I've read this very enlightening book on the Koran from which I use many Quran verse quotes that he explores.
Amazon book review that I happened to notice during an internet search:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RC8EXYHSLXE4CBy David Marshall
Over the past few years, we have been seen Islam described by as a religion of peace, twisted into uncongenially violent shapes by fanatics like Osama bin Laden. The Koran teaches kindness, peace, and justice. Mohammed was a reformer in the great monotheistic Western tradition.
If difficulties with this view present themselves, they can be dealt with. One solution is to simply ignore contrary evidence. A photograph in the Oxford History of Islam shows the lovely blue-domed tomb of Timur, which, the caption explains, "epitomizes the splendor of Timurid architecture." The actual architecture taste of Timur, one of history's bloodiest conquerors, ran to hills of skulls. But the Oxford history, edited by Middle Eastern studies superstar John Esposito, says nothing of the victims of Timur's conquests. Esposito's gorgeous display of academic fluff likewise sanitizes Mohammed's wars of aggression, offering mere paragraphs on the military campaigns that gave Islam a history. (The reviewer below is, unfortunately, quite wrong: cruel tyrants often do success. And in most of the world, Islam spread by violence.)
Others "put (Islamic violence) into perspective" by pointing out that theory and practice diverge in Christianity "as well." Karen Armstrong's popular books on Islam combine a gleeful airing of dirty Christian laundry with an almost surreal cultural relativism. Mohammed did pillage caravans, she admits. But raiding was only a "sort of national sport in Arabia," "a rough and ready means of redistributing resources." Mohammed massacred 800 unarmed Jewish men, true, but it would be a "mistake" to judge him by the "standards of our own time." Nor should we be so foolish as to think mass murder indicated "hostility towards Jews in general," for anti-semitism "is a Christian vice." In fact, the massacre of Qurayzah can be seen almost as an act of pacifism, intended to "bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible." Furthermore, if one ignores assassinations after the fact, Mohammed conquered Mecca "without shedding a drop of blood," and thus "single-handedly . . . brought peace to war-torn Arabia." (Never mind that Egypt, Persia, Byzantine, and India shortly found united Arab armies at their gates.)
Secrets of the Koran emphatically eschews such machinations. The Koran claims to be a universal revelation, Richardson reasons, and therefore must be held to a high standard. Revelation, to be taken seriously, must by definition rise above history and culture. "It does not excuse Mohammed to say, `that sort of thing was Arab custom.' Surely God sends his prophets not to conform to human folly but to replace folly with wisdom."
Richardson is frank and astringent in his criticism. Mohammed was a scoundrel, Osama bin Laden's "instructor for violence," who "redefines (heaven) as an enormous God-owned bordello in the sky."
Aside from such occasional jabs, Richardson assaults the post-modern ear with three fundamental heresies. First, religions are not created equal. Second, the problem with Islam is not poverty (the reviewer below who says people attack Muslims because they are "poor and illiterate" must be joking -- has he heard of oil?), Western imperialism or Israel, but no more and no less than Mohammed and that book of his. (With, he counts, 108 "war verses.") Finally, however ambivalent Old Testament Jewish or Medieval Christian history may appear, the "winsome Christ" does, after all, offers a better solution.
Angry and fearful critics of Islam are nothing new. What is unusual about Secrets of the Koran is the character of its author. It is difficult to imagine Patrick Buchanan or Le Pen reducing an unknown tribal language to writing for the first time, or risking their lives to save a critically-ill headhunter in the swamps of New Guinea, as Richardson has done. Richardson does not smash idols merely to hear the shards tinkle (or to make money, as another reviewer claims), but in defense of a positive vision of a humane Gospel and liberal society.
Europe, Richardson thinks, stands in danger of throwing away the victory Charles Martel won at Tours over invading Moorish troops 1300 years ago by allowing immigration from Muslim countries to swamp the West. Ideas have consequences. As long as Islam is based on the Koran and the life of Mohammed, those who follow it cannot consistently advocate a liberal society, respect for women, and religious freedom. While the particular doomsday-scenario Richardson suggests for the "auto-geniciding continent" of Europe may be far-fetched, the question he places on the table -- whether an Islamified West will retain liberal values - is worth considering, as some cities in Western Europe now witness more Muslim than non-Muslim births.
