"And if they incline toward peace, incline thou toward it, and trust in God. Truly He is the Hearing, the Knowing."
Quran 8:61
Here is a brief passage from the eighth surah, al-Anfal, here rendered as "The Spoils." I chose it because it yet another of the innumerable passages in the Quran advising peaceful relations with others. Of course, however, it's not that simple.
As Nasr explains in the related commentary: "Like other verses pertaining to peace and war with non-Muslims, there is disagreement over whether verses such as this one, which have a message and peace and reconciliation, are abrogated by verses thought to be revealed later in time that command the believers to fight." (p. 497)
I've talked before about the concept of abrogation, and my problems with it. One of my biggest problem is the timeline issue, again, as I've discussed previously. As Nasr writes, "abrogated by verses thought to be revealed later in time . . ." Beyond everything else there's sometimes a general uncertainty related to exactly when messages were revealed. Beyond that, however, I always come back to the need to take the religion in its whole: what does it add up to, as compared to cherry picking specific passages that back an ideology of the reader. An overwhelming majority of the time we are instructed to treat all others with peace and forgiveness, and that's what we need to do.
A lot of the abrogation argument relates to a specific passage in the ninth surah, which I really need to get around to tackling in this yearly discussion.
Quran 8:61
Here is a brief passage from the eighth surah, al-Anfal, here rendered as "The Spoils." I chose it because it yet another of the innumerable passages in the Quran advising peaceful relations with others. Of course, however, it's not that simple.
As Nasr explains in the related commentary: "Like other verses pertaining to peace and war with non-Muslims, there is disagreement over whether verses such as this one, which have a message and peace and reconciliation, are abrogated by verses thought to be revealed later in time that command the believers to fight." (p. 497)
I've talked before about the concept of abrogation, and my problems with it. One of my biggest problem is the timeline issue, again, as I've discussed previously. As Nasr writes, "abrogated by verses thought to be revealed later in time . . ." Beyond everything else there's sometimes a general uncertainty related to exactly when messages were revealed. Beyond that, however, I always come back to the need to take the religion in its whole: what does it add up to, as compared to cherry picking specific passages that back an ideology of the reader. An overwhelming majority of the time we are instructed to treat all others with peace and forgiveness, and that's what we need to do.
A lot of the abrogation argument relates to a specific passage in the ninth surah, which I really need to get around to tackling in this yearly discussion.
No comments:
Post a Comment