What is of highest value in the Koran?
Re: “We need to talk about the Koran,” September 2.
I thank Egon for his thoughtful letter in response to my earlier one. But I must contest his view that I was trying “to convince readers of the peaceful character of the Koran” or arguing “that Islam is basically a compassionate religion”. The Koran and Islam are certainly not uniformly peaceful or compassionate. Should they be? For sure, on both counts. Anyone who has read even a fraction of the Koran will know that it contains verses that are peaceful (“There shall be no compulsion in religion,” Sura 2:256) and verses that are not (“Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them,” Sura 9:5).
What I was asking Muslims to do was to privilege the Bismillah, with its proclamation (113 times!) that God is gracious and merciful, over anything else in the Koran that might suggest otherwise. Muslims believe that God dictated the Koran to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. If that’s true, then the Bismillah is God’s self-definition, his proclamation of what he believes to be his primary, defining qualities: graciousness and mercy.
Even if it’s not true, the Bismillah is a pretty good definition of what any self-respecting God ought to be.
It echoes an earlier text in the Bible, Exodus 34:6-7, in which the God of Israel proclaims himself to be “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”. It echoes in Nehemiah 9:17; in Psalms 86:15, 103:8 and 145:8, in Joel 2:13 and in Jonah 4:2. Again and again the theme is repeated – God is merciful and gracious, gracious and merciful. It also echoes Jesus, who in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 quotes Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” This proclamation of God’s graciousness and mercy rings down the ages through all three of the great Abrahamic religions like a trumpet call.
It follows that any verse in the Koran that permits us to draw the conclusion that God is anything less than gracious and merciful must at best be of secondary importance and ought to be considered subordinate. This includes the verses Egon cites, in which Muslims are told to fight in the cause of Allah and not to marry unbelievers or befriend Jews and Christians.
It is possible that such verses were written in response to particular circumstances, some of them extreme, and not intended as general rules. But it is for sure that they are not worthy of a deity who has defined himself as gracious and merciful.
William Page
