Well, let's move to the critics of Islam. They argue that a much more aggressive, offensive sense of use of force is justified as set forth, actually in the Qur'an, they even make this argument. And I think they point most famously to the famous, what some people call the sword versus in the Qur'an. But, let me just read them, and we'll put them up for our students to read. The first starts, Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not like transgressors. Then it goes on, the next verse it says, And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al-Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. Now many take these verses to say that, wow, this is saying a very aggressive stance especially towards infidels, non-believers. How do you respond to that? >> And these are not only ones. >> Yes, there are other verses. >> There are in chapter five, chapter six, chapter nine. If you go, there are so many of those verses as well. But it's really interesting. These critics of Islam, and those marginal radicals in the Muslim, as if they graduated from the same school. [LAUGH] It's really interesting, the way they- >> Yes, they read the same way. >> They read the exact same verses in the exact same way, as if the entire Qur'an is only these verses. And as if they can only be read in such a literal meaning. Taking one verse of the Qur'an, and basically taking it completely out of context and building a whole theology of it. Well, we don't read, as the entire Muslim history is the witness, Muslims do not necessarily read or engage with the Qur'an in this way. The entire Qur'an was revealed in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad in 23 years, and most of its verses were in response to what was going on in the life of the Prophet Muhammad. So a brief explanation, brief common sense that I will bring to these verses. So these verses were revealed in the time of the Prophet Muhammad while he was about to or he was engaging war with the people of Mecca who were basically hostile towards Prophet Muhammad from the beginning who were trying to wipe them and his religion from the face of Earth. So these verses has a context. When we read Qur'an, we read the very same reasons of these revelations revealed to Prophet Muhammed. We have in our tradition the picture of the life time of Prophet Muhammed, what was going on in the life time of Prophet Muhammed. So, to take these critics of Islam to their own words, if Muslims were religiously, theologically basically commanded to take this jihad towards any non-believers, throughout the history, we have had many opportunities. We had so many different opportunities to do this, to take this wherever we go. That's absolutely not true. If you think the entire 1400 years of Muslim history, Muslims were chasing non-Muslims and engaging in this kind of hostile, violent, and somewhat barbaric reactions, there would be no Muslims in the Muslim world. Well, if you see, after 1,400 years of presence in Egypt, in Syria, Lebanon, there's a significant number of non-Muslim minorities in that part of the world. I mean, that in itself is a living, Islam was in India for 800 years as a hegemonic, powerful, ruling elite. So as in Spain. Muslims never understood these verses. This is similar to going back to Christian Bible or Jewish Bible, taking these Joshua's entrance to the Holy Land verses and basically saying this is the entire Judaism, this is the entire Christianity. What I would say is this is just basically as these critics, and the people like Osama Bin Laden and other radicals, this is the perversion and distortion of the beautiful message of Islam. Taking these few verses and basically taking them completely out of context. >> So what is the message of the Qur'an in terms of how non-believers, non-Muslims ought to be treated whether they live in Muslim lands or whether Muslims are living as minorities in other lands. >> Actually if you read two verses before these verses and two verses after those verses, there's a clear explanation and answer to your question. Where God says don't engage in war, peace is better. God loves the peacemakers, but only if they attack you. If only they destroy you. If only they, sort of, pose as a threat to you and to your community. Then engage in war and jihad in these just, ethic, moral manners. Only then. But even in the middle of that war if they choose the path of peace, you should also choose the path of peace. Since God loves those who are peacemakers, etc. The Qur'an itself is explaining that. The Qur'anic attitude, the Muslim attitude about non-Muslims is, they should be treated respectfully. They should be respected. Their religious rights needs to be given to them. They should be able to practice their religion freely. These are not my words and claim. I mean people can go. Just compare the Jewish experience in the Muslim world and the Jewish experience in somewhere else especially in the Christian Europe. It wasn't necessarily rosy. It wasn't like the 21st century egalitarian, equal society per se. But it's not even comparable. There is nothing close to Holocaust or Inquisition or crusaders, nothing even close in that kind of either my religion or death or you have to leave. There were no such imposition of Islam to the religious minorities in the Muslim-dominated, Muslim majority societies throughout the history. >> Of course, what gives some credibility to some of these critics is that, in many Muslim countries, we are seeing a persecution of religious minorities. But I take it your view is that this is certainly not consistent with Islam, but it's happening for political, cultural reasons. And some people are trying to use Islam, and to justify what they're doing to minorities in the Sudan or in Egypt, where the Coptic Christians are oppressed. >> And yes, and that's absolutely true, and also very new phenomenon. Like burning churches, attacking churches, basically persecuting religious minorities, in this sense, what's happening despicably in Indonesia and Pakistan. The government army is basically taking part in destroying religious houses of worships of other faith communities. This is absolutely an anomaly. This is absolutely, there were fights and war, but the religious houses of worship, the religious lands, the properties, were always considered as sacred and respected throughout the history. It's a new phenomenon, in a post-colonial sense.
