Is Islam a religion of peace?

I would like to think it is – but this video suggests that there is plenty in the Koran to encourage those with a different view.

Of course, one could make a similar video about quotes from the Bible and indeed someone has produced a video on various mentions of cruelty:

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 6:36 am and is filed under World current affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

4 Comments

  • Nick
    May 18th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    This recalls the concern expressed by some Muslims that the Koran might fall foul of the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill. As the National Secular Society told it:

    Meanwhile, a delegation of “Muslim leaders and senior scholars” had a meeting with Home Office Minister Paul Goggins last week seeking to have the Koran and “other holy texts” exempted from the terms of the Bill. They had been alarmed by MP Boris Johnson who had quoted hate-filled passages from the Koran and the hadiths during the second reading of the Bill and asked why they would not be caught by the legislation as they obviously incited hatred against other religions.
    Mr Goggins, however, was able to send Sir Iqbal Sacranie away from the meeting with a broad smile. He had told the “leaders” that there was nothing in the Bill that would stop promulgation of the Koran.

    See Religious hatred law passes through Commons.
    Also of interest in today’s Guardian: Hundreds in mock protest over ‘obscene’ Bible.

  • Philip
    May 21st, 2007 at 9:50 am

    I’ve no doubt parts of the Koran and the Bible can be used by people who don’t actually believe the underlying message of the books. I also don’t dispute that texts written at a particular time in history reflect the culture of the period (see Machiavelli). But not just religious texts and beliefs that can be perverted by twisted individuals – we only have to look a short period ago and only a few hundred miles away to see the evil that Dr Mengele perpertrated in the name of science.

  • Roger Darlington
    May 21st, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    But, Philip, the fundamental difference is that Muslims and Christians claim that the Koran and the Bible respectively are inspired by God and represent the true word of God. Either this is true – in which case God is evil – or it is not true – in which case these books should simply be regarded as works of man reflective of the times they were written with no serious relevance to today.

  • Nick
    May 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 am

    And what is the underlying message of the Koran? Of the Old Testament? Of the New Testament?