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I think it is a bit much to cite Quranic verses demonstrating the irredeemable belligerency of Islam, and then when I go to a lot of effort to show how those verses do not necessarily demonstrate the agrression they appear to out of context in specific translations, turn around and say "well look at Mohammed's life instead."

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Nicky, I'm sorry, but I didn't have time to address at length any of the specific points you raised. Also, I think I raised the example of Mohammed's actions in this thread before your response.

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Can we have one argument at a time? Let's say I think your characterisation of him as something worse than a war-crazed pirate is a little exaggerated. And if we re going to simply use him as an "example", what of the examples of the warrior kings and prophets of the Old Testament? If you take its word, they got up to a lot worse than Muhammed ever did.


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Mohammed led over 20 military campaigns and participated in over 60. He promised and allowed his warriors spoils from the conquests.

Also, Mophammed is just not "another king" or "another example." He is the founder of the religion. Now, if Jesus himself had gone on war-party raids and led military campaigns against unbelievers, I'd say you would have a legitimate parallel example.

The point I was trying to make (to ACPlayer) is that Mohammed might be considered the ultimate authority on Islam, seeing as he was the founder of the entire religion and is considered the Final Prophet. Mohammed's real-life example is that of making many wars against unbelievers. This at least should make one think it more likely than not that the belligerent interpretations of the Koranic passages dealing with fighting infidels, are also most likely the correct interpretations.

I'll return to your post and try to address some of the specific points you raised at a later time (when I have the time and energy to do some web-searching for multiple comparative translations--I've found such things to be time-consuming in the past, and I'm afraid I don't save links for this stuff).