Right interpretations of some controversial verses in Quran

[dattaswami]

In the time of the divine Prophet Mohammad, the atmosphere of a specific region was horrible in which several religions appeared with several Gods and all were fighting with each other. The fight brought climax of Chaos and people were killing each other based on the religious differences. Then, Allah appeared in human form called Prophet Mohammad. He established a religion which is the actual Islam proposing only one God called Allah. If this religion gets established, the quarrels will stop and killing each other will end. There was a vigorous necessity to establish Islam even by force to stop mutual fights. Naturally, those ignorant and blind religions opposed the Prophet.

 This means that their religions should continue and the killing also should continue without end. To bring them to the concept of one God and to avoid the mutual fights and mutual killing, the Prophet went to the last resort of even killing those leaders and rigid followers of various religions so that eternal peace will be established for future generations.

 Hence, orders like ‘fight non-Muslims’, ‘cutting off the hands and feet of those against Allah and His messenger’ etc., were passed in that context and in that specific region in which such worst situation existed. These comments of the Prophet were confined to that time and to that region only where people were fighting and killing with each other based on different religions.

In normal situations same Prophet Mohammad advised the followers to protect anybody in problem and to become the escort up to his/her house. Then, preaching about Allah should be done and to leave him/her without any force. Here, in this context, the world Allah means one God only and not several Gods since He established His religion in the context of rejecting many Gods only. Similarly, Lord Krishna, a human incarnation conducted a mighty war to destroy the injustice completely in a specific region and in a specific old span of time. This does not mean that whenever injustice grows, a mighty war is always inevitable.

 In a specific region and in some span of specific old time, a divine human incarnation preached the required spiritual knowledge to that place and that context of time and underwent crucifixion silently so that the hearts of those people get reformed by repentance. This does not mean that any spiritual preacher of any time in any area should undergo crucifixion silently to reform the hearts of the people. Today, crucifixion is never allowed on the grounds of spiritual knowledge and even on the grounds of political issues.

Today, in all regions of the world all religions co-exist with mutual love and respect to each other. Even if there are differences in religions, situation is limited to some hot discussions and debates or at the maximum abusing each other very rarely. You can’t bring those comments of the divine Prophet confined to that context and that place to the present context and present world. You should not implement those punishments on non-Islamic religions because that situation was very serious and this situation is very normal.

The divine Prophet Mohammad means ONE GOD as the meaning of the world Allah because the entire lifelong context in which He was placed was horrible fights based on religious differences establishing different Gods. The punishments suggested by Him were in the context of forcible suppression of multiplicity of God by even wars to stop mutual killing based on wrong spiritual knowledge.

 Today also, many religions and many Gods based on wrong spiritual knowledge exist, but, the situation is not as worse as that of that time.

 In that context, wars and severe punishments were inevitable and in this context of today, propagation of right spiritual knowledge is sufficient. You should not extend the statement of one context blindly to other different context of the same event also. Today, the solution can come by cutting the wrong arguments with the help of right arguments and hands and feet need not be cut with knives. The whole problem arises by blindly bringing the comments of God made in one context to another different context due to ignorance without little common sense and a trace of analysis!

Similarly, issues of inheriting the property, control of women, concepts of marriage, the status of adopted sons etc., present in that context and in that region were analysed with justified logic and judgements were passed by the divine Prophet Mohammad. Everywhere, every time, we must not miss the basic point that these judgements were specific to those situations only. If the situation is exactly same, anytime, anywhere, you can simply extend and apply the same judgement word to word. But, if situations were different, the same judgement of past different situations should not be applied to the new situations without suitable modifications.

How to tranform a terrorist

Even a terrorist has some logic by which only he is practically behaving in that particular way. By your sharp analysis, you have to change that logic and then only reformation and realization comes even in terrorist. You must enlighten the misinterpretation of the scripture like Jihad, which is the fight for justice in the context of killing each other due to difference in the religions existing in the time of Prophet Mohammad.

 The situation of killing each other can be controlled by fight and sometimes in extreme conditions by removing some limbs like hands, legs etc. Killing can be stopped by fights or such severe punishments. Today when such context of killing is not there, you cannot bring the concept of Jihad to the context of today.

Today, only oral arguments and oral fights are going on between religions. In this context, only perfect rational analysis is sufficient to rectify the situation. Like this, we must understand the word of the Prophet with reference to the then existing context. You should not generalize a specific context to all the times and all the regions. Then only harmony between religions and world peace is possible. You must also remember that the Prophet told to teach about Allah to a human being after helping it and the final decision is left to the free will of the human being.

Shri Datta Swami gives clarification on the some of the controversial verses in Quran

A woman inherits half of what a man inherits: Qur'an 4:11
A woman's witness testimony is half of that of a man's: Qur'an 2:282

Women(Qur'an 4:11, 2:282, Qur'an 4:34): In that old context, women were terribly suppressed in all aspects by the ignorant men. This situation existed in every religion and in every region of the world. When you suppressed by somebody, he/she will react and revenge in silent or open ways. Women couldn’t revolt in open ways due their weaker physical strength compared to men.

 Showing difference by caste and gender is the climax of ignorance and stupidity. Naturally, women revolted in silent ways by becoming more alert and intelligent than men. Women became experts in cold war. They were trying to retort injustice through curved ways called cheating. Men blamed women as cunning liars. This was true in that situation but such retort was not unjust since diamond should be cut by diamond only.

 You cannot blame those women in view of their unjust suppression. Hence, the witness of two women was felt necessary for the truth to come out because of the non-unity of women in those days. Wife being left half of the husband, witness of one man was said to equal to the witness of two women. Suppression of women from education and property made them to become weaker sex.

