*Anarcissie* wrote:
> On Apr 15, 11:26 pm, Dan Clore <cl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Quran 47.4 When you meet the unbelievers in Jihad, chop off their
>> heads! wrote:
>>
>> I checked this verse in the translation of the Quran that I usually
>> use (Dawood). There, it reads: "When you meet the unbelievers in
>> the battlefield strike off their heads, and when you have laid them
>> low, bind your captives firmly. Then grant them their freedom or
>> take ransom from them, until War shall lay down her armour."
>>
>> Your version seems to somewhat misrepresent the tenor of the verse.
>>
> But it better serves the need for an enemy.
>
> I have a bilingual Koran which has what I think is mainstream
> interpretive material. It states that this verse means that if one
> has to fight with unbelievers one must fight with all possible vigor,
> but that once they are defeated and have been captured, they are to
> be ransomed (if of high rank, as was the custom in the period) or set
> free, instead of slaughtered as has been the custom in many times and
> places. But so what? Those who need an enemy will find one
> somewhere, and if they can't find one, they will create one. The
> Koran or Communist Manifesto or whatever must be reworked until it
> serves the purpose.
I've struggled through the Koran (yawn!) and I believe that your reading
is correct. The passages taken out of context and represented as
requiring "jihad" against all "infidels" actually simply exhort Muslims
to fight bravely when they happen to be at war. The Koran also
specifically prohibits starting wars, and, as you note, requires mercy
towards the enemy.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
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