The answer depends on whether Islam is seen as an evolving tradition, or a set of beliefs with a consistent and more-or-less permanent character. As a Bible-believing evangelical, Richardson underplays the power of culture to mold faith. But if it "takes one to know one," a person who emphasizes the importance of Scripture and religious founders may be in a better position to catch the true drift (or lack thereof) of Koranic orthodoxy, and its effect on serious Muslims, than scholars who see Scriptures as "living documents," limitlessly subject to enlightened reinterpretation.
Richardson's tone itself is not always so winsome. Many may find it hard to distinguish between his frank criticism and what journalists call an "attack" on Islam. There is a tension between his approach here and in earlier works for which he does not apologize.
But to me the opposite approach, that of Armstrong and Esposito, seems the greater puzzle. In the abstract, we all find rape, torture, mass-murder, and child-abuse despicable. Most would even agree a culture (or church) that affirms such acts is badly perverted. Yet when a powerful man like Mohammed does such things, we bend into prezzles to turn the other cheek. (Not always our own.) It is wise to befriend Muslim neighbors, and wrong to offend them gratuitously. But the modern ideas of tolerance and relativism," like other forms of cheap grace, do not make us bodhisattvas, however we may preen for the idol-carver's chisel. Let us beware lest they instead transform us into quislings, praising the tombs of tyrants, and forgetting the unmarked graves of their victims.
One connecting link between Richardson's earlier books and Secrets of the Koran is thus courage. A man who took his wife and baby into a jungle to call cannibals to repentance, now points his finger at one of the most powerful men in history, honored by a billion followers, and says, "J'accuse!" Taking the side of victims against an oppressor (whose spiritual vitality is still on the wax) takes guts. Secrets of the Koran reveals moxie, and also suggests that Richardson has not lost his talent for "thinking outside the box."
Yet I have to wonder. If even cannibals and headhunters were "betrayed to good" through divine truths in their cultures, and if awareness of God was almost universal among primitive tribes, how could Islam, alone among creeds, manage to completely shut out His voice? If indeed it did?
An elderly Chinese pastor long imprisoned for his faith once told me, "There is a lot we Christians can learn from the communists." If he could say that about an atheistic regime inspired by so vitriolic a spirit as that of Karl Marx, whose disciples tortured him and took him from his family, why should Islam be safe against the redemptive grace described in Richardson's earlier works?
Richardson admits that Muslims do worship God, however imperfectly they understand Him. In addition, he notes that the Koran points (in a confused way) to the Bible and to Jesus as "Messiah" and "Breath of God." Tarif Khallidi, director of the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Cambridge, showed (in a book of that name) how "the Muslim Jesus" cared for the poor, modeled humility and forgiveness, and even raised a woman who was dead and in hell from the grave to find salvation. The Koran itself not only affirms the unity of God, but also the sinlessness, miraculous powers, and divine nature of Jesus. Is it not possible that such a prophet may help reform and mellow Muslim theology from within, even allow Muslims to rethink their theology?
Richardson's portrait of a warlike, totalitarian, misogenist ideology whose inner logic sets it upon world conquest will likely prove too bracing for an "auto-genociding" liberalism, harsh even to the ears of missionaries raised on ideas of "contextualization" and "building bridges" derived from Richardson's earlier works. Neither the bourgeois respectability Gibbon spoke of that attends saying all religions are equally true, the avant garde respectability of calling equally false, nor the political respectability of finding them equally useful, is likely for a person who points out differences between religions to the advantage of Christianity. Even many Christians would prefer to "preach Jesus" and let God take care of dross in other religious cultures - lest we find the tables turned and our own sins exposed. Scholars who associate Islam with the kindly face of an amiable Arab colleague, lovely Medieval mosques, or the philosophy or medical discoveries of an Avicenna or Averroes, may also reasonably object to reducing Islamic tradition to the two sharp points of Mohammed and a few objectionable sayings.
But truth is sacred; on this, orthodox theists of all kinds agree. We need to speak truth, so help us God, to claim to walk in the path of all true prophets, and of our Lord. For this reason, frank concern about the nature of orthodox Islam, such as Richardson expresses, deserves I think a respectful place at the table. At the same time, as Allah is in heaven, can we not pray that His Peace Child will, in the end, speak the last word into our troubled times?
