity, and these covenants tell the true story of how the world is and should be.

That's a good way of looking at it.

Originally Posted by Publisher

For me, I enjoy reading other scriptures from various traditions...it helps me understand how others approach and understand the Eternal....thereby assisting me in gaining a better understanding of why it is that I believe the things I do..

Thank you for your reply. I'm interested in learning how people of other faiths understand and worship God, and the Koran has so far provided me with some insight into the Muslim approach. I'm interested in what you say about gaining a better understanding of why we believe the things we do - I'd like to experience that

Originally Posted by nickybr38

You are right. If you have truth, other religions shouldn't make you afraid. The truth will prevail.

Although in all honesty I don't really see the point of reading other religious texts unless you're into studying other religions and/or active in the apologist field. But if you're just curious I don't see why it would hurt.

Truth is exceptionally important. Mostly it's curiosity, but also a desire to learn and to be able to understand people and their beliefs a little better.

Originally Posted by ZhaneAugustine

I had a copy once. I also had many copies of holy books from different religions too.

If you have odd feelings that reading it is a danger to your faith I'd say take a break, learn about Islam from some Catholic sources... learning a bit of your faith as well, then return to reading it.

I found a lot I liked in the book Tao Te ching (maybe thats not right?) the Daoist holy book. Though a good deal I didn't either. Mainly bevause I had studied what the early fathers had written, knew a good deal of what the Bible said, and prayed.

Just pray, take time, and trust in God's will.

That's good advice. It probably would help to learn more about Islam before I delve deeply into the book. Prayer's something I find helpful, and trusting in God is definitely worthwhile. I'll be sure to try them

[Kouyate42]

Originally Posted by Michael85

I don't think you should read the Qur'ān unless you are a seasoned apologist who is very knowedgeable about the Christian faith. Even then, you should only be reading it if you are going to refute it or bring Muslims to the Christian faith.

Why should this be the case? The Qur'an contains much of the Bible's narrative, and there is nothing in a lot of the Qur'anic narratives of Old Testament figures such as Yusuf (Joseph), 'Ayub (Job) and Musa (Moses) which would contradict the teachings of the Bible.

The god of the Qur'ān is not the Holy Trinity. The Qur'ān specifically says "He [Allah] begetteth not, nor is he begotten" (Qur'ān 112:3). This is a direct contradiction of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The god of Islam was an Arabian moon god idol worshipped alongside other idols in the Ka'ba in Mecca (the most holy shrine of Islam) Why is the crescent moon the emblem of Islam? Think about it.

Poor arguments. The Islamic calendar is lunar, as is common in Middle Eastern tribal cultures, and the lunar months are highly important in calculating the timings of Hajj and other critical Islamic dates, hence the crescent moon symbol being so important in Islamic cultures.

Plus, the word Allah isn't confined to the Islamic religion- it was used well before Islam, in the form Al-ilah (the God) and then contracted to give the name Allah. Also, the pagan Arabs may have called their idols Allah, but does that mean it's the same thing as the Islamic God? Not necessarily- calling something by two names doesn't make that one thing somehow magically two different things, and this works in much the same way where two different things are called the same name too.

Secondly, that first bit about God and having sons is easily turned around to the Muslim argument. The exact reasonings for Muslim belief that Allah had no son are many, almost as numerous as Christian beliefs as to why He DID have a son.

[Bezant]

Originally Posted by Kouyate42

Plus, the word Allah isn't confined to the Islamic religion- it was used well before Islam, in the form Al-ilah (the God) and then contracted to give the name Allah. Also, the pagan Arabs may have called their idols Allah, but does that mean it's the same thing as the Islamic God? Not necessarily- calling something by two names doesn't make that one thing somehow magically two different things, and this works in much the same way where two different things are called the same name too.

Good response.

I would also like to note that even Jewish and Christian Arabs call God "Allah."

[Michael85]

Islam is, for the most part, a religion of peace. The word "Islam" actually derives from a word meaning "peace".

Wrong. Islam, which comes from the three-letter root س ل م (s-l-m) means 'submission'. A Muslim is a person who submits (to Allah).

I believe a great deal of terrorist acts are the result of misunderstanding and of fundamentalism. Are not Christians expected to "fight" for God? To be witnesses to Christ? Is it not remotely possible that a Christian could take this to mean literal violence?

These verses from the Qur'ān should set you straight.

"But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful" (Qur'ān, Surah 9:5)
(Note: the word translated "pagans" in this verse is مُشْرِكِي (mushrikiin) which means 'those who worship anything except Allah")

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Qur'ān, Surah 9:29)

"O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him. " (Qur'ān, Surah 9:123)

"Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure" (Qur'ān, Surah 61:4)

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'ān, Surah 9:38-39)

And from the Hadith:

The Messenger of Allah [i.e. Muhammad] said: "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..." (Sahih Muslim 1:33)

"Allah's Apostle said, 'I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah.'" (Sahih Al-Bukhari 8:387)

The bottom line is, you're not willing to hold Christianity to the same standards you apply to Islam.

