Ramadan Day 7: Verses from the Quran
Tue Oct 11, 2005 at 06:22:24 PM PDT
Each day during
Ramadan, I am presenting a verse from the Quran with a few thoughts or comments. An introduction to this series is
here. Inshallah (God willing), I hope that this may be of benefit to any who are interested in learning a bit more about Islam and Muslim belief.
Quran 6:108:
And do not revile those whom they call on in place of Allah so that they revile Allah out of spite, without knowledge. In that way, We have adorned for every community its works. Then they will return to their Lord and He will tell them what they were doing
Like
an earlier verse I highlighted, this one concerns how to act to those who follow a different religion.
Here, we are told not to attack or make derogatory comments about what others worship (or, more generally, their belief systems) because that will naturally lead to them attacking and denigrating ours.
The phrase "In that way, We have adorned for every community its works" (the speaker here is God) means that this sort of behavior is tempting and alluring to us. Anybody who's ever gotten sucked into a flame war with somebody they disagreed with knows the truth of this!
But we need to resist this allure and go with the more difficult course, which is to treat others with genuine respect, whatever their beliefs are. If we do not treat others with respect, why should they treat us with respect?
