I respect Dr. Daniel Peterson. Years ago, I debated him at FreedomFest in Las Vegas on “Islam: Threat or Not?”:
In this article, Dr. Peterson criticizes some common translations of Qur’an 3:19 and 3:85, which say that only Muslims will go to Paradise, and offers softer wording that allows for non-Muslims to enter. This is akin to those explications of Islamic doctrine that purport to show that it’s all really peaceful, which only leads to the question of why so many Muslims misunderstand it so severely, and all in the same way. While there are indeed Muslims who don’t think that all non-Muslims will go to hell, Dr. Peterson has overlooked Qur’an 98:6: “Indeed, the unbelievers among the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures.” The “the unbelievers among the People of the Book” are those Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians who don’t accept Muhammad and the Qur’an and become Muslims. So are there some non-Muslims who go to Paradise? Sure: the ones who become Muslims.
Dr. Peterson has also failed to consider this hadith, in which Muhammad says “none will enter Paradise but a Muslim soul, and you people, in comparison to the people who associate others in worship with Allah, are like a white hair on the skin of a black ox, or a black hair on the skin of a red ox” (Sahih Bukhari 81.117.6528). While a “Muslim soul” here also could be, as Peterson has it for those Qur’an passages, one who submits to Allah, Muhammad makes it clear that those who associate others in worship with Allah will not enter Paradise. Islam teaches that virtually every non-Muslim religious group associates others in worship with Allah.
So yes, what a difference a translation can make indeed. But we have to guard against wishful thinking that will foster complacency and lead us not to recognize the magnitude of the challenge we face.
“What a difference a little translation choice can make!,” by Dan Peterson, Patheos, September 11, 2019:
One of the courses that I’m teaching this term focuses on reading the Qur’an in English translation. We’re using M. A. S. Abdel Haleem’s version, in the Oxford World’s Classics series….
Translation can really matter, though.
I offer as an illustration a couple of passages that I’ve slightly modified from Abdel Haleem’s rendering:
Qur’an 3:19 : “True Religion, in God’s eyes, is Islam.”
Qur’an 3:85: “If anyone seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him: he will be one of the losers in the Hereafter.”
Now, I’ve seen more than a few translations of these verses that have read pretty much as I have them above. And, when they’re so rendered, some anti-Muslim polemicists use them to argue that Islam is intolerant, and that Muslims believe that non-Muslims will not be accepted with God but will be punished in the Hereafter, that only converting to Islam can save us from the wrath of God.
One can argue about such matters, of course, and some Muslims (particularly on the extreme) certainly do believe that all non-Muslims will go to Hell. But others don’t believe that. And my point is that these verses and others like them don’t say that all non-Muslims go to Hell.
The Arabic word islam, which occurs in both of the verses that I cite, simply means “submission” — presumably, in these contexts, “submission to God.” It is very dubious that the term had already come to be the proper name of a distinct religion (“Islam”) during the life of the Prophet Muhammad, while the Qur’an was still in the process of being revealed and long before it had been gathered together and “published.”
So M. A. S. Abdel Haleem is completely correct, in my view, to translate these passages as in fact he does:
Qur’an 3:19 : “True Religion, in God’s eyes, is islam [devotion to Him alone].”
Qur’an 3:85: “If anyone seeks a religion other than [islam] complete devotion to God, it will not be accepted from him: he will be one of the losers in the Hereafter.”
In fact, I myself might have rendered them more or less as follows:
Qur’an 3:19 : “True Religion, in God’s eyes, is submission [to His will].”
Qur’an 3:85: “If anyone seeks a religion other than submission [to God], it will not be accepted from him: he will be one of the losers in the Hereafter.”…
Angemon says
Tampering with islamic scriptures is haram. A professor of a course on the quran should know this… A “translation of the quran” is not the quran.
mortimer says
Scholars aren’t ‘tampering’ … they are trying to elicit the original intent of the writer and separate that from later interpretations. That is what Robert Spencer is doing here, and he makes a good case that the original wording may suggest something different from the medieval ‘consensus’/exegesis of canonical Islamic scholars.