Christianity is THE TRUTH! Islam is a false religion!

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32)

Would you want Muslims to respect Christianity?

Again, Christianity is THE TRUTH! Error has no rights and deserves no respect. If a mathematics professor told you that 2+2=5, would you respect his view?

Rubbish. The Quran is the framework and most formal expression of the Arabic language.

In the Arabic language (as in Hebrew), vowels are not written in the text. There is a system for writing them as signs above and below the text, but those signs didn't exist at the time of Muhammad. Furthermore, certain Arabic letters are identical save for the dot(s) which come above or below them. For example:
س ش
ت ن ث ب
ج ح خ
ع غ
ف ق
زر
ض ص
ط ظ
د ذ
That's 21 out of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. In addition, the letter ي (y)
looks like the second row of letters in its initial and medial positions. So not writing dots would lead to mass confusion.

The dots were not written at the time of Muhammad.

[hamba2han]

Originally Posted by sparrowhawk28

Thank you for your reply. What, may I ask, do you believe is the truth?

Originally Posted by nickybr38

You are right. If you have truth, other religions shouldn't make you afraid. The truth will prevail.

Although in all honesty I don't really see the point of reading other religious texts unless you're into studying other religions and/or active in the apologist field. But if you're just curious I don't see why it would hurt.

The fact that a little voice within us is telling us things which are making us uneasy is not necessarily a bad thing.

Granted, that "little voice" might be coming from the accursed one Satan.. but on the other hand, that voice could in fact be something that Muslims call 'fitrah'.

When a child is born, it has with it a natural belief in it's Creator. This natural belief is called in Arabic the “fitrah”. If the child were left alone, it would grow up aware of God in His oneness, but all children are affected by the pressures of their environment whether directly or indirectly.

And so, this feeling of unease and discomfort that we may feel when reading other scriptures may well be a natural and healthy indicator of our inner self reaching out to our Creator because the 'fitrah' in us would indeed recognize the Truth.

And so, I do not think it would be a good idea to continually suppress these feelings of unease within us.

One way or the other, it is natural for us to want to know the truth regardless of how it may affect us in the short term.. but in the long term, we just know that the truth is really the most important thing in life.

We will know that we have found the truth when this little voice within us stops making us feel unease and discomfort when confronted with things which we read in other scriptures.

[nickybr38]

Originally Posted by hamba2han

The fact that a little voice within us is telling us things which are making us uneasy is not necessarily a bad thing.

Granted, that "little voice" might be coming from the accursed one Satan.. but on the other hand, that voice could in fact be something that Muslims call 'fitrah'.

When a child is born, it has with it a natural belief in it's Creator. This natural belief is called in Arabic the “fitrah”. If the child were left alone, it would grow up aware of God in His oneness, but all children are affected by the pressures of their environment whether directly or indirectly.

And so, this feeling of unease and discomfort that we may feel when reading other scriptures may well be a natural and healthy indicator of our inner self reaching out to our Creator because the 'fitrah' in us would indeed recognize the Truth.

And so, I do not think it would be a good idea to continually suppress these feelings of unease within us.

One way or the other, it is natural for us to want to know the truth regardless of how it may affect us in the short term.. but in the long term, we just know that the truth is really the most important thing in life.

We will know that we have found the truth when this little voice within us stops making us feel unease and discomfort when confronted with things which we read in other scriptures.

I have read the Q'uran myself, during my younger years when I was seeking. There was no little voice of discomfort, actually. I won't say what I did think out of respect for your holy book but I will say I did not see truth in the pages of the Q'uran. It was an interesting read but not necessarily one I would suggest to others.

I have also read parts of the Book of Mormon, the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible (which gave me a headache - literally - dusty old book) and several bits and pieces of other religious texts.

That's what I get for seeking and what I found was that I believed in no religion. Good thing the Spirit brought me home to the Catholic Church.

[pismopal]

Maybe this old saying will help you save some time....." By their fruits you shall know them."

[AndreiCordovan]

I did read the Quran. I saw nothing interesting except the hatred against the disbelievers. It really seemed like a book written by a man. It doesn't have anything special like the Bible does (for example the Psalms in the Bible offer so much support when you're in need, but the Quran speaks almost entirely about war and how to defeat the disbelievers).
And now I know how to defend myself when I talk with a Muslim.
I have even read some of the hadiths of their prophet.

[sparrowhawk28]

Originally Posted by Bezant

Good response.