 The divine Prophet gave equal right of property to the women because wealth or money is the basic strength of the entire world. Even in Hinduism the Veda said (Putrebhyo daayam...) that issues (Putra) should divide the property equally. As per Sanskrit grammar (Ekashesha sutra) the word ‘putra’ means both son and daughter. But, the word putra was misinterpreted by men to have the only meaning ‘son’. Selfish souls always pollute the scripture and analysis is the filter to be used for cleaning.

Discipline of the family is essential and one head of the family should exist, be father or be mother. In the old context father (man) remained as head and the entire family including mother (woman) was obeying the head. In the case of disobedience, the family looses unity and discipline. In such case beating was recommended just to induce fear and control.

In this way, if understood properly, this gives justified colour. If misinterpreted in wrong way, it shows atrocity against women. This topic should be carefully and patiently understood and everywhere misinterpretation drags you to side. Today, there are several families in which the woman is the only earning member and happens to be the head of the family. In such case if the husband or children become disobedient, she, as the head of the family can beat her husband or children. Headship is important and not gender.

In the old context, the head was always male, it is said that a disobedient wife should be controlled even by beating. Here, head controlling others is real focus and man controlling women is misinterpreted false focus. If the discipline comes by punishment, the anger should no more continue and no injustice should be done to anyone in anyway keeping past in mind (‘do not seek a way against them...’).

A man may marry the wife of his adopted son: Qur'an 33:4

Adopted son(: This son is not given by God. This type of son is got by the man only. There is no blood relationship between father and adopted son. The widow wife of such adopted son can be married by the father provided both are willing. This applies to a case of mutual willingness and not force to be applied in every case. Extension of it to all cases is again misinterpretation of selfish people.

Turned into Apes: Qur'an 2:65

Apes: Those who oppose the word of God, become undisciplined criminals to be treated as animals and not at all human beings. Animals have no ethics at all. In the animals also apes are very much unstable in psychology. Hence, such unstable criminals doing various types of sins without ethics are best addressed as apes.

A man can have sex with prisoners of war: Qur'an 33:50

Prisoners: The widows of prisoners are to be supported by providing peaceful family life. Here, wedding means maintenance. Husband means he, who maintains a woman (Bibharti iti bhartaa) and wife means she, who is maintained by the husband (Bhriyate iti bhaaryaa). The wedding with Prophet or human incarnation means that such unfortunate widow shall be maintained and supported by God. The word wedding should be taken as in the sense of supporting the widow and her children.

If the widow and the supporter (man) are mutually willing, both can get further children through the sex. This applies to specific cases only to avoid the secret sexual dealings of a widow with many men and marriage with a man is better than that bringing deceases. Rules of ethics differ from case to case and no single rule exists that should be applied to all the cases in all the contexts.

A man can marry a girl who hasn't reached puberty: Qur'an 65:4

Marriage before puberty: This existed in Hinduism also in a specific span of time and not necessary for all the times. The Manusmuruti says that a girl should be married in her 8th year (Astavarshaa bhavet...). The Veda says that the girl should be married after 16th year (Maa me dabhraani...).

This difference is based on the different contexts. A time was there when the girls were forcibly taken away for marriage. But, if the girl was married, she was leftover. To this context the first scripture applies. The normal context of all times was that such danger of looting unmarried girls was absent, which is even in the present time and to this context the second scripture applies.

 In such normal span of time, a grown up girl has grown up mentally also to select her husband. This process called svayamvaram existed in which a grown up girl interviews various grooms directly and makes her own selection with full freedom. Hence, such rules are specific for specific contexts only and this is very very important point.

A man may marry four wives: Qur'an 4:3

Four wives: This rule again applies to a specific context of time and region in which a man was marrying many many girls based on his power of money and rowdy nature. Such infinite number is reduced to four and here one is also suggested. Hence, from case to case the number varies from one to four. A soul can’t do justice to more than four based on the condition of health in that time.

"Cut off their hands": Qur'an 5:38 & Qur'an 5:33

Cutting hands of thieves: This again differs from context to context. When the sin of stealing reached climax and not controlled by any punishment, the last resort of the punishment was this. This can’t be applied to another context where the sin is under control.

Sura 5:33 orders the cutting off of the hands and feet of those who wage war against Allah and his Messenger.

 

Cutting hands and feet of opponents of Prophet: Jesus was the Prophet before Mohammad as agreed by Islam also. His hands and feet were cruelly nailed. Such criminals opposing God should be given this punishment. Jesus indicated that He and His father are one and the same (Monism).

 The anger for crucifixion came at this point. Jesus told the absolute truth as said by Shankara. The ego and jealousy of other co-human beings reached climax and Jesus was brutally killed. To avoid this horrible crime from which no involved soul can ever be excused by God, Prophet Mohammad established dualism (God and soul are totally different) and separated Allah from His messenger. Though He was human incarnation of Allah, to avoid such anger of God on souls, He rejected monism based on the context.

In fact, both theories are correct and one and the same. When current flows through wire, current (God) is inseparable from the wire (messenger) and the electrified wire shows the property of electricity (shocking) whenever and wherever touched. For all practical purposes though both are different, remain as one and the same. The electrified wire is called as electricity itself.

Prophet Mohammad criticized Jews and Christians in old context only and not in all contexts of all times. The reason for such criticism was only in the context of crucifixion of Jesus, since He was crucified on twisted background of political offence of anti Government, though the hidden real reason was the disliked spiritual knowledge of Jesus.

He was aiming at the religious leaders and their followers only, who plotted the crucifixion in most cunning way and hence friendship with such people should not be done. The latter generations should repent to do such act again and this was the main aim of criticising their latter generations after a long time and this criticism subsequently applies to all.

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- By Shri Datta Swami
(Universal Spirituality for World Peace)