It would be interesting to know how exactly this Al-Qaeda Qur’an has been “revised.” After all, the original contains enough exhortations to violence as it is.
“Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them” is, of course, sura 9:5. What can you possibly add to that to intensify it? Before breaking out that old wheeze that I am “taking it out of context,” please consult my Qur’an blog for plenty of evidence that this verse is by no means alone.
Maybe Al-Qaeda is distributing Saudi Qur’ans that have commentary embedded within the translated text, in parentheses. Much was made of these a few years ago, because one of the glosses added in “like the Jews and Christians” into sura 1, the Fatiha, where it asks Allah not to allow the one praying to be among those who have earned his anger or gone astray. But this was comforting only to those who wanted to believe that the book’s overall message was peaceful, and that Al-Qaeda and the Saudis were adding in the material that was inciting Islamic jihad violence. Alas, that is not the case. Even without these glosses in the Fatiha, in the Qur’an the Jews have earned Allah’s anger by rejecting Muhammad (2:87-90), and the Christians have gone astray by holding to the divinity of Christ (5:72).
“Al Qaida clerics distributing revised editions of Koran,” from the World Tribune (thanks to Jcom):
ABU DHABI “” Qatar has banned the import and distribution of unauthorized Korans.
Officials said the Islamic Affairs Ministry has ordered mosques and clerics to use only Korans and other Islamic text approved by the government, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida-aligned clerics have employed Korans revised to promote the doctrine of Islamic war against the West.
“This is one of several measures by the ministry to ensure that no copies of the Koran that contains mistakes would be circulated in the country,” Mohammed Bin Hamad Ajlan Al Kuwari, director of inspections at the ministry, said.
But the only evidence we get in this piece of how these Qur’ans have been altered is that some parts have been not added, as the Book of Peace crowd might expect, but removed:
Officials acknowledged that Korans revised by Al Qaida-aligned clerics have been distributed in Qatar. They said some of chapters in the Islamic text were removed….