Are they getting the message?

I appreciate Mohd Zaidi Ismail’s somewhat laboured attempt to convince us that the concept of jihad does not justify terrorism. Not knowing Arabic myself, I presume Mr Ismail knows what he’s talking about when he says jihad does not translate as “holy war”, but as “great struggle”, and that its objective is always intended to be good and beneficial. 

What puzzles me is why nobody has informed the Taleban, al-Qaeda or their ilk. If jihad is so beneficent, how can Muslim extremists invoke it as a rationale for killing thousands of innocent people by flying planes into buildings and sawing the heads off other innocent people with rusty knives? These are the acts of barbarians and savages, and can hardly be pleasing to the divine ruler of any universe I would care to live in.

Regardless of how we define jihad, non-Muslims like myself are bothered by lines in the Koran like Sura 9:123, which says, “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you” (NJ Dawood translation). As an infidel who has never knowingly done anything to inspire such bellicosity, I resent that, and I’m sure other infidels do, too. 

Muslims believe that the Koran was dictated by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, so every word of it purports to come from the mouth of God. Very early in the text, God says, “As for the unbelievers, it is the same whether or not you forewarn them; they will not have faith. God has set a seal upon their hearts and ears; their sight is dimmed and grievous punishment awaits them.” (Sura 2:6-7).

Of all the many punishments listed in the Koran, none is quite so charming as the one described in Sura 4:56: “Those that deny Our revelations We will burn in fire. No sooner will their skins be consumed than We will give them other skins, so that they may truly taste the scourge.”

Mark that well. Even though God has set a seal on my heart and ears so that I would never be able to become a believer even if I wanted to, still he proposes to punish me for my unbelief by burning my skin off again and again, presumably for all eternity. Does that sound fair? 

We don’t expect much of God in this addled age, but we do expect him to be fair. The Koran does God no favours by suggesting that he isn’t.    

William Page

Samut Prakan