Just started reading the Koran
 

I have just begun to read the Koran, I have been curious about the different opinions about this religion and the fact that it is a violent religion, I finally needed to see for myself. I am the least religious person I know I believe organized religion as a farce, but with all the criticizm of Isam I felt that if I choose to criticize this religion which I haven't I should at least be fairly well read on the subject.

My question is has anyone else out there read it and what were there perspectives on the book. Violent religion or misunderstood?

Thanks for the input.

Religion based on document(s) is all about how you interp. the documents. It can be violent if you choose that or it can preach pacifism.

Good luck.

It's on my "to do" list, albiet pretty far down.

I've been working up to reading this for about a year now and finally worked up the nerve. After War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov its been tough reading. The Communist Manifesto was thrown in there too.

The Koran is no more violent than the old testament, and in fact can be interpreted as less so. The same can be said of the followers to a certain extent. As with christianity, the fundamentalists are the violent wing and give a bad name to the vast majority of believers.
Having read both , I decided to take the parts that I agreed with and adapt them to my own path(along with many others). I will say that the hypocracy inherent in christian faith is , for the most part not a part of Islam.
The Koran, Like the bible, Is a great book to read. Still , I would just assume take "The Hobbit" as the word of god.

I have never read the bible and am not reading the Koran for a religious benefit, I'm not religious at all, I just want to see how easily it can be interpreted as violent.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Islam is a violent militaristic proselytizing intolerant religion. Always has been. We have the divine final word. Mohammed is the last of the prophets. The covenant with God ( Al-Lah just means "the God") Convert or die. An excellent analysis of Islam is contained in Paul Kurtz's "The Transcendental Temptation". Probably the best general introduction to the roots of Islam you can find. His chapter on Mormonism is also excellent. But the section on Christianity is lacking.

I've read most of it, and its a pretty simple religion. Perhaps that is its appeal.

One of my Muslim friends told me a neat trick too. Apparently 'god' wanted to break things gently to people so where the Koran says alcohol in moderation and then later says no alcohol its not a contradiction, but just a 'building up period'. The rule is the last thing written is the 'truth' so therefore there are no contradictions Q.E.D.

They used to send each other little ‘proofs’ of gods hand in the creation of the Koran in the student mail boxes. I saw a couple of them and they were basically circular in nature, or would have required that I knew how to read Arabic to check on. I was more interested as to why they felt the NEED to send them, and I think the reason is there is a lot of peer pressure to ‘stay faithful’ and I know of students who didn’t who were harassed for it.

so far so good not a s dry as War and Peace at least

thanks again for the feedback

i find that comparing and contrasting the narratives that both the Koran and Bible hold is a great way to notice the cultural and worldview differences.

for me, the most telling example of this is the story of Joseph. The attitudes towards women, history, and temptation are radically different. it's also interesting to see an ancient story told from a different perspective.

religions considered "violent" such as Islam and Christianity are misunderstood, both by outsiders and members within those faiths. The ideologies aren't violent, but people are.

militant zealots give their religion a black eye.

My dad used to joke that Mohammed met some jewish scholars who tried to explain Judaism to him in great detail and he kind of got it all mixed up.

Can someone who has read the Koran or is Muslim answer a simple/stupid question for me? Is Islam a messianic religion? In that like Christianity, is someone from Islam (Mohammed, etc.) is going to make a return sometime in the future? Thanks and pardon my ignorance.

No. There were four Prophets Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhamed the great last seal of Allah. There is no Messiah, There is only Allah and Muhamed is his prophet.

It's interesting because Allah was a god before Mohammed designated him as 'the' god. Allah was the moon God, and he was one of many Gods found in Mecca in the Kaba. Once Mohammed returned to Mecca after being run out by his enemies, he had the kaba cleared out and only Allah remained.

Ouch! Pet Peeve alert. The turn of phrase is "just as soon", not "just assume".

(Exit Grammar Police). According to the one <i>shayk</i> I know, reading the Koran in translation is better than not reading it, but much less useful than reading it in Arabic. Evidently the classical Arabic used lends itself to word play (which is how "jihad" f'rinstance, can mean self improvement, holy war, and generic struggle all at the same time.)

More power to ya if you can get through it in any language.

So sorry, I regret the grammatic error. and am trying extremely hard not to comment on your f'rinstance....lol

Just a question, have any people here read it? It seems from the posts that nobody has cover to cover
That's just incorrect, the belief is that there have been thousands.

There was only one woman in the story, I'm curious what attitudes do you think the story told/

No I got bored, but then again I got bored with the bible too.

There were four great prophets. Muhammed was the last of them.