The Interfaith Drama in Sri Lanka (Come and Examine vs. come and believe)
Posted on October 1st, 2014

C.Wijeyawickrema

At the Maha Sangha Conference of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), held on September 28, 2014, in Colombo Sri Lanka, the BBS General Secretary challenged the Muslims leaders sending bogus petitions to UN agencies to explain if they accept or not accept five specially identified verses in the Koran, because these verses refer to harming or killing the infidels (Buddhists, Hindus, Christians).

After listening to this speech, I did an Internet web search on this topic and found lots of information. One website listed 109 violence” verses found in the Koran. Another website claims 164 such verses.

Rather than asking the bogus Muslim leaders in Sri Lanka, I would like to ask the Buddhist monks known in Sri Lanka as the Palli Nikaya and Muslim Nikaya to explain why they accept an Inter-faith marriage with the Muslim lebbes in Colombo, unless the lebbes reject those bad verses. Since they were supposed to examine before they accept, they must be having good reasons for the theory that all religions are the same. I think BBS needs to distribute the relevant Koran verses to the people living around the temples of the monks of these two Nikayas, so that a dialog between the dayakaya sabhas and the respective monks could take place to find out the truth.

Given below is some useful information for perusal by those have an interest on this toipic. Dayan Jayatileka, Jehan Perera, Raajitha Senaratna, Vasu Deva, Wikramabahu, Dilan Perera, and Ranil Wickremasinghe could also benefit from this information.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html

164 Jihad Verses in the Koran
Compiled by Yoel Natan

  1. Introduction.
  2. Horizontal List of Verses
III. Vertical List of Verses
  1. Excerpts of Verses
  2. Full-text of Verses (With Bolding)
  3. Footnotes
  4. Introduction

    A. Jihad Verse Selection Criteria

Each of the 164 Jihad verses in this list was selected based on how clearly and directly it spoke about Jihad, at least when considered in its immediate context. Most of the listed passages mention a military expedition, fighting, or distributing war spoils. Verses NOT generally listed are those that speak about aspects of Jihad other than the raiding, fighting and looting, such as:

  • Muhammad‘s poor opinion of those who did not go on Jihad, even though they were able-bodied and able financially (for instance, some verses in K 009:081-096),
  • The heavenly rewards for Jihadists, and
  • The many generic mentions of “victory” found in the Koran.

Such omitted verses can readily be found in proximity to the Jihad verses listed below.

  1. Related Issues

Abrogation is a reoccurring topic whenever verses of the Koran are discussed. As a rule, later verses counseling Holy War, such the Sword Verse (K 009:005), abrogate earlier verses counseling tolerance and peace, such as K 002:256. The Sword Verse is just one of the 164 Jihad verses listed below. It follows that not many, if any, of the Holy War verses in this list are abrogated.
The list gives the verses in the order they occur in the Koran, but this is not the chronological order the verses were written. To gain a deeper understanding of the verses, one can study these verses in chronological order, and also consult articles and commentaries for the historical context. A good place to start is Rev. Richard P. Bailey’s article, “Jihad: The Teaching of Islam From Its Primary Sources—The Quran and Hadith,” www.Answering-Islam.org/Bailey/jihad.html.

  1. Horizontal List of Verses in Table format
The Koran‘s 164 Jihad Verses
Chapter Verse # per Sura Running Count
002 178-179, 190-191, 193-194, 216-218, 244 10 10
003 121-126, 140-143, 146, 152-158, 165-167, 169, 172-173, 195 25 35
004 071-072, 074-077, 084, 089-091, 094-095, 100-104, 144 18 53
005 033, 035, 082 3 56
008 001, 005, 007, 009-010, 012, 015-017, 039-048, 057-060, 065-075 34 90
009 005, 012-014, 016, 019-020, 024-026, 029, 036, 038-039, 041, 044, 052, 073, 081, 083, 086, 088, 092, 111, 120, 122-123 27 117
016 110 1 118
022 039, 058, 078 3 121
024 053, 055 2 123
025 052 1 124
029 006, 069 2 126
033 015, 018, 020, 023, 025-027, 050 8 134
042 039 1 135
047 004, 020, 035 3 138
048 015-024 10 148
049 015 1 149
059 002, 005-008, 014 6 155
060 009 1 156
061 004, 011, 013 3 159
063 004 1 160
064 014 1 161
066 009 1 162
073 020 1 163
076 008 1 164

A second website:

TheReligionofPeace.com Home Page


Summary Answer:

The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.


Additional Notes:

Other than the fact that Muslims haven’t killed every non-Muslim under their domain, there is very little else that they can point to as proof that theirs is a peaceful, tolerant religion.  Where Islam is dominant (as in the Middle East and Pakistan) religious minorities suffer brutal persecution with little resistance.  Where Islam is in the minority (as in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe) there is the threat of violence if Muslim demands are not met.  Either situation seems to provide a justification for religious terrorism, which is persistent and endemic to Islamic fundamentalism.

