Indonesian government releases new translation of the Qur'an, designed to reduce "potential to breed radicalism"

"..yes, the Qur'an is so famously a book of love."
William Ewart Gladstone disagrees:
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/05/accursed-book-le-livre-maudit.html

"“The [previous] Koran translation has the potential to breed radicalism. That is because the Indonesian vocabulary is very limited,” he said."

It would seem that vocabularies are "limited" all over the muslim world.

Robert I like your translation! Here is one of my own from Koran 3:110

“Ye are the worst of Peoples, devolved for mankind, enjoining what is wrong, forbidding what is right, and believing in Satan. If only the People of the Book had sense, it were best for them: among them are some who have Faith, but most of them are multi-culturalist.”

Wouldn't it be great to publish a spoof Koran? Whitewash your Islam using new improved Koran with Reduced Radicalism, ha, I like it :-) Of course you'd have to spend the rest of your life in hiding, oh, you already do... :-(

Not one alternative "new and improved Qur'an" but rather, a half-dozen or so, with each having its verses sweetened to a slightly different degree. At one end -- the Qur'an that is the most saccharine and comically outreachable, and at the other -- the Qur'an as it is, a book inculcating hatred for, and violence towards, Infidels, and gradations in between.

OLD: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush..."

NEW: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, hug the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (to dinner), and be sweet to them, and prepare for them a bubble bath..."

LOL. Hugs, dinner, bubble bath, I'm ready to convert!

I'm just enjoying a picture of Robert in Adam Gaddan's bubble bath.

"However, the ministry refused to consider the new translation as state product.

'Yeah, so don't bomb our offices or kill any of us, because it's from all of these people, every one of us, and you can't kill all of us, right?'
(I think they're channeling the 'Everybody draw Mohammed'/Spartacus strategy)

There is no power in any translation of the Koran to change the hearts of these wicked people. They need truth, which cannot be gotten from an evil man like Mohammud.

The Koran is rubbish produced by a power-mad schizophrenic. If Muslims states want to claim "mistranslation" and liberalize the Koran then, by all means, let them!

it is really sad and tragic that a site like this who trying to tackle perhaps the biggest threat to our way of life, instead of engaging in intllegent conversaion and trying to figue out a way out of f...mess, instead eveyone just posting messages of rediculing Islam/muslims and that is hardly a reselution or a solution. but then gain this is America! that why it is the greates nation!!! then again I don't blame anyone here!! Iwas raised in conservative muslim house hold and know far beyond your imagination how f....up Islam is! however if this is true that the Indoniasian government has a softer and a gentler translation of Islam, I am all for it. at this point anything helps!! and my own son , a Marine who is in Helmand provice in Aghanistan is also lending a hand!!!

@ Miriam Rove
You complain that "eveyone (is) just posting messages of rediculing Islam/muslims and that is hardly a reselution or a solution."
Then you go onto say that, "I was raised in conservative muslim house hold and know far beyond your imagination how f....up Islam is!"

Is your last statement not ridiculing Islam? Try to understand that we are all pulling in the same direction here.

However, if you really believe that, "the Indoniasian government has a softer and a gentler translation of Islam" then I recommend that you keep visiting Jihad Watch. A 'gentler' version of Al Qur'an would be like a having a 'gentler' version of Mein Kampf.

yankel: are you kidding me! all the fun is INFIDEL countries!! I work in NYC, after 6pm, I go and chase women, smoke cigars and have Dewars on the rocks!!! ya baby!! can't do this in Saudia Arabia!!! if you know what I mean!!
BURAQ: I guess, iam clinging to a little hope!!
HUGH: your point is well taken!!!

tziona: Miriam is a name or I should say an alias I use here. I am a male!! but is funny what you just said!!!

I am still trying to figure out why a translation, why ANY translation of the word "love" be it ever so faulty should be a cause for radicalism in the Religion of Peace™, committed to Tolerance ©, Harmony ©, Bridge Building ©, Interfaith ©, Dialogue © and now Love ©, goddammit.

Actually it´s quite sad to see a well educated man describe his own language as "limited". Arab religious and cultural pressure most be quite strong out there.

How are they going to give muhammad a makeover? I mean they can't exactly make a silk purse out of a horse's ass ...err, I mean a sow's ear.

muhammad creates a reaaaaaaly big problem for those attempting to create a new image for islam.

Oh well, they can always rewrite history ...

But it is strange: whenever I have a discussion with a muslim he or she does behave as if it IS the Robert Spencer cuddle and group hug translation that is being discussed. I can quote Medina Quran with chapter, verse and hadith added to it and they at most act as if I had said something offensive, but definitely not in accord with the Mecca Quran and the loving and beloved prophet. I find it hard going to cross this chasm.

Steffen: It is not only sad for someone to know their short comings, it is essential. as ex muslim who grew up in a conservative home, who want see my people unchained, for the chain that is called Islam, any little positive step is a welcome move..

Well it will be interesting to see how moderate they made the 'New Quran'...If they modified it too much, Allah will be Pzzed and Iblis will show up with a big stick and pummel them intensely about the head and shoulders...

Is that bid'ah I smell in the Indonesian air?

