Juan Cole is one of the legion of far-Left academic Islamic apologists who do all they can to absolve Islam of all responsibility for the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings. Here, he attempts to show that the Qur’an contradicts jihadis’ beliefs and actions. If only he could convince jihadis of this, but they would see right through it. It’s actually an attempt not to convince them to lay down their arms, but to make Westerners complacent regarding the jihad threat, and to lead them to assume that jihadis are rejected by Muslims who are aware of the Qur’an’s actual teachings. More below.
“Top 7 Ways al-Qaeda’s Terrorism Violated the Precepts of the Holy Qur’an,” by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, September 12, 2021 (thanks to Gary):
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the great tragedies of the early twenty-first century is that the great civilization of Islam, over 1400 years old and with tremendous achievements should have had its escutcheon besmirched with the terrorism of a small fringe of extremists such as Usama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It is the faith of nearly a quarter of humanity (and heading toward being that of a third),
Bully-boys and sociopaths like Bin Laden and his associates cherry-pick the Qur’an and quote half a verse to justify themselves. They completely ignore the peace verses in the Qur’an, which address a situation in which there is no state and no head of state and in which, therefore the early Muslim community was instructed to avoid conflict….
1. The Criterion 25:63 says, “The servants of the All-Merciful are those who walk humbly upon the earth — and when the unruly address them, they reply, ‘Peace!’” The Qur’an urges believers to emulate God, the compassionate and merciful, serving the All-Merciful. When ruffians (al-jahilun) taunt and harass them, they are to reply by wishing peace on their enemies. They are praised for walking humbly upon the earth.
Sufis such as Qushayri and Sulami saw this verse as an encouragement to cultivate the divine characteristics of mercy and compassion on all human beings, and thought only spiritual adepts could reach the state where they could sincerely wish peace, security and prosperity on people who were persecuting them.
Bin Laden for all his pretensions was just a rich psychopath (an increasingly worrisome phenomenon about which those old James Bond movies were prescient). He was not a recognized leader or head of state. He was just a civilian.
According to the rules of the Qur’an, his situation was like that of the early community in Mecca, which had no authority and therefore was instructed to let God handle such disputes.
Cole’s own article contradicts his attempt to use Qur’an 25:63 to show that the jihadis are wrong. Clearly this verse has never been understood to teach some sort of pacifism or nonviolence, and there are numerous verses calling for violence that are also in the Qur’an, some of which Cole discusses here. When the unruly address the Muslims, the Muslims are to reply, “Peace!” — but there are circumstances, delineated in the Qur’an, in which Muslims are to wage war, and that’s what jihadis consider themselves to be doing, waging war as the Qur’an commands.
2. In fact, ordinary Muslims are ordered to do good to their enemies to win them over.
Distinguished 41:33-35 observes, “Whose discourse is more beautiful than one who calls others to God and performs good works and proclaims, ‘I am among those who have acquiesced in the monotheist tradition? The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is better and behold, it will be as though the one, with whom you have a mutual enmity, is a devoted patron. Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.”
This instruction to do good to your enemies perhaps goes even beyond what Jesus recommends in the New Testament. It is dialogical, urging believers to reach out to those who would do them harm, and attempt to transform them into supportive patrons….
Repel the evil with what is better. In the Qur’an’s context, what is better may be waging war against unbelievers. Cole’s assumption that the Qur’an considers waging war to be something evil in itself is not borne out by the text.
3. When civilians not at the head of a state kill, they simply are committing murder: Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. 5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be [a sanctioned execution] for murder or for committing brigandage in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind,” This is a paraphrase, as the Qur’an admits, of the Jerusalem Talmud.
If killing one soul is equivalent to xenocide, to the killing of a whole species, then what is slaughtering 3,000 innocents?
Actually this is 5:32. There is some variation in the numbering of Qur’an verses, but Cole’s “5:53” is too far from the actual verse’s number to be a simple numbering variation. Either it’s a typo, or Cole simply doesn’t know where the verse really is. In any case, Cole here commits the notorious sin of omission that is so common among Islamic apologists. He quotes 5:32 without 5:33, which prescribes the killing and/or dismembering of those who “wage war against Allah and his messenger.” It’s hard to see 5:32, which is addressed to the “Children of Israel” alone, as forbidding murder on a universal basis when the verse that immediately follows provides ample justification for murder in all sorts of circumstances.
4. The Cow 2:190 instructs Muhammad’s believers: “Fight in the path of God those who enter into combat against you, but do not commit aggression. God does not love aggressors.” This was one of the first verses to permit self-defense, once the early Muslim community had relocated to Medina. The arrogant pagan Meccans came after them there, and if they had not taken up arms at that point, they and their families would have been massacred by the attackers.
