A Rational Study of Radical Islam, by Dr. Bill Warner

Dr Warner does a brilliant job of exposing the radically conflicted nature of Muhammad and Islam i.e. the early peaceful phase, and the later violent phase. But he leaves the viewer hanging regarding: which is the real Islam? So after the video I've quoted Robert Spencer to put that question to rest (as if we didn't already know).


Robert Spencer, The Islamic doctrine of abrogation

... there is a Qur'anic verse that says that when a verse is abrogated, the one that replaces it is as good as or better than the one it is replacing: "None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?" (Qur'an 2:106) ...

There is wide disagreement among Muslim theologians as to precisely which verses have been abrogated and which others have replaced them. Still, it has been a mainstream notion in Islamic theology that if a verse revealed at Mecca contradicts another revealed later at Medina, the Medinan verse takes precedence ...

Many traditional Islamic theologians and Qur'an commentators argue that violent material, such as sura 9, abrogates more relatively tolerant material such as sura 109. This is not a newly-minted view "cherry-picked" by Osama bin Laden; it is in fact a very ancient view...

Another still-influential Qur'an commentator, Ibn Kathir (1301-1372) quotes an earlier authority, Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim, to establish that the Verse of the Sword, sura 9:5 ("slay the unbelievers wherever you find them") “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term.” He adds from another authority: “No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah was revealed.” And yet another early commentator, Ibn Juzayy (d. 1340) agrees that one of this verse’s functions is “abrogating every peace treaty in the Qur’an.”

This idea is crucial as a guide to the relationship of the Qur’an’s peaceful passages to its violent ones. Suras 16, 29, 52, 73, and 109 — the sources of many of the Qur'an's verses of peace and tolerance — are all Meccan. That means that many Muslims, guided by commentators such as those above and the imams who teach from them, see these suras only in light of what was revealed later in Medina. Being the last or next-to-last sura revealed, sura 9 is generally understood as being the Qur’an’s last word on jihad, and all the rest of the book — including the “tolerance verses” — must be read in its light.

File under: in the light of sura 9.