Best of luck with that. :)

Ever wonder how many Muslims in the West get PO'd when they have to put taysir on the shelf and be good Muslims? That may be the only Islamic dogma, or excuse for a softer interpetation, that they give a squat about.

http://newstime.co.nz/smash-islam-into-pieces-and-pulverize-it-reforming-impossible.html
Reforming Impossible!!!

When you don't believe just one word of Allah's shit Quran, you are an apostate and can be killed (Q 4:89)

"duh_swami" " I knew a guy with short comings once, he used to smoke cigars, drink beer, and chase women, but he never caught any..."

Just in the nick of time I was about to take a run at the repetitive little troll. Thanks.

Miriam, you do not sound like the typical Muslim in the Middle East. Many would have you executed if they knew how you behaved, all in the name of their "religious" beliefs.

Rather than sneaking behind your religion's back, why not instead follow a religion you believe in? There are lots of other great ones. Buddhism, Christianity, Atheism...

At least gives Spencer's books a read. When you do, you'll see why the Taliban has threatened him specifically and you'll read critical stuff about Islam that is never said in the Middle East because people get killed there for speaking out.

To those who are tempted to convert to Islam because of the "hugs, dinner, and bubble bath", these are the very reasons that you shouldn't convert. Otherwise, you will end up footing the bill for all the dinners and bubble baths you'd be obliged to provide to non-believers.

These new social amenities are for the non-believers in Islam. If you want to enjoy them, then you must remain a non-believer.

For each verse in the Qur'an, this website will show you over thirty translations, most of them similar.

of course many koran readers will be reading the koran in arabic, so there is no misunderstanding about meanings for them, and watching the news, I daily see that they understand its meaning very well. I also thought that it was a sin to read the accursed book in anything other than the original.

off topic a bit, but i asked a rabbi once, what’s Judaism’s take was on this satanic book, he told me that mohamhate took a yeshiva student (trainee rabbi) hostage and forced him to write the words for him as mohamhate was illiterate, rabbi told me also there were gramatria messages from the rabbi hidden in there. Rabbi also told me to just ignore Jihad, not to worry and Moshiach was on his way and would sort them out soon.

"In Indonesian, there is only one word for 'love'. Yet, the Koran has 14 different words for varying degrees of love," he added....

One way to begin to understand the Quran's attitude to love is to see how many of its verses mention the word 'love,' and what they say. I searched the USC-MSA database and out of the Quran’s roughly 6,220 verses, there are 76 in which at least two of the three translations in the database use the word ‘love.’ (In an additional 17 verses, love is mentioned, but only by one of the three translations.)

By my count, here's how the 76 love verses break down.

23 verses speak of what Allah does not love;
19 verses speak of what Allah loves;
34 verses are harder to categorize, but most of them mention kinds of love of which Allah approves or disapproves.

Taken altogether, what sort of love doctrine do the 76 contain? One thing to notice is that only one or two of the 76 use love as a noun and in that sense focus, grammatically anyway, on love itself. Most of the other verses focus on what Allah loves or does not love, or what someone else loves. Love itself is hardly noticed. In fact its use as a word seems to be mostly a slightly veiled way to explain how to please and not to anger Allah, whom the Quran conceives after the fashion of an extremely despotic earthly tyrant.

To see all 76 of the verses, go here: In Short Compass, the Qur'an's Attitude to Love

Qur'an 56:77-80: This is an honorable Qur'an. It is a protected book. None can grasp it except the sincere. A revelation from the Lord of the universe.

Qur'an 15:9: Absolutely, we have revealed the Qur'an, and, absolutely, we will preserve it.

Qur'an 85:21-22: Indeed, it is a glorious Qur'an. It is a preserved master tablet.

Robert Spencer, "Blogging the Qur'an":

Allah will protect the Qur’an [15:9], “against,” says the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, “substitution, distortion, additions and omissions.” That is why the prospect of alternate Qur’anic texts is so dangerous from a Muslim perspective – genuine alternate readings of the Qur’an would negate Allah’s promise in this verse.
................

"Alternate readings of the Qur'an"—like this Indonesian effort. Wait for the denunciations from pious Muslims, calling the translators and the Indonesian government "hypocrites" and "apostates".

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/02/blogging-the-quran-sura-15-rock-city.html

I think a new 'translation' of the Koran is a great idea. If it were written along the lines of the 'True Furqan' mentioned above that would be even better. Print about 10 million copies making them look as authentic as possible and ship them out to all the Muslim countries all over the world. At first, they won't be able to tell the difference and then there will start to be those who will believe that it is the 'True' Quran. After that they will start to kill each other over it of course, but by then it will be to late for them. The book will have started a schism in the Ummah (I always think of the Pink Floyd album Umma-
Gumma read I hear that word) that will be unstoppable. ....or at least we can hope.

It would have been good to see what the actual changes in the Qur'an were that are referred to in the story in The Jakarta Post. The linked article didn't give any specifics.

Such subterfuge is already true. Muslims are extolled to read the Quran in original Arabic as it is so much more violent in Arabic, among other things.

For some reason, I am reminded of Gulliver's Travels, and the earnest researchers upon the floating island of Laputa, among whom was one who was *sure* there was a way to turn excrement into food.

To ebonystone
How do I download the "The Furqan". Every site I go to has the arse-lifters and head-bangers ranting and raving don't download this evil book, here read the true Furqan.