What is "context"? And when is it sufficient? (Islam, the Quran, and violent verses)

[aneeshm]

Whenever an Islam debate comes up, the apologists/pro-Islam people always dismiss all quotations from the Quran which are objectionable with one, simple, universal dismissal: "You're taking it out of context!"

Ignoring their second tactic for the moment - trying to attack the other person's beliefs - I want to focus for now on this one.

I'm throwing the field open to all, specially who use this rebuttal, or those who agree with it, or those who think it's valid.

What exactly constitutes "context" (when it comes to the Quran)? And when shall you accept that sufficient "context" has been provided for a given verse? What are your conditions for admitting, "OK, now it's in context"?

Note: this has nothing whatsoever to do with Muslims, either as a community or individually. This has nothing to do with current or past actions by Muslims (or people "claiming to be Muslims", or people who weren't "true" Muslims, or any variant thereof). It has everything to do with defining reasonable standards of discussion.

[BeBMan]

Re: What is "context"? And when is it sufficient? (Islam, the Quran, and violent vers

Originally posted by aneeshm
Whenever an Islam debate comes up, the apologists/pro-Islam people always dismiss all quotations from the Quran which are objectionable with one, simple, universal dismissal: "You're taking it out of context!"

IMO it makes only sense if you want to show that a certain praxis has to be understood in 'context' of its creation/time, which means that even if it's mentioned in the holywhatever it cannot count as some everlasting, god-given 'order' to anyone.

But that would mean a quite modern, non-fundamentalist way to interprete the holywhatever, so I'm not sure why we would complain about it.

Note: this has nothing whatsoever to do with Muslims, either as a community or individually.

Of course it has, since it's about their religion.

[Whoha]

I'd say it has more to do with the contradictory verses in the Quran rather than any context. Its not as if it says "An you shall Kill the Infidels wherever you find them. L0L just kidding, hah got yuo guys!" anywhere. Then its a matter of abrogation which is established, or believing that every word is just as holy as every other word.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Whoha
I'd say it has more to do with the contradictory verses in the Quran rather than any context. Its not as if it says "An you shall Kill the Infidels wherever you find them. L0L just kidding, hah got yuo guys!" anywhere. Then its a matter of abrogation which is established, or believing that every word is just as holy as every other word.

Abrogation is chronologically ordered. That is, a later verse abrogates an earlier one if they contradict.

[Whoha]

Precisely, and hence the second part of the sentence.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Whoha
Precisely, and hence the second part of the sentence.

Imagine some random person writing:

Chapter 1: Jews aren't so bad, they're pretty decent folk, tolerate them.
Chapter 23: Jews are racially impure devilspawn, kill them all!

Assume that 23 is also chronologically ahead of 1.

Now, assuming that all words are equally holy, what do you do?

[Whoha]

I'd imagine that doing nothing would be the only thing one could do in that situation, provided that you believed that every word were just as holy.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Whoha
I'd imagine that doing nothing would be the only thing one could do in that situation, provided that you believed that every word were just as holy.

If both were worded as unavoidable imperatives?

[Whoha]

Then you've got some twisting,twirling, and dancing to do though I suspect the answer becomes do whatever you want.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Whoha
Then you've got some twisting,twirling, and dancing to do though I suspect the answer becomes do whatever you want.

OK.

How does it reflect on the author of the text, and the ideology contained therein?

[Whoha]

How someone chooses to interpret it can reflect poorly on him, but whats important is what he meant, and what his actions were.