Nevertheless, the Qur’an, unlike the Bible, only authorizes defensive military actions.
Not even one of those killed on September 11 had entered into combat against Bin Laden and al-Qaeda….
Cole doesn’t mention Qur’an 8:39, “And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.” That is an open-ended declaration of war against unbelievers simply because they are unbelievers, and demonstrates that Qur’anic warfare is not solely defensive.
6. The Spoils 8:61 says: “If they incline toward peace, you must incline toward it. Trust in God–he is all-hearing and omniscient.”
Since al-Qaeda staged a sneak attack on thousands of innocents, it had no way of knowing whether they inclined toward peace. There is no reason to think they weren’t peaceful people. This verse shows that the Qur’an disapproves of aggressive warfare and only authorizes defensive actions. After all, wouldn’t any enemy that was being attacked by Muslims declare for peace and so trigger an end to the war?
The Muslims should be ready to make peace if the enemy wishes to do so. Some however, do not believe this truce should be indefinite in length. Sayyid Qutb explains: “At the time when this surah was revealed, God instructed His Messenger to remain at peace with those groups who refrained from fighting him and the Muslims, whether they entered into a formal treaty with the Muslims or not. The Prophet continued to accept a peaceful relationship with unbelievers and people of earlier revelations until Surah 9 was revealed, when he could only accept one of two alternatives: either they embraced Islam or paid jizyah [see 9:29] which indicated a state of peace. Otherwise, the only alternative was war, whenever this was feasible for the Muslims to undertake, so that all people submit to God alone.”
7. The Qur’an recognizes that Jews and Christians are, like Muslims, monotheists and it guarantees them liberty of life and property. The Qur’an assures Christians and Jews of paradise if they believe and do good works, and commends Christians as the best friends of Muslims. I wrote elsewhere, “Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians.
Quran 5:69 says (Arberry): “Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those Sabeaans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works righteousness–-their wage waits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow.”
In other words, the Quran promises Christians and Jews along with Muslims that if they have faith and works, they need have no fear in the afterlife. Fred Donner has argued that Muhammad created a rainbow coalition of monotheists, of Jews Christians and Muslims. Muslims are permitted to share food with the other communities and even to intermarry.
Bin Laden’s characterization of all Christians as “crusaders” was a slap in the face to this Qur’anic ecumenism….
5:69 is one of the Qur’an’s oft-quoted “tolerance verses,” which seems to promise a place in paradise to Jews, Christians, and Sabeans.” A tafsir attributed to Ibn Abbas contends that 2:62, which says the same thing, was abrogated by Qur’an 3:85, which states that no religion other than Islam will be accepted in the next world. The thirteenth-century Qur’an commentator Abu Abdullah al-Qurtubi, whose commentary is still respected and widely read among Muslims, notes Ibn Abbas’s opinion and adds: “Others said that it is not abrogated and that it is about those who believe in the Prophet, peace be upon him, and who are firm in their belief.” Thus it would apply only to those Jews, Christians, and Sabeans who accept Islam. Those who do not are “the unbelievers of the People of the Book,” for whom Allah’s disdain is noted vividly in 98:6, where they are called “the most vile of created beings.”
So much for the peace and tolerance Juan Cole would have you believe is in the Qur’an.
mortimer says
Propagandists like Juan Cole have no place in academia. He abuses his position by perverting the facts. It is Juan Cole who is cherry-picking, not the counter-jihadists who meticulously analyze the Islamic PRIMARY SOURCE TEXTS and CANONICAL COMMENTARIES that are the basis of Islam.
There is no possible way to deny that JIHADISM Is a core teaching of Islam … except by LYING about it.
Juan Cole wants to brush off the facts about JIHADISM and POLITICAL Islam … they actually constitute over 50% of the PRIMARY ISLAMIC SOURCE TEXTS … it’s not just one or two dozen texts we are talking about. Political Islam is promoted clearly in the very substantial JIHADISM of Islam’s earliest literature:
FACTS:
-51% of the Islamic Trilogy (548,190 words) is political about the kafir problem
-64% of the Koran is devoted to the kafir problem and is political.
-37% of the hadiths is devoted to the kafir problem and is political.
-81% of the Sira is devoted to the kafir problem and is political.
Summary:
-51% of Islam’s foundational texts (the Islamic trilogy) is devoted to resolving the kafir problem and is political. Islam’s problem with kafirs is that they do not accept that Mohammed is a prophet, so Muslims must subjugate them militarily. Islam is primarily a political/military doctrine or ideology whose goal is world conquest.