Angemon says
mortimer, I quoted Dan Peterson, whose Olympic effort in semantics gymnastics would have “islam”, the religion, mean not the religion itself but simply “submission to God”.
gravenimage says
Mortimer, there are *no* translations of these Suras that say anything good about unbelievers. I know you have said that Islamic scholars are hard at work on a kinder, gentler Qur’an, but I have not seen any evidence of this.
Jule Bacal says
What I read is ‘some’ may go IF they are good Dimminis…IF they submit to rules spelled out by Mohammed pretending to be Allah. Its really a cleverly written Warlord Manual for Conquest & Control of its members (also with terror and fear of Allah and his Warlord enforcers on earth) It has an answer for everything in some twisted devious way. I am too surprised a ‘professor’ could read it and come away supporting it. How could he?
gravenimage says
Some dhimmis may be allowed to survive, but that’s about it.
FYI says
Can Dr Peterson explain..why and how..
1.The Second Chief Commandment is MISSING in islam?
“Love thy neighbor”
Leviticus 19:18
-the doctrine of al walaa wal barra:If you HATE infidels you cannot LOVE thy neighbor.
-“Oh ye who believe!Take not the Jews and christians for friends” k5:51
-the koran CURSES Jews on a ludicrously false premise k9:30{The Jews don’t believe in any Ezra is the son of allah”} and Christians are CURSED for believing in Jesus
-the classification in islam of muslims versus infidels:you cannot “love thy neighbor” if your neighbor is classed as an infidel to be converted,taxed or murdered{sahih muslim 19:4294}
-no Golden Rule in islam.
-that fatiha “prayer” cursing Jews and Christians
Please explain,along with any islamic scholars, HOW it is possible and WHY the Second Chief Commandment is missing in islam
{If allah was the SAME as the Judeo-Christian God,the LAW would be the same:it isn’t.So allah is a DIFFERENT god..}
2.islam and the koran,by violating BOTH of God’s Chief Commandements defies
“The WHOLE LAW of Moses and the teachings of the prophets DEPEND on these two commandments”
MATTHEW 22 V 40
LAW#1 LOVE GOD via OBEDIENCE to the commandments
LAW#2 LOVE OTHERS
the koran preaches DISOBEDIENCE to God’s Exodus Laws and HATRED of non-muslisms.
WHY does the koran teach VIOLATIONS of God’s Exodus 20 laws and why are the 2 chief commandments ignored in islam and defied by the koran?
muslims claim the Bible is corrupted but since the koran is COMPLETELY MISSING “the WHOLE LAW” of the 2 chief commandments…
then in fact it is the koran that is corrupted.
allah is a false god,muhammed was a false prophet,the koran is a corrupted scripture pretending to be from God…islam is the false antiChrist creed
Can scholars figure it out?
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the understanding of the scholars”
I Corinthians 1 v 19
mortimer says
FYI, scholars can figure it out if they conclude that the Koran is a jumble of disparate writings quickly thrown together from notes of unknown provenance without much editing, and thus, the Koran contradicts itself. The Koran was obviously concocted by devious politicians who hadn’t much use for books and so they didn’t understand how to make a book.
The Koran isn’t so much a ‘book’ as a jumbled out of order collection of sermon notes by a fiery preacher exhorting the troops to kill the disbelievers. 164 verses in the Koran exhort jihad. Over 60% of the Koran is hatred directed against disbelievers. To say disbelievers go to Islamic paradise is inconsistent if Allah hates them that much. The early Koran may have ‘reconciliatory’ verses, but they are all abrogated according to the Islamic consensus.
Mohammed may have been two or three or more different writers. The caliphs instructed their scribes to put a lot of different writings together and they promoted it as the holy book of the Arabs.
