the Quran teaches
self-criticism it teaches fairness and
saying the right thing even if it be
against yourself or your close skins the
Quran Advocate Justice even with the
Enemy those who show enmity you have
also to say the word of Truth and
Justice
secondly when we deal with the broader
issue of relationship between Muslims
and non-muslim I'm using non-muslim in a
positive sense those who are outside or
not part part of the Muslim Community of
Faith I can't find any better word but
I'm using it in a positive sense when we
deal with this kind of
relationship we have to be honest and
realistic also in
realizing that we're talking about at
least 1,400 years of
interaction some of which was surrounded
by
hostilities other periods by cooperation
not only with Christians but with Jews
and others in building a civilization
such as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad
Islamic universities in Spain that was
the jewel of Europe but they have been
periods of conflict so my second
precaution on the issue of
objectivity is to try and Beware of the
historical
Legacy that could belcloud the thinking
of Muslims or their friends for that
matter we have to keep that also clear
in
mind a third and final aspect of
methodology is that when we try to
understand and or promote better
understanding uh between Islam and other
sister
religions it is very essential to make a
clear distinction in
mind between pure Islam normative Islam
and the opinions and the way some people
interpret certain aspects of
it there is only two there are only two
primary sources of Islam No
third one is the
Quran that Muslim accept as the verbatim
word of God dictated to the last prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him through Angel
Gabriel the second is also another form
of Revelation known as Hadith and some
scholar use the term Sunnah but
basically it refers to the words action
and approvals of prophet Muhammad peace
be upon him in his capacity as a prophet
receiving Revelation only in meaning but
expressing that in his own words so
Hadith is not the word of God but it is
not the invention of the Prophet it is
something that he's directed to tell
people but in his own
words anything outside of that and must
you must have heard the term fatwa which
literally mean a religious
opinion or
interpretation are not
infallible they are not infallible and
there is no religious system or
institution in
Islam that says that there is for
example similar to basic concept about
papacy that has the final Authority as a
person or religious institution to say
this is the only interpretation this is
the only
opinion which mean that any person's
opinion
no matter how great scholars in the past
or present are saying has to be tested
against the primary sources of Islam and
this is the reference of all and I do
emphasize that because it is quite easy
to launch a criticism against any world
Faith by quoting Scholars of that
religion Scholars are not perfect you
got 1,400 years of scholarships you get
people who might have given opinion
based on certain circumstances
surrounding them so to quote authorities
even among Muslim
scholarship in order to prove a
particular point is not that definitive
unless that opinion is tested again
against the two sources primary sources
of
Islam now coming to the foundation for
this
presentation the
errors and I thought perhaps a most
logical and easy way to
classify the errors in interpreting the
Quran there are many but just choose the
one that are relevant to our topic
especially in Muslim non-muslim relation
first relate to what I call errors of
translation a lot of people quote a
translation of the meaning of the Quran
and say the Quran say
no the Quran was not revealed in English
the Quran was revealed in in Arabic and
it is well known that there are always
problems translating from one language
to the
other actually some Scholars dispute
whether they could be any translation of
the Quran I prefer to use the term
interpretive translation of the meaning
of the Quran and often times it reflect
the translator's own understanding and
images so don't quote from a translation
say the Quran say that it is the
translation of the meaning of the Quran
a second problem or category of
Errors is that when the Quran is
translated it is so
profound and there must have been good
reason why God chose the Arabic language
with its richness and diversity of
meaning depending on the context to
reveal his last book to give these
profound meanings and express
them so sometimes even people translate
lexically correctly but in in terms of
essence and context it is erroneous
translation so it's not just the lexical
meaning in the dictionary there are a
lot more to interpreting and
understanding the Quran than going to a
dictionary and finding an equivalent
word it could be erroneous even though
it's correct
lexically the third source of problems
is what I love to call the using the
computer language the cut and paced
approach and I humbly suggest you my
Moto on
that if you use the cut and paste
approach you can prove anything you want
from any Scripture you want anything
under the Earth can be proven and if you
don't have a computer you can buy a pair
of scissors for two bucks cut verses
from the middle cut it out of context
and you can prove anything just put it
together the cut and paste approach and
I'll be giving you lots of examples of
those cut and paste approach well to put
it in a different language the out of
context
interpretation and there are four basic
categories of out of context
interpretations
one out of the context of the verse some
people even would not care to quote the
entire verse they clip it in the middle
and not sometimes you quote only one
part of a verse if there's no change in
meaning but clipping a verse in the
middle in such a way that it gives a
totally different meaning ore you know
there is one verse in the Quran says
don't pray don't even come close to
prayers and some of you might say how
could it be Muslims are required to pray
five times a day but if you continue the
rest of the verse it says don't come to
prayers when you're intoxicated so
clipping could totally even turn the
meaning upside
down the
second is that sometimes people also
would quote even a full verse vers from
the Quran but paying no attention to the
verses immediately before or after in
the same section that deal with the same
subject in that case you lose the
context where that verse was
revealed the
third is that the Quran completes and
explain
itself so a person might quot even a
whole section but it's wrong why because
it overlooks the context of the whole
Quran so the proper methodology of
understanding any topic is to bring
together not only one text not only one
section but to bring all the verses in
the Quran and whatever relevant of
Hadith authentic Hadith or saying of the
Prophet together and then you can
understand the topic in context rather
than going in all kind of
directions
fourthly out of context hisory
historically and this is the most
serious problem with lots of quotation
that many writers use to say violence is
rooted in
Islam check the number of verses and
suras they quote from you will find that
most of them most of them come from two
suras in the Quran Surah number 8 and
nine and people who do not care to find
out the context of these two Surah
historically
come up with erroneous generalization
about what Islam
teaches these were revealed in the
context of conflict and