 

The reasons are obvious and begin with the Quran.  Few verses of Islam’s most sacred text can be construed to fit the contemporary virtues of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood.  Those that do are earlier “Meccan” verses which are obviously abrogated by later ones.  This is why Muslim apologists speak of the “risks” of trying to interpret the Quran without their “assistance” – even while claiming that it is a perfect book.

 

Far from being mere history or theological construct, the violent verses of the Quran have played a key role in very real massacre and genocide.  This includes the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of Hindus for five centuries beginning around 1000 AD with Mahmud of Ghazni’s bloody conquest.  Both he and the later Tamerlane (Islam’s Genghis Khan) slaughtered an untold number merely for defending their temples from destruction.  Buddhism was very nearly wiped off the Indian subcontinent.  Judaism and Christianity met the same fate (albeit more slowly) in areas conquered by Muslim armies, including the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe, including today’s Turkey.  Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of a proud Persian people is despised by Muslims and barely survives in modern Iran.

 

So ingrained is violence in the religion that Islam has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.

 

Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking the property of others as his own.  On several occasions he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and even butchered captives.  He actually inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and threatening them with Hell if they did not.  Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle, usually on the very day their husbands and family members were slaughtered.

 

It is important to emphasize that, for the most part, Muslim armies waged aggressive campaigns, and the religion’s most dramatic military conquests were made by the actual companions of Muhammad in the decades following his death.  The early Islamic principle of warfare was that the civilian population of a town was to be destroyed (ie. men executed, women and children taken as slaves) if they defended themselves.  Although modern apologists often claim that Muslims are only supposed to attack in self-defense, this is an oxymoron that is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.

 

Consider the example of the Qurayza Jews, who were completely obliterated only five years after Muhammad arrived in Medina.  Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that  was sent to take revenge for Muhammad’s deadly caravan raids.  The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back.  Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the captives himself (what Muslim apologists might refer to as “same day marriage”).

 

One of Islam’s most revered modern scholars, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly sanctions offensive Jihad: “In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way.”  Elsewhere, he notes: “Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the ‘homeland of Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life.”

 

The widely respected Dictionary of Islam defines Jihad as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur’an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims…[Quoting from the Hanafi school, Hedaya, 2:140, 141.], “The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the traditions which are generally received to this effect.”

 

Dr. Salah al-Sawy, the chief member of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, stated in 2009 that “the Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time,” tacitly affirming the legitimacy of violence for the cause of Islamic rule – bound only by the capacity for success. (source)

 

Muhammad’s failure to leave a clear line of succession resulted in perpetual internal war following his death.  Those who knew him best first fought to keep remote tribes from leaving Islam and reverting to their preferred religion (the Ridda or ‘Apostasy wars’).  Then, within the closer community, early Meccan converts battled later ones.  Hostility developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad to Mecca and the Ansar at Medina who had helped them settle in.  Finally there was a violent struggle within Muhammad’s own family between his favorite wife and favorite daughter – a jagged schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each other’s throats to this day.

 

The strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a Religion of Peace.  If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual repression, warfare…) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would be devastating.  Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, language or life.  Neither does it make apologies or any real effort at moral progress.  It is the least open to dialogue and the most self-absorbed.  It is convinced of its own perfection, yet brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.

 

This is what makes the Quran’s verses of violence so dangerous.  They are given the weight of divine command.  While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in their holy book, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them – outside of opinion.  Indeed, what do they have?  Speaking of peace and love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam’s holiest book either speaks to Allah’s hatred for non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it’s little wonder that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community – even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.

 

Although scholars like Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam’s most respected philosophers, understood that “the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force”, many other Muslims are either unaware or willfully ignorant of the Quran’s near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence.  Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others.  In the West, it is typical for believers to think that their religion must be like Christianity – preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance – because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way.  They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn that the evidence of the Quran and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this.

 

Others simply accept the violence.  In 1991, a Palestinian couple in America was convicted of stabbing their daughter to death for being too Westernized.  A family friend came to their defense, excoriating the jury for not understanding the “culture”, claiming that the father was merely following “the religion” and saying that the couple had to “discipline their daughter or lose respect.” (source).  In 2011, unrepentant Palestinian terrorists, responsible for the brutal murders of civilians, women and children explicitly in the name of Allah were treated to a luxurious “holy pilgrimage” to Mecca by the Saudi king – without a single Muslim voice raised in protest.

 

For their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical thinking to the god of political correctness, or look for reasons to bring other religion down to the level of Islam merely to avoid the existential truth that this it is both different and dangerous.