Allah is inconsistent with what he wrote last week. So human of him.
FYI says
Academics are fine of course ..but they don’t necessarily have the WISDOM to see things although they may have extensive knowledge of a subject.
It is the difference between mere knowledge and Wisdom{and God’s Wisdom is above human wisdom:street preachers certainly have it}
Academic analysis of religious texts is certainly important.
mortimer says
Professional ‘Arabists’ or ‘Orientalists’ or (I prefer) ‘Islamologists’ are doing honest, peer-reviewed work. Their conclusions are only as good as the most recent discoveries.
The problem with going through the ashes of early Islam is that we find little in them. The Arab marauders of early Islam burned most of the books they found and if other Muslims wrote books, many of those were burned as well.
Much of what university Islamologists are doing is educated guesses. Patricia Crone said we have to wait for further archeological discoveries.
gravenimage says
I think it is pretty obvious that loving your neighbor was deliberately and quite pointedly left out of the Qur’an.
Linde Barrera says
Thank you, FYI, for your awesome posts. You really “hit the nail on its head” by giving this information.
mortimer says
Koran 2.62 Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.
Conclusions from Wikiislam:
There are many verses in the Qur’an that label Christians and Jews as disbelievers, and numerous more that explicitly condemn them and other disbelievers to Hell. There is scholarly consensus on the fact that Christians and Jews are viewed by Islam as kafirs, because of “the clear nature of the texts about this”.
If you read verse 2:62 in context, it is referring only to those Christians, Jews, and Sabiens who believed in the time of their own Prophet/Messenger.
Each Revelation abrogated the previous. Thus, after the advent of Prophet Muhammad and Islam, no individual can make it into Paradise unless they accept Allah as God, Muhammad as his last Prophet and the Qur’an as Allah’s final book of guidance.
Therefore, the concept of Heavenly rewards in Islam are now exclusively offered to Muslims. Christians and Jews may believe in a single monotheistic god, but they do not believe in “His Messenger”. Thus they are destined for the “burning fire”.
Additionally, the non-Muslims who do make it into Paradise will only be used as sex-slaves by believing men, Muslims who themselves will be spared hell-fire by Allah on the Day of Resurrection by making innocent Christians and Jews take their place and be thrown into Hell.
………………. so, ABROGATION takes all the positive stuff away. The secondary Koran of Medina removes any good thing to say about Christians, Jews or Sabians. They are dirty KAFIRS whom Muslims must hate ‘for the sake of Allah’.
FYI says
@mortimer
“They are dirty KAFIRS whom muslims must HATE ‘for the sake of allah”
That perfectly encapsulates what lies behind Jihadism,al walaa wal barra,1,400 years of Arab islamic supremacist violence..
There is no “LOVE THY NEIGHBOR” in islam,no concept of this CHIEF law of God{found in the Torah and Gospel,in Judaism and Christianity,but MISSING and contradicted by the koran and islam}
That is the core of the problem with islam:No “LOVE THY NEIGHBOR”,no genuine “LOVE OF GOD”{manifested through obeying His commandments and “LOVING THY NEIGHBOR”}
You cannot “LOVE THY NEIGHBOR” if he is classed as an inferior infidel to be subjected to muslims:it is impossible!
gravenimage says
Supposedly there was a time when Jews and Christians had not “corrupted” their texts and the Torah and Gospel were in perfect agreement with the Qur’an. These mythical Jews and Christians could go to the Muslim paradise–because they were Muslims.
Transcendental says
This is another sound argument for intelligent Muslims to reject the Hadith altogether and only accept the Qur’an.
Naildriver says
Intelligent Muslims should reject Islam altogether! And stomp upon the Koran, that has caused such horrors upon mankind for the past thousand plus years.
somehistory says
the question is: Is there such a creature as an “intelligent” moslim? islam destroys intelligence, so any who may have some, are not true moslims, but their minds and hearts have rejected it.
gravenimage says
Transcendental, this implication that the Qur’an is perfectly peaceful and that the only problem are the Hadiths can only, I’m afraid, be believed by those who have never read the Qur’an.
