Islamic extremists quote the Koran to justify violence. They believe the words in the Koran are not open to interpretation by man. As the words are Allah’s, communicated to the Prophet Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel, they have only the meaning Allah—and not man—intended.
Yet many words and phrases in the Koran are open to interpretation due to man’s imperfection in understanding Allah’s intent. Resolving this interpretation is difficult as no single authoritative, spiritual leader exists for all Islam. While Muslims rely on the Koran for spiritual guidance, a schism within Islam after Muhammad’s death has long left Sunnis and Shias adhering to different beliefs and interpretations due to these ambiguities.
But these ambiguities provide the vehicle by which Islamic extremists issue their violent interpretations of Allah’s words. Lost upon followers in accepting them is, in offering their interpretation, the extremists violate their own basic tenet the Koran’s words are those of Allah alone. If, as Islamic extremists suggest, the Koran is given Allah’s interpretation alone, upon what basis do they claim the right to interpret Allah’s message?
It is interesting to examine an origin of modern day Islamic extremist thinking, which, ironically, was triggered in the U.S. by an act of kindness seeking to include a visiting Muslim scholar.
Egyptian educator Sayyid Qutb came to the U.S. in 1948 to study the educational system. Invited to a church social dinner and dance, he fumed as he watched women dancing suggestively close to their male partners. A confirmed bachelor unable to find a woman of sufficient “moral purity and discretion” to marry, Qutb—in an article very critical of America’s immorality—recorded his observations: “The dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed tochests. The atmosphere was full of desire.”
Qutb’s revulsion over America’s animalistic sexuality dominated many of his later writings, which claimed only Islam offered salvation from the West’s decay. Returning to Egypt in 1950, he went on to lead the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood—before being executed in 1966 for plotting against the government. His writings and ideas ultimately were an inspiration for Osama bin Laden, shaping al Qaeda.
It is interesting to compare Qutb’s criticism of Western moral decay to the debauchery of the afterlife the Koran promises loyal followers. What Qutb witnessed in America was quite tame in comparison.
Mohammad Asghar is a former Muslim who left Islam only after coming to understand its true teachings. In an interview with FrontPageMagazine a few years ago, he shared insights, described in the Koran, as to what believers and martyrs are told they can expect in Heaven’s “Gardens:”
“Everything in the Gardens will be for the enjoyment of their residents. In them, their male residents will have companions who will provide them with immense pleasure without feeling shame… Bashful with dark eyes and virgins … will provide them constant company and sex. Those men who will not have interest in sex with the female Hurs (maidens), Allah has made arrangement for them as well: they shall be attended by boys graced with eternal youth… Allah will make them drunk, so that they can serve their clients to their entire satisfaction… The male residents of the Gardens and their virgin companions will be doing only one thing: sex.”
The wives of Muslim men who make it to Heaven, Asghar says,
“will chase their husbands to satisfy their sexual needs. Orgies will always take place in the Gardens. With their male residents’ desire for sex always remaining present in them due to the presence in their midst of, perhaps, naked Hurs, they will have nothing to do, but to have sex with them with no barriers to shield their activity from the next copulating man and Hur. Fathers will be having sex with the Hurs before the eyes of their sons and daughters, and sons will be having sex with the Hurs before their fathers and mothers… Muslims believe in every word of the Koran, as it is from Allah. Many of them wish to die as martyrs so that they can drink and have sex with the Hurs. Not to make them wait, until the Day of Judgment, to enjoy the bliss He has promised to Muslims, Allah transports the martyrs to the Garden as soon as they lay down their lives in His cause.”
The Koran’s sex theme spills over to Hell and the fate of non-believers. Asghar reports there is an interpretation that even sinners will have sex “while burning in the fire of Hell.”
The Koran explains Allah uses deception, when necessary, to dupe mankind. It would appear in preaching their violent interpretations of the Koran, so too do Islamic extremists.
