[quote]Chushin wrote:
No idea about the quality of the translations, but
[i]Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is one of them. Lo! Allah guids not these wrongdoing people. (Quran Surah 5:51)
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I just read something about this particular verse so you’re in luck, I have an alternative view ready: http://www.juancole.com/2006/03/bigotry-toward-muslims-and-anti-arab.html
The whole piece is interesting, but because it’s long and the politics might not be to everyone’s taste, I’ll extract the relevant part:
[quote]Juan Cole wrote:
"
People often also ask me about this verse:
[5:51] O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as friends; these are friends of one another. Those among you who ally themselves with these belong with them.
This is actually not a good translation of the original, which has a very specific context. In the Arabia of Muhammad’s time, it was possible for an individual to become an honorary member or “client” of a powerful tribe. But of course, if you did that you would be subordinating yourself politically to that tribe. The word used in Arabic here does not mean “friend.” It means “political patron” (wali). What the Quran is trying to do is to discourage stray Muslims from subordinating themselves to Christian or Jewish tribes that might in turn ally with pagan Mecca, or in any case might have interests at odds with those of the general Muslim community.
So the verse actually says:
[5:51] O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as tribal patrons; these are tribal patrons of one another. Those among you who become clients of these belong with them."
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[quote]Chushin wrote:
And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can overcome. Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all you can by armed force…(Quran; Surah 8:59-60a)
…slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare to ambush them. But if they repent and establish [Islamic] worship…their way is free. Lo! Allah is forgiving and Merciful. (Quran; Surah 9:5)[/i]
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These two I can’t help you on specifically–at least not at the moment–but here’s another quote from the same site that might put those verses into perspective:
[quote]Juan Cole wrote:
"Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians.
Quran 5:69 says (Arberry): "Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those Sabeaans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works righteousness--their wage waits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow."
In other words, the Quran promises Christians and Jews along with Muslims that if they have faith and works, they need have no fear in the afterlife. It is not saying that non-Muslims go to hell-- quite the opposite.
When speaking of the 7th-century situation in the Muslim city-state of Medina, which was at war with pagan Mecca, the Quran notes that the polytheists and Arabian Jewish tribes were opposed to Islam, but then goes on to say:
5:82. " . . . and you will find the nearest in love to the believers (Muslims) those who say: 'We are Christians.' That is because amongst them are priests and monks, and they are not proud."
So the Quran not only does not urge Muslims to commit violence against Christians, it calls them “nearest in love” to the Muslims! The reason given is their piety, their ability to produce holy persons dedicated to God, and their lack of overweening pride.
The tendency when reading the Quran is to read a word like “kafir” (infidel) as referring to all non-Muslims. But it is clear from a close study of the way the Quran uses the word that it refers to those who actively oppose and persecute Muslims. The word literally meant “ingrate” in ancient Arabic. So the polytheists (“mushrikun”) who tried to wipe out Islam were the main referents of the word “infidel.” Christians, as we see above, were mostly in a completely different category. The Christian Ethiopian monarch gave refuge to the Muslims at one point when things got hot in Mecca. The Quran does at one point speak of the “infidels” among the Jews and Christians (2:105: “those who committed kufr/infidelity from among the people of the Book.”) But this verse only proves that it did not think they were all infidels, and it is probably referring to specific Jewish and Christian groups who joined with the Meccans in trying to wipe out the early Muslim community. (The Quran calls Jews and Christians “people of the book” because they have a monotheistic scripture). "
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I know this post is overlong already but try this on for size as well: http://www.juancole.com/2006/03/quran-quote-of-day-on-peace-muslims.html
[quote]Juan Cole wrote:
“Readers asked me about the long list of militant verses collected by polemicists against Islam. The answer is that those verses refer to the Meccan power elite in the 620s AD, who were waging a determined military, political and economic war to defeat the Muslims holed up in nearby Medina, and wipe them and the new religion out. It is frankly dishonest to take a verse about, say, the battle of Badr against the militant Meccan pagans (“unbelievers”) and imply that it refers to contemporary American Christians or American atheists for that matter. What was objectionable to the Quran in practical terms about the Meccan unbelievers was their murderousness toward Muslims, not their attachment to their star goddesses. Muslims are instructed to be nice to unbelievers who don’t share that murderousness.”
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If you’re interested in more there’s this mainpage on peace and love in the quran: Peace And Love In Quran List Of
and this page about muslim denunciations of al qaeda and terrorism: Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again