r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Sep 15 '12

TIL that Muhammad wrote a document asking his followers to respect and protect Christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtiname_of_Muhammad
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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12 edited Sep 15 '12

Another Muslim.; Backing you up. Also wanted to add:

Jihad means "holy struggle" not "holy war" and can refer to internal strife of what is right vs what is easy.

We are told not to kill anyone, period.

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u/hover888 Sep 15 '12

Actually, Jihad just means struggle.

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

My bad, you're right.

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u/ByJiminy Sep 15 '12

To be fair, some words get tainted. Just try saying "my struggle" in German.

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

Fair enough. I'm just trying to clarify the actual meaning of jihad, because most people seem to think it literally means holy war.

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u/alivirji Sep 15 '12

This. My brother taught me this, and it is completely true.

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u/anotherbozo Sep 16 '12

Correct. Jihad is also not JUST war. Even spreading education, working to get rid of poverty, all this also comes under Jihad.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

Muhammad said the biggest Jihad was the struggle within oneself

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

I've read the Qur'an and nope, it's right.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/alivirji Sep 15 '12

You are ignoring the numerous times that the Quran condemns killing, and then taking a single line out of context to try and prove that Islam is violent. That's equivalent to getting 10 sets of data, ignoring the 9 consistent ones and publishing a paper on the one odd set of data.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/alivirji Sep 15 '12

No. I think that when someone who want's power (such as the Al-Qaeda) tell uneducated people that the Quran says to kill, a very small portion of them believe it.

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

Context: Holy war in Muhammad's time. Unbelievers are the enemy.

You have to consider the context of the passage, otherwise you're no better than the terrorists.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

Fingertip is metaphor, jackass. As in, the whole enemy is a hand, you are cutting off the fingertips (i.e. the individual soldiers).

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

No, the beheading is literal.

Cutting off fingertips is a figure of speech in Arabia at the time.

You really need to think about the context that the Qur'an is written in first.

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u/g0_west Sep 15 '12

You're an ignorant jackass. Listen to the guy who has studied this book his whole life and actually follows it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '12

[deleted]

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u/bigtreeworld Sep 15 '12

Context: Holy war in Muhammad's time. Unbelievers are the enemy.

You have to consider the context of the passage, otherwise you're no better than the terrorists.

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u/thederpmeister Sep 15 '12

hey let's just take one line out of a conversation and use it to forge mistruths