learning about islam

lachoy on 2002-08-07T15:24:45

One of the many things interesting about this article and controversy is following statement ("Glover" is Joe Glover, President of the Family Policy Network which "calls itself a socially conservative Christian educational organization."):

"Approaching the Qur'an" is "not a bad book, as far as it goes," Glover said. The real problem, he said, "is not the sin of the author, it's the sin of the university, which knows this book presents nothing controversial about Islam. . . . Anybody who has read this book and this book alone is still going to be ignorant about why people are killing other people in the name of Allah."

What would his opinion be if they were studying the Bible and didn't talk about why people were killing abortion doctors in the name of God and/or Jesus? I don't mean to be one of these people who tries to poke "hypocrite holes" in ideas, but it just underlies this notion people have that Islam is the problem rather than extremism.

learning about PERL

rafael on 2002-08-07T16:27:36

"Programming PERL" is not a bad book, as far as it goes. The real problem [...] is that this book presents nothing controversial about PERL... Anybody who has read this book and this book alone is still going to be ignorant about why people write so unreadable and unmaintainable PERL code. -- Joe G., president of the PHP and ASP Evangelization Network.

Bizook

TorgoX on 2002-08-07T18:08:49

Read as a book, the Koran actually is pretty awful, as most things that pass for monotheistic "scripture" are. It's also longwinded, hectoring, bellicose, histrionic, and over-determined. And, to paraphrase an old Woodie Allen joke, "it lacks a sympathetic central character".

But it is not a book (which is a pretty modern concept, actually) -- it is lyrics. So it has to be heard sung. And regrettably, song always translates badly (so you've got to hear it sung in the original Arabic), and the meaning is more in the musical tradition than in the literal lyrics. In fact, hell, maybe you don't need to know Arabic at all -- maybe it even helps to not know Arabic.

Re:Bizook

djberg96 on 2002-08-07T18:25:35
I think he was referring to a book called "Approaching the Qur'an", not the Koran itself. Or did I misunderstand?

Re:Bizook

lachoy on 2002-08-07T18:31:25

You're right, it was a discussion of the Koran rather than the Koran itself.
Worth mentioning is that this is summer reading that the students from which the students will only have to produce a one-page (!!) paper and be in a discussion group for a couple of hours.

Re:Bizook

TorgoX on 2002-08-08T03:16:10
Yeah, but I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.
You say tomato, I say Clamato...