UK’s Independent: “Are peaceful Muslims in denial about their religion?”
As I have often noted lately, the Western intelligentsia is very, very anxious to make sure that you have a positive view of Islam. Thus we see a steady stream of articles in the mainstream media assuring you that the Qur’an is benign, the U.S. Constitution is Sharia-compliant, and the Islamic State is not Islamic. There are so many of these articles because there have to be: they are asking non-Muslims to disregard what they see every day — Muslims committing violence against non-Muslims and justifying it by referring to Islamic texts — and instead embrace a fictional construct: Islam the religion of peace and tolerance.
This takes a relentless barrage of propaganda, because with every new jihad atrocity, reality threatens to break through. It wasn’t accidental that Hitler’s Reich had an entire Ministry of Propaganda: lying to the public is a full-time job, as the cleverest of propaganda constructs is always threatened by the simple facts.
Here, Ahmadi Muslim Adam Walker explains that the Islamic State is violating the Qur’an’s own rules for how it should be interpreted. This would be great if he made his case and took it to jihadis to challenge and refute them directly. Of course, the immediate question his claim raises is why, if this is true, have over 20,000 foreign jihadis traveled from all over the world to join the Islamic State. Don’t those 20,000 Muslims have imams? How did they come to misunderstand the Qur’an and Islam so drastically as to miss its own rules for interpretation?
Walker’s whole case here is based on the idea that there are “context-independent verses” and “context-dependent verses,” the former being “unambiguous and timeless principles which can be applied in every situation” and the latter “those that are specific to particular situations, and can’t be read in isolation.” Actually the Qur’an verse to which he links says that there are some verses that are “precise – they are the foundation of the Book – and others unspecific” (3:7). This has also been translated as “clear revelations – they are the substance of the Book – and others (which are) allegorical.” That is, some are clear and some are unclear. The verse then condemns “those in whose hearts is deviation, they will follow that of it which is unspecific, seeking discord and seeking an interpretation” — that is, make much of the verses that are unclear.
The passage doesn’t actually say anything about “context.” Walker is trying to situate his argument within the familiar claims that non-Muslims are taking Qur’an verses “out of context,” and to go on from there to claim that the idea of violent jihad in Islam is based on taking these verses out of context. His entire premise is false, however, since “context” is not actually what Quran 3:7 is talking about.