I would also like to note that even Jewish and Christian Arabs call God "Allah."

This is true. In Malta (where almost all the population is Roman Catholic), God is known as "Alla".

Originally Posted by Michael85

Wrong. Islam, which comes from the three-letter root س ل م (s-l-m) means 'submission'. A Muslim is a person who submits (to Allah).

But there is peace to be found. Muslims greet each other - "Assalamu alaikum" (peace be upon you). The Five Pillars of obligation do not stress war or violence, but include practices such as prayer and almsgiving.
There are words of violence included in the Koran, but also words of peace and charity.

"If you punish, let your punishment be commesurate with the wrong that has been done you. But it shall be best for you to endure your wrongs with patience. ... God is with those who keep from evil and do good works". (Surah 16:126, Surah 16:128)

"Good deeds and evil deeds are not equal. Requite evil with good..." (Surah 41: 34)

"If they incline to peace, make peace with them, and put your trust in God" (Surah 8: 61)

Originally Posted by Michael85

Christianity is THE TRUTH! Islam is a false religion!

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32)

Again, Christianity is THE TRUTH! Error has no rights and deserves no respect. If a mathematics professor told you that 2+2=5, would you respect his view?

Certainly, Christianity is true. I'm not denying that.

I can respect a view and still disagree with it.

Originally Posted by hamba2han

The fact that a little voice within us is telling us things which are making us uneasy is not necessarily a bad thing.

Granted, that "little voice" might be coming from the accursed one Satan.. but on the other hand, that voice could in fact be something that Muslims call 'fitrah'.

When a child is born, it has with it a natural belief in it's Creator. This natural belief is called in Arabic the “fitrah”. If the child were left alone, it would grow up aware of God in His oneness, but all children are affected by the pressures of their environment whether directly or indirectly.

And so, this feeling of unease and discomfort that we may feel when reading other scriptures may well be a natural and healthy indicator of our inner self reaching out to our Creator because the 'fitrah' in us would indeed recognize the Truth.

And so, I do not think it would be a good idea to continually suppress these feelings of unease within us.

One way or the other, it is natural for us to want to know the truth regardless of how it may affect us in the short term.. but in the long term, we just know that the truth is really the most important thing in life.

We will know that we have found the truth when this little voice within us stops making us feel unease and discomfort when confronted with things which we read in other scriptures.

That's quite profound, actually There has been a bit of discomfort for me, and in a way I'm glad there has been. Because truth is important.

Originally Posted by AndreiCordovan

I did read the Quran. I saw nothing interesting except the hatred against the disbelievers. It really seemed like a book written by a man. It doesn't have anything special like the Bible does (for example the Psalms in the Bible offer so much support when you're in need, but the Quran speaks almost entirely about war and how to defeat the disbelievers).
And now I know how to defend myself when I talk with a Muslim.
I have even read some of the hadiths of their prophet.

The differences between the Bible and the Koran are quite extraordinary. I've come across a few lines in the Koran that have been touching, but nothing as deep or comforting as what I find in the Bible.

Originally Posted by pismopal

Maybe this old saying will help you save some time....." By their fruits you shall know them."

Ah, I like that verse.

[Bezant]

Originally Posted by Michael85

Christianity is THE TRUTH! Islam is a false religion!
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32)

If I were a non-Christian I would gather from your responses and the fact that you dropped certain arguments a while back that Christianity can't handle critical approach.

Originally Posted by Michael85

Again, Christianity is THE TRUTH! Error has no rights and deserves no respect. If a mathematics professor told you that 2+2=5, would you respect his view?

Maths and religion are hardly analogous spheres the way you lay them out.

Logical thinking is the groundwork and fully compatible with maths because you are only looking to find a tangible, clear cut answer and "what" brought you there.

Logical thinking is only one approach in a faith-based religion the concern is not to seek a clear-cut answer to "what" brought you to your conclusion, but "why" you came to your conclusion. Logic will only take you so far.

So I would not approach a mathematical truth as I would a religious truth. To do so would belittle an idea I consider more important than primary school sums.

Originally Posted by Michael85

In the Arabic language (as in Hebrew), vowels are not written in the text. There is a system for writing them as signs above and below the text, but those signs didn't exist at the time of Muhammad. Furthermore, certain Arabic letters are identical save for the dot(s) which come above or below them. For example:
س ش
ت ن ث ب
ج ح خ
ع غ
ف ق
زر
ض ص
ط ظ
د ذ
That's 21 out of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. In addition, the letter ي (y)
looks like the second row of letters in its initial and medial positions.

So not writing dots would lead to mass confusion. The dots were not written at the time of Muhammad.

Michael

This is an incredibly ludicrous argument. It works ONLY IF people who could read didn't know Arabic, which of course, was the mother tongue of most Muslims by the time the Quran was written down.