Juan Cole is desperate to whitewash the reality of foundational Islam, but he would surely lose in five minutes of debate on this topic with the mighty Robert Spencer. That’s why the coward Juan Cole runs from debate on his ideas. He is unable to defend them except from his perch in his ivory tower. Sad … he’s a deceiver who first deceives himself. Deception is NOT scholarship.
John Guandolo says
Juan Cole’s ignorance of Islamic doctrine, sharia, is evident. This Muslim Brotherhood talking point, “cherry picking from the Koran” is something we at Understanding the Threat (UTT) have been teaching for years. If you understand ABROGATION and PROGRESSIVE REVELATION in Islam, everything the jihadis tell us – which is correct about Islam – becomes very clear. What was “revealed” chronologically later in the Koran has legal authority over what came earlier. The understanding in all normative and universally taught Islamic doctrine is that muslims must wage war against non-muslims until “allah’s divine law”/sharia is imposed on every human on earth. Ask Mr. Cole to find 1 authoritative Islamic law book published in any century or any text book used to teach muslim 10 years olds about Islam today that says something different. He won’t because it doesn’t exist.
mortimer says
Dear Mr. Guandolo, don’t you think Juan Cole is aware of ABROGATION? I do think he is aware and afraid of it. I don’t think he is ‘ignorant’ of abrogation. He is deceitfully and carefully avoiding the issue of abrogation in order to whitewash canonical jihadism.
James Lincoln says
Mr. Guandolo,
Thank you so much for all of the work that you do at UTT as a staunch anti-jihadist.
We have all learned much from you – a true patriot!
gravenimage says
Good analysis, Mr. Guandolo.
mortimer says
Juan Cole quotes the somewhat tolerant ‘Meccan’ verses, but Islamic scholars claim that over 100 ‘Meccan’ verses are ABROGATED by only one verse: Koran 9.5 … the so-called ‘Verse of the Sword.’.
Tafsir Ibn Kathir (on Koran9:30) — “Fighting the Jews and Christians is legislated because they are idolaters and disbelievers. Allah the Exalted encourages the believers to fight the polytheists, disbelieving Jews and Christians, who uttered this terrible statement and utter lies against Allah, the Exalted. As for the Jews, they claimed that Uzayr was the son of God, Allah is free of what they attribute to Him. As for the misguidance of Christians over Isa, it is obvious.”
gravenimage says
+1
mortimer says
Juan Cole hopes we will not bring up the ABROGATION doctrine of Islam which destroys all his arguments for ‘benign’ Islam.
Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam
by David Bukay
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2007, pp. 3-11
https://www.meforum.org/1754/peace-or-jihad-abrogation-in-islam
“Muhsin Khan, the translator of Sahih al-Bukhari, says God revealed “Ultimatum” in order to discard restraint and to command Muslims to fight against all the pagans as well as against the People of the Book if they do not embrace Islam or until they pay religious taxes. So, at first aggressive fighting was forbidden; it later became permissible (2:190) and subsequently obligatory (9:5).[57] This “verse of the sword” abrogated, canceled, and replaced 124 verses that called for tolerance, compassion, and peace.”
“Suyuti said that everything in the Qur’an about forgiveness and peace is abrogated by verse 9:5, which orders Muslims to fight the unbelievers and to establish God’s kingdom on earth.”
“. Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti, a contemporary Al-Azhar University scholar, wrote that “the verse (9:5) does not leave any room in the mind to conjecture about what is called defensive war. This verse asserts that holy war, which is demanded in Islamic law, is not a defensive war because it could legitimately be an offensive war. That is the apex and most honorable of all holy wars. Its goal is the exaltation of the word of God, the construction of Islamic society, and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth regardless of the means. It is legal to carry on an offensive holy war.”
Rob R (Brit stuck in Britainistan) says
So next time emergency workers are peeling bits of Londoners (or Parisians) off of the floor, they can take great comfort in knowing that isn’t “real Islam” and it’s only “cherry picking”. As they try to decide which liver belongs to who.
Thanks, Juan. Your pathetic hand-wringing and excuse-making has made the world SUCH a better place! You are a modern day Jonas Salk.
CogitoErgoSum says
To me it all comes down to verse 9:29. It is one of the last verses “revealed” to Muhammad. There is no later verse that abrogates it. It abrogates what came before it. Also, there is no time limit placed upon it so it has never expired. Fight the unbelievers is the foremost command of Allah. Fight until the entire world submits to Islam. The command is not to live in peace but to FIGHT. I suppose Juan Cole would lay blame on those of us who refuse to submit for making the fight go on and on and on. In response to that I only say know this – we who refuse to submit to a god of hate and coercion and murder are the ones who fight the good fight.
somehistory says
100+
gravenimage says
So true.
somehistory says
I have experience actually picking cherries. The worker takes everything that is “Ripe.”