CogitoErgoSum says
Okay, but are God and Allah the same god? Also, what constitutes complete submission to Allah? Would submission require that I accept that there is no god but Allah AND Muhammad is Allah’s messenger? What if I decide Muhammad was either a liar or possessed by a demon? I don’t see how a Christian could believe the words of the Koran (delivered by Muhammad) without rejecting Christ as being the Son of God and a part of the Holy Trinity.
somehistory says
moslims can keep their “paradise.” I don’t want any part of it. Their fake paradise, if it existed, would be filth.
I look forward to the one Christ offered, talked about and promised to those who follow Him.
“Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Brian Hoff says
Jesus is than as is Nose and over 120 000 prophet s He sent to mankind.
James Lincoln says
Brian Hoff,
Your post reflects very confused thinking, possibly schizophrenia.
Please see a non-Muslim physician – ASAP.
gravenimage says
“Brian Hoff”–really, “DefenderofIslam”–wrote:
Jesus is than as is Nose and over 120 000 prophet s He sent to mankind.
…………………..
Wow–this is even more incoherent than usual. It must have been “DefenderofIslam’s” trying to write about Jesus that got him so confused…
ntesdorf says
Dr. Daniel Peterson’s attempts to soften the Qur’am’s embargo on non Muslims entering Paradise reveals that he understands that there is something very deeply wrong with the religion of Islam that needs modern correction.
Kepha says
I will trust the ‘Ulema at Al-Azhar and Qom on Qur’anic exegesis rather than some liberal Western academic, thank you.
Unhappily for the West, too much of what we supposedly “know” about Islam was passed on by people who were themselves malcontents with Christianity, and by New England Unitarians who supposed that Muslims were in favt kindred spirits. We thus find it hard to shake what our supposedly respectable scholars tell us about Islam, and choose to assume that our own eyes in our own times deceive us.
RodSerling says
There are so many problems with Peterson’s presentation here. I’ll just mention a few.
1. Why is he even citing the Quran as an authority on religious or moral questions, at all? Does he agree with cutting off the hands of thieves, lashing with 100 stripes without mercy those who commit fornication, or killing or dismembering those who engage in “mischief”? Does he agree with waging violent jihad warfare against non-Muslims? Does he think the sun sets in a muddy pool?
2. Even if we assume that Peterson’s correct that anyone who submits to any version of god is accepted by Islam’s god, what about the roughly half of the world’s population who aren’t members of the Abrahamic religions?
3. But of course he’s not correct, as should be obvious to any honest-minded individual who has actually read the Quran. What Peterson is doing is, at best, wishful thinking, diplomacy, and maybe a few other things, but it is not honest scholarship. The Quran says repeatedly and unequivocally that disbelief is the worst crime. There are over 500 verses in the Quran that condemn non-Muslims. It’s clear and mind-numbingly repetitious message is that those who do not accept Islam’s prophet and the Quran will face the worst punishment.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/int/long.html
4. Peterson’s claims about two verses are not going to budge the views of Muslims one iota.
gravenimage says
Good analysis, Rod.
Sam says
Islam is evil. Why are we still debating that after 14 centuries?
Christopher Kelley says
Even Muh’d’s Arab biographers seemed to know more than they told… Compare Sura’ 69:44-46, with the best & earliest accounts of his dying. He was making a full confession that he was a False prophet! — You just have to know to flip the pages!
(But far be it from him to REPENT thereof!)
Dr David Wood does a splendid analysis in his YouTube, “Who Killed Muh’d?”
