I posted a Facebook status about this not too long ago, but obviously a blog is a more appropriate place for elaboration because no one likes walls of texts on FB.
Basically, I’ve started reading the Quran so I can try to understand what is going on in the heads of these jihadists.
I’m not very far in, so I have to try and maintain as unbiased of a view as I can (which is admittedly hard considering recent events). I’m hoping that at some point, it shifts into a more positive manuscript rather than what I’ve read so far. In any case, here is a quick detail of what I’ve learned as of now.
I’m at the Fourth book (Al-Nisa), which apparently means “The Women”. Its essentially talking about the rules and ramifications of how to deal with women. So one of the first things I’ve noticed is that the entire book seems to be written to cater to a male’s perspective. There is an abundantly clear message that women are inferior to men. In fact, as I write this, I’m looking at Section 6 of Book 4 that states “Men are the full maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them excel the other, and because men spend out of their wealth on them.” Later on in the same passage, it talks about how men are allowed to discipline their women if they disobey them, lovingly at first, then by not sharing a bed with them, and finally (as a last resort) “mild punishment”. It doesn’t say talk it out and find a reasonable solution during conflict – its says women are to obey men. This disgusts me.
In the previous chapters (1-3) there has been a very prevelant theme of how to treat those that don’t follow Allah. At one point it even states “do not count as dead those who are killed in the cause of Allah.” Basically all I’ve gotten from the first few chapters is this: Allah is better than all the other “Gods”, believe this or else, and if you don’t believe you are a bad person and should be cast into fire.
This is an awful message to teach, I don’t care what religion you are. No religion should ever preach that just because people don’t prescribe to their doctrine that they are inherently bad individuals. All in all, so far I’ve read an outrageously closed-minded, rigid text that has no ability to accept people that deviate from its teachings. This is not a good thing.
I know this is going to be a controversial topic. Religion is always a taboo subject because its such a foundational component of our culture. But there needs to come a day when we wake up and realize that these kinds of teachings are dangerous, controlling, and manipulative. Living a good, just life isn’t a hard thing to do. We shouldn’t need a book to tell us how to treat people the right way.
But this book, in particular, is one that is causing a global problem. We need to figure out how to solve this before it gets even MORE out of hand.
Please feel free to share this by clicking the icons below. We really need to start thinking critically about this problem and how to reform before these shootings become the status quo.
How the World Should Work 