So, the person looking **honestly** at islam will recognize this fool is writing garbage. What he has written, is just a pack of lies…like mozlums themselves tell when attempting to pull the evil wool over the eyes of those who don’t know what islam is all about.
mozlums…and this fool included, have a different dictionary, so terms such as “good works” that will earn Christians and others a place in ‘paradise’….more on that….is just cover for the fact that these ones must convert because nothing else will save them from satan’s sword wielded by the devout mozlum.
And their “paradise’…all about unbounded lust, drunken rape of the young…boys and girls…and other vile practices mozlum males desire; this is not a ‘paradise’ that any person who respects the sacredness of life would wish to participate in, nor ‘win” as a reward for being satan’s slave.
1400 years of theft, extortion, rape and slaughter….nothing good comes of islam, no matter how long it has lasted.
There is no value or virtue in islam, nothing to nurture or benefit the soul of man; nothing to bring one closer to bearing the image of our Creator.
This is all “ripe” fruit…rotten fruit from the book of evil filth produced by satan the devil.
Wellington says
The abrogation element re the Koran is a very fine example of a combination of absurdity AND deception going on at the same time.
As for Juan Cole, he will only make headway with the ignorant, but which sadly constitutes a great many people.
Would love to see a debate between Robert Spencer and Juan Cole but Cole, I am certain, doesn’t have the guts for it and will use one lame excuse or another for not debating Spencer.
somehistory says
All true. mozlums are cowards, so if they can;t attack the defenseless…woman alone or children…they must gang up. This guy would need a gang of himself to debate Mr. Spenser. And would still lose.
James Lincoln says
Wellington, he will never debate Robert Spencer.
Never.
tim gallagher says
These Islamophile types are ignorant fools. Anyone can see that it is not just a few fringe dwellers among Muslims who are violent and carry out terrorist attacks, rapes, etc. There have been around 40,000 Muslim terrorist attacks since the 9/11 attacks. The followers of no other religious ideology have carried out anywhere near as many attacks. I wonder whether creatures like this guy don’t actually even believe what they are saying, but are maybe, secretly, being paid plenty of money by rich Muslim Arabs to spread propaganda for islam. Hopefully, almost nobody believes the crap that these clowns come up with. There is too much evidence which clearly contradicts their bullshit. I had a laugh at how this bullshitter is published in something called “Informed Comment”. Yeah, right. Talk about a misnomer. Should be called “Totally Uninformed Comment”.
SAFI says
King ‘Cherry-Picker’ Juan Cole Accuses Jihadists of Cherry-Picking the Koran
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2021/09/15/king-cherry-picker-juan-cole-accuses-jihadists-of-cherry-picking-the-koran/
Giacomo Latta says
”tremendous achievements”
Like, say, the invasion of Europe by various Islamic empires and being successful enough to conquer, at least temporarily, one-third of it. And for what reason? No particular reason, it was just a slow century or two and there was nothing else to do?
So what do you think today’s Islamic states, some geographic, some not so much, are up to? They are big on firearms, explosive devices and the possibility of developing nuclear destructive capability? To what end do you suppose? It seems to me that in this particular case the past is a pretty good augur of the future, especially if we don’t act to prevent future tremendous achievements.
gravenimage says
Islamic apologist Juan Cole claims jihadis ‘cherry-pick the Qur’an and quote half a verse to justify themselves’
…………………….
More claptrap from apologist for Islam Juan Cole. Note that he doesn’t say how so many pious Muslims–including Islamic clerics–supposedly get their faith so very, very wrong.
Note that he does not quote Qur’an 25:68, that notes that Muslims can murder with “legal right”–and that this includes killing in Jihad.
Likewise, he doesn’t note in Qur’an 41:33-35 that good in Islam includes killing unbelievers and that evil includes abstaining from just that.
As for Qur’an 5:3, this is chiding *Jews* for supposedly not living up to their values–this actually has nothing to do with Muslims at all.
Note that Qur’an 2:190 never actually says what those limits are–but we know from other Islamic texts that they include raping, enslaving, and murdering Infidels.
Then, that Cole cites “The Spoils” is itself grotesque–this Sura is all about stealing from unbelievers, including enslaving them.
As for Quran 5:69, see how Sahih International translates that verse:
Sahih International: Indeed, those who have believed [in Prophet Muúammad] and those [before Him] who were Jews or Sabeans or Christians – those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness – no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.
…
This makes it pretty clear that it only gives a pass to Jews, Sabeans, and Christians who lived *before* the “Prophet Muhammad’s” time. In other words they would now have to be Muslims.