Saturday, July 25, 2009
Koran v. Qur'an
Among the people who criticize and defend the religion of Islam, some use the Koran spelling, some use Qur’an.
I use Koran, and there are reasons. First, that spelling has a long history in the English language and I choose to respect that tradition of usage for the same reasons that I resist passing fads in language. Second, the Koran usage means something to me personally.
Scholars of Islam mostly use the Qur’an spelling and I want to mark myself as not one of them. I do not write from the scholar’s disinterested point of view but as a polemicist.
The practice of polemics, the attack on and defense of doctrine, has fallen into an undeserved ill repute. Argument about Islam is exactly what is needed. The boiling pot of controversy between Islam and the West since 9/11 does not need benign neglect or a tight lid, it needs public debate. A tight lid on a boiling pot has a predictable outcome.
I am a polemicist because, like Bill Warner of politicalislam.com, my interest in Islam is only in its effect on me as an unbeliever. I see that effect as totally negative and respond accordingly. Islam’s effect on me is mostly political, so most of my criticism is of a political nature.
Islam’s negative effect on unbelievers should be seen by unbelievers as an attack on them and their response should be seen as self defense.
What I see as self defense others see as an unwarranted attack on religious freedom. I have two responses to those who consider my self defense to be offensive:
• First, find out what your status is according to Islamic law, also known as sharia and Political Islam.
• Second, understand that religious freedom, like all freedoms, has limits. Just as Mormons were not free to believe in and practice polygamy because it is illegal in America, Muslims are not free to promote Islamic law that does not offer political equality to all.
When I say that the active promotion of Islamic law in America is sedition, people are predictably upset. Sedition is an extremely serious charge and one that has a painful past of misuse. Sedition is also a dangerous charge because of its threat to the civil liberties of some. It should be used only when the protection of the civil liberties of others is needed. I believe the implementation of mainstream Islamic law would threaten the civil liberties of all non-Muslims.
I do not make the charge lightly. The Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights have upheld the foundational argument of my assertion that Islamic law does not forbid the use of force in the spreading of the faith.
I also assert that any society under the jurisdiction of Islamic law illegally discriminates between Muslim and non-Muslim and between men and women. To the extent that any government uses Islamic law, it denies Western human rights--as Pope Benedict has observed.
This explanation of my complaint against Islamic law should make it clear that I have no complaint against those Muslims who do not subscribe to the political agenda in the law.
Muslim women lose the most rights under it.
I use Koran, and there are reasons. First, that spelling has a long history in the English language and I choose to respect that tradition of usage for the same reasons that I resist passing fads in language. Second, the Koran usage means something to me personally.
Scholars of Islam mostly use the Qur’an spelling and I want to mark myself as not one of them. I do not write from the scholar’s disinterested point of view but as a polemicist.
The practice of polemics, the attack on and defense of doctrine, has fallen into an undeserved ill repute. Argument about Islam is exactly what is needed. The boiling pot of controversy between Islam and the West since 9/11 does not need benign neglect or a tight lid, it needs public debate. A tight lid on a boiling pot has a predictable outcome.
I am a polemicist because, like Bill Warner of politicalislam.com, my interest in Islam is only in its effect on me as an unbeliever. I see that effect as totally negative and respond accordingly. Islam’s effect on me is mostly political, so most of my criticism is of a political nature.
Islam’s negative effect on unbelievers should be seen by unbelievers as an attack on them and their response should be seen as self defense.
What I see as self defense others see as an unwarranted attack on religious freedom. I have two responses to those who consider my self defense to be offensive:
• First, find out what your status is according to Islamic law, also known as sharia and Political Islam.
• Second, understand that religious freedom, like all freedoms, has limits. Just as Mormons were not free to believe in and practice polygamy because it is illegal in America, Muslims are not free to promote Islamic law that does not offer political equality to all.
When I say that the active promotion of Islamic law in America is sedition, people are predictably upset. Sedition is an extremely serious charge and one that has a painful past of misuse. Sedition is also a dangerous charge because of its threat to the civil liberties of some. It should be used only when the protection of the civil liberties of others is needed. I believe the implementation of mainstream Islamic law would threaten the civil liberties of all non-Muslims.
I do not make the charge lightly. The Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights have upheld the foundational argument of my assertion that Islamic law does not forbid the use of force in the spreading of the faith.
I also assert that any society under the jurisdiction of Islamic law illegally discriminates between Muslim and non-Muslim and between men and women. To the extent that any government uses Islamic law, it denies Western human rights--as Pope Benedict has observed.
This explanation of my complaint against Islamic law should make it clear that I have no complaint against those Muslims who do not subscribe to the political agenda in the law.
Muslim women lose the most rights under it.
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