Xmas
Ave
Govt
Blvd
Etc.

A native English speaker with full command of the language (reading, writing, listening, grammar) would have no trouble recognising words abbreviated of the vowels.

But you have a second problem linguistically. Arabic is based on a root-structure. All you need to understand the basic meaning of a word, is the root, and the pattern for more specificity.

But this is somewhat besides the point because there were people who had memorised the Quran by heart, as there are people who have today.

[Michael85]

Originally Posted by Bezant

Michael

This is an incredibly ludicrous argument. It works ONLY IF people who could read didn't know Arabic, which of course, was the mother tongue of most Muslims by the time the Quran was written down.

Xmas
Ave
Govt
Blvd
Etc.

A native English speaker with full command of the language (reading, writing, listening, grammar) would have no trouble recognising words abbreviated of the vowels.

But you have a second problem linguistically. Arabic is based on a root-structure. All you need to understand the basic meaning of a word, is the root, and the pattern for more specificity.

But this is somewhat besides the point because there were people who had memorised the Quran by heart, as there are people who have today.

It's not just the vowels. The majority of the letters in the Arabic alphabet are differentiated from other letters by dots, as I showed above. Without the dots, you do not know which letter is which. For example, the letter 't' looks the same as the letter 'y' in its initial form. If there were no dots, then it would be easy to confuse تدرس (tadrus - you study) with يدرس (yadrus - he studies).

I provide the following quote from Iranian Ali Dashti:

"Furthermore, the Koran contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referenent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects. These and other such aberrations in the language have given scope to critics who deny the Koran's eloquence...To sum up, more than one hundred Koranic aberrations from the normal rules have been noted"

This is from someone who received a traditional Islamic religious education and studied Arabic grammar in madrasas (Islamic schools) in Iraq.

[Bezant]

Originally Posted by Michael85

It's not just the vowels. The majority of the letters in the Arabic alphabet are differentiated from other letters by dots, as I showed above. Without the dots, you do not know which letter is which. For example, the letter 't' looks the same as the letter 'y' in its initial form.

If there were no dots, then it would be easy to confuse تدرس (tadrus - you study) with يدرس (yadrus - he studies).

Only if the context appeared ambiguous--Egyptian newspapers still leave out the dots for some consonants. So most of the time, the context was clear, if you were fluent in Arabic. The text was only vocalised after non-Arabic readers gained numbers. Therefore it's one thing to say that with the earliest texts, there was confusion about particular contexts--this we know and is true.

But it's another thing to say that the Quran is riddled with errors and it led to mass confusion, then take that argument a step further to argue not to read the Quran.

Originally Posted by Michael85

I provide the following quote from Iranian Ali Dashti:

"Furthermore, the Koran contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referenent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects. These and other such aberrations in the language have given scope to critics who deny the Koran's eloquence...To sum up, more than one hundred Koranic aberrations from the normal rules have been noted"

This is from someone who received a traditional Islamic religious education and studied Arabic grammar in madrasas (Islamic schools) in Iraq.

One hundred Quranic aberrations out of more than 6,000 verses is not an impressive number, and the Quran is not alone in grammatical exceptions.

The Hebrew Bible also contains grammatical and spelling departures, foreign loanwords, words with multiple definitions, and extinct words. Elohim (God), for example, is 3rd-person-plural-masculine word, but the conjugated verbs and adjectives are always in singular. The word "tov" has at least three very different definitions; the word "dvar" also has three very different definitions. To this day, we can't identify certain unkosher animals in Deuteronomy, we don't quite know what Rachel hid from Laban under her cushion or what was the thing that the angels were climbing and descending in Jacob's dream. This is to name only a few examples. And yet the Hebrew Bible is the most exhaustive, surviving source of Ancient Hebrew, and is the framework for the Hebrew language.

[sparrowhawk28]

Originally Posted by Bezant

But it's another thing to say that the Quran is riddled with errors and it led to mass confusion, then take that argument a step further to argue not to read the Quran.

One hundred Quranic aberrations out of more than 6,000 verses is not an impressive number, and the Quran is not alone in grammatical exceptions.

The Hebrew Bible also contains grammatical and spelling departures, foreign loanwords, words with multiple definitions, and extinct words.

Personally, I don't feel that grammatical confusion provides exceptionally stable grounds for not reading a text. A lot of people read the Koran and draw much guidance from it, just as many people read the Bible (which is not without its own confusions). Through translation, the true meanings of certain words is lost and mistakes presumably occur.

Even the fact that there is no common Christian Bible could be confusing or erroneous for some - for example, Catholics regard the Book of Tobit as canonical, yet for Protestants it is apocryphal. There are many versions and therefore there is room for discrepancy.