Most Misinterpreted Verses Of The Quran?
Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR
The religion of Islam has been degraded and vilified by those who seem to believe that they have a better understanding of the religion, compared to the consensus of scholars for the past 1400 years. These misguided individuals cite a verse here and a verse there which they believe to be violent in the sense that the verses endorse violence against innocents.
They conveniently or we would prefer to say, they deliberately leave out the historical context regarding why and when these verses were revealed. When one engages with them, correcting their misunderstanding of these verse(s), they often accuse us of ‘cherry picking’!
If one is educated, surely one would understand that any text (religious or non-religious) without context is practically meaningless or has a distorted meaning. For example, a man could yell at his friend saying:
“I will beat you!”
This sentence could be problematic without its own context. But if one could know that the sentence is said in the context of playing a game, the issue would be no longer a problem. Then it could be understood that it was ‘beating’ in the context of a game not physically harming anyone.
Furthermore, we recommend and adjure people to learn about Islam from the right sources, not from individuals or the media who want to paint it negatively. Getting information from these compared to actual Muslims is like learning colours from a blind person. In other words, you can’t teach something one does not understand.
We have written the following series of articles in response to claims made by opponents that the Quran has ‘164 Jihad’ (or some put it as ‘200 Jihad’) verses in it.
In the sense they want to perpetuate this mythical claim that those ‘164 Jihad’ verses sanctions or endorses the killing of disbelievers (non-Muslims) for no reason other than being ‘non-Muslim’.
What we have done in these series of articles is responded to these false claim(s) by showing their textual contexts, backgrounds as to when they were revealed, which battles they refer to, and we’ve provided exegeses ranging from the earliest to the most contemporaneous, so that we can get a better and more comprehensive understanding of these verses.
Please click on the following articles for more information:
1. LINK – Quran 2:178, 179 | ‘Qisas’
2. LINK – Quran 2:190, 191, 192, 193, 194 |
3. LINK – Quran 2:216, 217, 218 |
4. LINK – Quran 2:225 |
5. LINK – Quran 2:244, 245 | Battle of Uhud
6. LINK – Quran 3:28 |
7. LINK – Quran 3:56 |
7. LINK – Quran 3:121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126
8. LINK – Quran 3:140, 141, 142, 143 |
9. LINK – Quran 3:146 |
10. LINK – Quran 3:151 |
11. LINK – Quran 3:152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158 |
12. LINK – Quran 3:165, 166, 167, 168, 169 |
13. LINK – Quran 3:172, 173 |
14. LINK – Quran 3:188 |
15. LINK – Quran 3:195 |
16. LINK – Quran 4:71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77 |
17. LINK – Quran 4:84 |
18. LINK – Quran 4:89, 90 |
19. LINK Quran 4:91 |
20. LINK – Quran 4:94, 95 |
21. LINK – Quran 4:100, 101, 102, 103 |
22. LINK – Quran 4:104 |
23. LINK – Quran 4:141 |
24. LINK – Quran 5:32 |
25. LINK – Quran 5:33 |
26. LINK – Quran 5:35 |
27. LINK – Quran 5:82 |
28. LINK – Quran 8:1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12 |
29. LINK – Quran 8:15, 16, 17, 19
30. LINK – Quran 8:39 |
31. LINK – Quran 8:40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 |
32. LINK – Quran 8:56, 57, 58, 59, 60 | Banu Qurayzah incident
33. LINK – Quran 8:61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 | Battle of Badr
34. LINK – Quran 9:3 |
35. LINK – Quran 9:5 – ‘Sword Verse’ | 9:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 | Revealed: Quraysh & Banu Bakr attacked Banu Khuza’a (an ally of Muhammed) and killed many men.
36. LINK – Quran 9:13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 24 |
37. LINK – Quran 9:25, 26, 27 | Battle of Hunayn
38. LINK – Quran 9:29 ‘Jizya’ | Battle of Tabuk
39. LINK – Quran 9:29 | Battle of Tabuk [Part 2]
39. LINK – Quran 9:36 | Battle of Hunayn
40. LINK – Quran 9:38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 50 | The Expedition of Tabuk
41. LINK – Quran 9:73, 74 | The hypocrites at Tabuk
42. LINK – Quran 9:81, 83, 86, 88 | Tabuk
43. LINK – Quran 9:91, 92 |
44. LINK – Quran 9:111 |
45. LINK – Quran – 9:120 | Tabuk expedition
46. LINK – Quran 9:122 |
47. LINK – Quran 9:123 |
48. LINK – Quran 16:106 |
49. LINK – Quran 16:110 |
50. LINK – Quran 17:16 |
51. LINK – Quran 22:19, 20, 21, 22, 23 |
52. LINK – Quran 22:39, 40 |
53. LINK – Quran 22:58, 60 |
54. LINK – Quran 22:78 |
55. LINK – Quran 22:53, 55 |
56. LINK – Quran 24:4 |
57. LINK – Quran 25:52 |
58. LINK – Quran 29:6 |
59. LINK – Quran 29:69 |
60. LINK – Quran 33:15, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27 | Battle of Khandaq
61. LINK – Quran 33:57 |
62. LINK – Quran 33:61, 62 |
63. LINK – Quran 40:28 |
64. LINK – Quran 40:71, 72 |
65. LINK – Quran 42:39, 40, 41, 42, 43 |
66. LINK – Quran 47:4 | Context: 47:1, 2, 3, 4|
67. LINK – Quran 47:20, 21 |
68. LINK – Quran 47:35 | Context: 47:31, 32, 34, 35 |
69. LINK – Quran 48:15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 | Battle of Khaybar
70. LINK – Quran 48:29 |
71. LINK – Quran 49:15 |
72. LINK – Quran 56:92, 93, 94 |
73. LINK – Quran 59:2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14 | Banu Nadir’s treachery
74. LINK – Quran 61:4 |
75. LINK – Quran 61:11, 13 |
76. LINK – Quran 61:4 | Context: 61:1, 2, 3, 4 |
77. LINK – Quran 64:14, 15, 16 |
78. LINK – Quran 65:4 |
79. LINK – Quran 66:1,2 |
80. LINK – Quran 66:9 |
81. LINK – Quran 73:20 |
82. LINK – Quran 76:8 |