THAT is what “Arabic Scholars” should be taking the time to teach in universities. Don’t waste the students’ time, or their tuition, on trying to finagle a back entrance to a fools’ Parasite — er, Pair o’dice… Don’t take that gamble! Eternity should be better than that! Muh’d’s imaginary pleasure palace was simply to egg on the bloodiest of his warriors — to be yet more barbarous, to commit yet more atrocities.
It’s no wonder that “Love Thy Neighbor” finds no place in the unholy qur’an!
H North says
The fact that Peterson fails to even recognize that Allah is actually Satan tells everyone what they need to know of his opinion on the subject.
gravenimage says
Non-Muslim Islamic scholar discovers that the Qur’an teaches that non-Muslims can go to Paradise
…………………
Grimly hilarious. The Suras Peterson cites are especially scathing of Infidels.
And yes–the only non-Muslims who go to paradise are those who convert to Islam.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Islam is the religion of hypocrisy.
Islam justifies attacking everyone else first by asserting that the infidel non-muslims’ have already all attacked allah first, by dividing his nature (or at least, by being hypocrites for lying about it). So, even in islam, hypocrisy is initially recognized as evil, and evil as hypocrisy. But after that, the means chosen to be used to achieve the end-goal of destroying the hypocrites (more lying hypocrisy to counter the infidels’) means the muslims must actually embrace hypocrisy as a virtue when they do it, making them just as bad and hypocritical as they allege their enemies are. And in the end, even by their own most official rules, there is no real theological reason (even beyond allah being eternally unknowably unknown) for any of it beyond self-enrichment, as they assert that even allah is the greatest of hypocrites, because he had deliberately attacked the infidels first, by making them attack him first by lying about him; and, besides, none of their lying hypocrisy can affect him in any way, so he’s not being harmed by any of it. As the greatest of hypocrites, allah simply (according to all of the very most official islamic doctrines) simply made all the infidels in order to enrage him self, and so his muslims would have some victims to oppress enslave and murder in his name, not only as a “test” of their faithful loyalty, but also as a way to show them his “mercy,” by providing them with spoils of war so they wouldn’t have to get their hands dirty by actually working for a living, or have to think about creating or inventing anything, either. Allah is like a little kid playing with his own action figures; he makes some into losers, and some into winners, depending on his mood. There is no real meaning or purpose to islam beyond being an excuse for Moe and his gang to oppress extort rape enslave and rob other people – and the only proof of it, is that god seems to have let them get away with it, so it can’t have been a crime in the first place, but only used them as a holy punishment of the supposed victims for their own secret crimes!
So being a muslim means you are encouraged to see the world in these starkly limited terms:
“This life is a test of blind obedience – to kill one’s god’s enemies for him, even though he could easily have done so himself, in order to earn one’s way into his paradise – which, if it is to be truly “eternal,” can only be achieved through total Submission to an unconscious level of non-existence; so: “Give up your conscious conscience, act only on your violent instincts like a dumb animal, and die stupid! And, since life is otherwise meaningless, and thinking is painful, it’s better (at least for you, if not for others) this way!”
This is the true Secret Sauce (“hidden nectar”) of islam LOL!
Battle says
There is no god but Mohammad, and Allah is his messenger. –Anjuli Pandavar
AP says
Battle says, There is no god but Mohammad, and Allah is his Messenger. Truer word never spoken!
Linde Barrera says
To AP- If Allah is the only god, I reject him. Why would “the only god, Allah,” create all human beings but only love Muslims and tell Muslims that they must kill everyone that is not a Muslim? Now that is one strange god! Could that god, Allah, possibly be Satan the devil? ? I think Allah actually IS Satan the devil and has tricked and entrapped over a billion people into thinking in a demonic way about all humans who are not Muslims. But the Holy Bible promises that Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, will return. Thankfully, the so-called “prophet” Muhammad (and an evil man he was) will not return.
Giacomo Latta says
Ah yes,Las Vegas, the black hole of dubious intellectual thought.
Ren says
Non-Muslims can go to Paradise if they convert to islam.