 

There are just too many Muslims who take the Quran literally… and too many others who couldn’t care less about the violence done in the name of Islam.

 

TheReligionofPeace.com Home Page

© 2006-2015 TheReligionofPeace.com. All rights reserved.

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Jc Ahangama <ahangama@gmail.com> wrote:

We have six chapters of the book.
http://ahangama.com/tgperera

There were two suggestions: 1. provide a way to jump between chapters. 2. Provide space for comments.

The first is done.

A link button to comments called ‘tippanii’ was added for the second purpose. We can write comments (tippanaya / tippanayan) in both Singhala and English in a page accessible from that link. Each page can have its own pop-up comments page.

Please make your suggestions and provide your comments naming the page number your comments apply. We can then add the comments with the name of person who commented.

4 Responses to “The Interfaith Drama in Sri Lanka (Come and Examine vs. come and believe)”

  1. Lorenzo Says:

    CW,

    It is best to COMPARE Koranic Satanic verses against Buddhist verses SIDE BY SIDE.

    Then that document can be distributed worldwide.

    e.g. Chop the heads off of non-believers AGAINST compassion to all living beings.

  2. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    Under a Buddhist theocracy such language and books like the Koran would be forbidden for its intolerant violent content against other faiths. The Buddhist Darhma would demand that all minorities practice respect and tolerance of other faiths. Any doctrine opposed to the teaching of the Buddha would automatically go against the law of the Buddhist land.

    In addition Buddhism would get official status from the government to propagate its pragmatic, tolerant philosophy across the world. Sri Lankan Buddhism which is one of the oldest forms of Buddhism in the world has to yet find its voice in the 21st century and across the planet.

    Sri Lankan tourism should develop to include religious tourists who want to come to Sri Lanka to be converted to Buddhism and to learn the old Sinhalese Buddhist traditions.

  3. Ratanapala Says:

    Allah hu Akbar is their war cry. Every time an atrocity is carried out they give out their usual barbaric war cry – Allah hu Akbar meaning God is great.

    The people who became Muslims since the time of Muhammed have engaged in all forms of unmentionable crimes against humanity and yet there are those who say Islam is a religion of peace, for political purposes. While Muslims are engaged in wars of conquest, they also have internecine war among themselves, killing, beheading, maiming, raping at will. In the process they have become the most unfortunate human beings not able to fathom good from evil. Muslims have been except for a few, the poorest, most uneducated and most destitute peoples for centuries and yet they want to call their god – Great. It must get in to their little heads that God is not great and that he has done little to alleviate their misery.

    Belief in the God of Abraham worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims have brought about untold miseries to human kind and to their civilizational progress. If the civilized world is to progress they must acknowledge this truth and take necessary measures before it is too late. Even as we speak the unspeakable atrocities carried out by Muslims in the name of their religion is too much for the civilized world to bear.

    Until the day they realise that God is not so great, and this false belief is shaken to its slimy core, they will continue to follow the dictates of the Satanic verses found in the Koran. True to his the words the Prophet has carried out what he preached – killing, beheading, maiming and raping. All Muslims aim to be like Mohammed – the very least they will grow a beard to be like him!

    As long as Muslims believe that their God is great, they will continue to create havoc and mayhem throughout the world till they achieve their goal – One world of Islam under Sharia Law.

    It is time for the world at large to debate the contents of the Koran and Sharia Law and come to conclusion as to their effects on Muslims and Non Muslims and in general world peace. It is up to the “peace loving Muslims” to agree not to abide by the Satanic Verses and convert their militant and aggressive Islam to a peaceful Islam to coexist with others in the world. UN must be put in charge of this matter, as it is one of vital importance to world peace.

    As things go in the world the Non Muslims are getting angrier by the day. The day is not too far away when the Non Muslims will say “enough is enough” and go to all out war against Muslims. That is the day when the Sura – Asura war will commence and Asura Muslims will loose out big time! Today they can worship their god in peace kneeling towards Mecca. Tomorrow there will not be any Mecca left for them to pray 5 times a day! It is only oil in the Middle East that is preventing from this happening.

    Let us hope that this will not become a secondary consideration before all hell is let loose against the Muslims. Muslims have it in their hands today, the future peace in the world and their own destiny!

  4. Nimal Says:

    This is why I take a religion with a pinch of salt.Prophet came to unite people,tribes,elevated the female and showed mercy to all in the process of submission to god,which Islam was and what we see is a distortment of his teaching that have occurred over decades.Bible too was written 300 years after the founder’s death.
    By the way when the Christian crusaders massacred people in Palastine in the most gruesome manner it was the Arabs and the Muslims that held the high moral ground under Saladin.Every thing is cyclical in nature and now the Muslims are the bad guys.

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