القرآن
 

We have, lately, been besieged by numerous emails, from family and aquaintences, which are (in our opinion) very hostile towards Muslims. Many of these emails are from people we grew up respecting a great deal, so it is very distressing to see the hate being exhibited.

A common theme in these emails are quotes from the Quran and how the teachings of Islam are geared towards destroying America.

Having grown up in a church that was one step away from having baskets of snakes under the pews, we are fairly familiar with the Bible, but we have virtually no knowledge of the Quran. Our only exposure with Muslims has been via the Army, where we had many opportunities to observe Muslim people. It appeared to us that, in general, Muslims seem an awful lot like us. They want food, water, shelter and safety for their families.

The fact that Islam is a globally recognized mainstream religion leads us to think that maybe the bad stuff being written against it might be false or misleading.

Anyways, we have tried to learn more about Islam but we are not sure what to do. There are a lot of web pages out there but we do not know how to determine which of them are the real deal. Reading the Quran itself seems very difficult, as if there are things we are supposed to understand prior to reading it.

Where do we start?

We figured, being that this forum has a global reach, that there might be someone out there who has knowledge of this topic who would be willing to educate us, via this thread.

:camping:

[QUOTE]Reading the Quran itself seems very difficult, as if there are things we are supposed to understand prior to reading it.

Where do we start?[/QUOTE]Read the Quran anyway. (Or just buy "[URL="http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/islam-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html"]Islam for Dummies[/URL].")

Apparently translating the Quran into english is very difficult, due to the difficulty of correctly translating Arabic. [url="http://www.reddit.com/comments/cgbde/crosspost_from_rislam_whats_the_best_english/"]Some pointers[/url] if you haven't seen them.

Wow, that link led to many hours of related reading. Now we are even more confused!

:smile:

One page we were on talked about how some Muslims memorize the entire thing!

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;306270]Where do we start?
[/QUOTE]
First by making sure the sender is who he say he is. People that you grow up respecting may be victim of viruses, trojans, whatever. Some of my friends/relatives/whatever use to fwd funny things they got, without really reading them, too. Other people - bad guys - use their own phantom, malformed SMTP servers, to fake the sender address. I got stupid/racist/religious/whatever mails from people which I know and respect, they respect me too, I used to write seldom to them and they to me, but they never wrote to me those racist/etc mails. So be careful who you blame first. An open discussion with the guy first would go better in the priorities list. Some of my friends (good friends!) use to tease me on religious beliefs, as I personally do not believe in any god. I made a habit never to start a fight, everybody is free to believe in whatever helps him/her to become a better person. My wife, my family, etc, they are Christians (orthodox), I was educated in orthodoxism and I know the bible mostly, some parts by heart, so I am not an ignorant, but I am a skeptic first of all. Sometimes I reply with things from the bible which sounds absurd today (like the "[URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?p=302610#post302610"]owning a canadian[/URL]" story here on the forum some weeks ago) and the person will not tease me again too soon. I try to educate my children to judge the people around them from the actions they do, and not from their color, sex, religious belief (mostly Buddhist here), etc.

Some of my friends were surprised (I mean SURPRIZED) to receive "adventist" or "jehovist" mails from me in the past. They wrote back to me that time, just to find out, of course, that I never sent those mails. So, you better make sure first that the mails you got were sent by the person which the "sent from" line claims to be.

We have verified that the emails are being sent by the people we know.

We have called them to make sure and after talking with them we have decided to not converse with them anymore.

Two in particular bother us greatly.
[LIST][*] One is from an elderly gentleman who used to sort of watch over us when after our parents got divorced. In some ways this person became a surrogate father.[*] The other is our mother.[/LIST] Is this enough to jeopardize our relationships with these people?

Yes.

Perhaps this is an extreme stance, but we have no room in our life for vitriolic hate such as that, and they have made their position very clear and they have no intention of even discussing it.

:no:

With no knowledge of the Quran I can't be any use to you in your quest to understand Islam.

But I can't resist offering a few issues from my personal experience of human nature, under the obvious caveat that they are highly subjective, purely my own opinion, and have no scientific basis.

[LIST=1][*]Just as you say in your opening post, Muslims do indeed have the same human human characteristics, hopes, needs and desires as anyone else. About 10-15% of my colleagues (40-60 out of 400) are Muslims. There is no discernible difference in the collegiality between Muslims and non-Muslims at my work, the only identifying difference being one of religion which is in itself a non-issue, something which is never even discussed at work.[*]Most Muslims are no more accepting of the most unpleasant parts of the Quran than most Christians are of the wackiest areas of the Old Testament (as sent up in the famous open letter to Dr. Schlessinger which [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=302610&postcount=642"]you posted[/URL] in the gay marriage thread). However, I'd better repeat my caveat here: I know nothing about the Quran, and this is only a general impression which I have.[*]Blanket hatred of a group of people (such as Muslims) is widespread amongst all societies and is a result of general fear and insecurity coupled with an irrational desire to compartmentalise that fear: that desire is irrational because it is unrealistic, yet thinking you know where all threats to your well-being come from is a huge source of comfort even if it has no basis in reality. It must indeed be distressing for you that people you love(d) and respect(ed) openly hate a large group of people who don't, in the main, deserve that hatred. But this irrational hatred (of many different groups, including Muslims) is widespread and itself part of human nature. However, while making the point that the hatred you have been witnessing at first hand is widespread and itself part of human nature, I do also appreciate that the people sending those emails around are doing more damage than people who keep their hatred hidden.[/LIST]

I began my study of the Qur'an by purchasing [I]The Koran, a translation[/I] by N.J.Dawood. ISBN-10 0140062696.

[b]Beware:[/b] This translation re-arranges the Suras from the traditional order, something which some Muslims find offensive. Further, a true Muslim would say that the Qur'an is untranslateable, being the words of Allah as recorded by Muhammed, and that anything but the original is at best an imperfect interpretation of the meanings.

The translation is easy to read, IMO, in comparison with other more traditional versions. One of the latter, which I also own, is ISBN-10 9980-792-63-3, [I]The Qur'an, Arabic text with Corresponding English Meanings[/I] edited by Saheeh International.

I'd recommending pick up up a copy of either or both of them I presume, though haven't verified, that they will be available through Amazon.

Incidentally, I received an email the content of which accords closely to your description. The sender(s) were Dannie Kruse <kellyjack1776@Yahoo.com> and
Rodolfo Burch <kellyjack1776@Yahoo.com> with Subject: Islam exposed, Islam the religion of terror.

My response was one line: Sura 109, Al Kafirun.


Paul

I suggest to start here:
[url]http://www.islam-guide.com/[/url]

You can try this also:
[url]http://islamunveiled.com/eng/modules.php?name=free_books[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;306339]We have verified that the emails are being sent by the people we know.

We have called them to make sure and after talking with them we have decided to not converse with them anymore.

Two in particular bother us greatly.
[LIST][*] One is from an elderly gentleman who used to sort of watch over us when after our parents got divorced. In some ways this person became a surrogate father.[*] The other is our mother.[/LIST] Is this enough to jeopardize our relationships with these people?

Yes.

Perhaps this is an extreme stance, but we have no room in our life for vitriolic hate such as that, and they have made their position very clear and they have no intention of even discussing it.

:no:[/QUOTE]


I would say that it is best not to discuss it. I know it is hard to tolerate but from personal experience it is very hard to get people to change their opinion about groups they hate. Oh and the next time someone says anything vitriolic just remind them that the numbers on the bank notes in their billfold are Arabic numerals :p

Attached are two documents that we found yesterday that have been very helpful.

They have also shamed us into considering additional changes in our own life.

:ouch: