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One of my favorite scenes from the Qur'an is a story about Abraham. 2:260: And when Abraham said, "My Lord, show me how you give life to the dead," He said, "Have you no faith, then?" "Yes,: said Abraham, "but just to put my heart at ease." So God said, "Take four birds and train them to come back to you. Then place them on separate hilltops, call them back, and they will come flying to you. And know that God is all powerful and wise."
Muslim extremists need to rethink their approach to Islam. They need to go back to the Qur'an and see the exhortations for us to be the people of the middle way (2:143), the commands not to be excessive in one's religion. (4:171), and the exhortation not to transgress balance (55:8). Muslim terrorists and modern day jihadists need to examine the verses relating to warfare. If they did so, they would realize that they have indeed passed all bounds and have become an evil festering in Islam and in the world at large.
Today is both the beginning of Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah.
The term cult has been used widely to discredit religions that are perceived as heretical, unorthodox, or, even, simply an appealing competitor for congregants. Thus we see it applied not only groups that could legitimately be described as cults, such as the Peoples Temple, the Branch Dividians, or Heaven's Gate, but also to significant religious groups such as the Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, or even Islam as a whole.
Christopher Hitchens, in the style of many pundits these days, elucidates only partial truth. Religion can indeed be, "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." It does not, however, have to be.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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