The Undiscovered Country

To Learn and Opine

"You are not entitled to your opinion. Opinions need facts to back them up. If you have no facts, you're only a mouthpiece."

Said a speaker during a land surveyor's seminar I attended a month ago.

I attend a weekly study at church called "Skeptics" where we discuss our questions and doubts about God, religion, faith and the like.

Last night's question was, "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?"

We came up with a few ideas, but no real concrete answers.

Lately I've been wanting to read the Quran. I hear so many people claiming how they know what it says, how it's actually a religion of peace, while others claim it's full of evil, and that ISIS and their like are acting according to true Islam as spelled out in the Quran.

I could never argue either side, since I haven't read it. Plus the fact both statements above are starkly general. It'd be no different from people saying all Christians are like the Westboro Baptists, or like Mother Theresa. With over 1 billion Muslims and 1 billion Christians in the world, to make such generalities is beyond inaccurate and unfair. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

If I am going to judge any religion (not necessarily the people who practice it, because I am a staunch individualist. I prefer to hold people accountable for what they do as individuals, and not condemn or praise them by their affiliations and beliefs only), I will have to study the book by which they derive their beliefs and practices.

Coincidentally, our pastor had a copy of the Quran during the meeting. When I expressed my desire to read it, he graciously lent me his (and thankfully, I don't have to finish it by Wednesday Bible study). The book contains both the original Arabic and English translation.

Already I learned something interesting from the prologue, and the reason it contains both languages. I quoth:

"It is axiomatic from the Islamic perspective that the Quran cannot be translated, because the form of God's revelation, that is the Arabic itself, is not merely incidental to its meaning, but essential to it . . . A rendering into another language, therefore, is not and never can be the Quran as such, but merely an interpretation of it."

The reasoning makes sense to me. The original language of any text best conveys the original meaning of the author. There is rarely a direct word-for-word translation in any language.

No matter who translates what -- regardless of intent -- the translater will always bring in his/her own biases and understanding of the original language and/or intent of the author as they translate. It can't be avoided. As I looked through this particular "translation," and looked for others available on Amazon, I noticed all were translated by a single individual.

That's problematic.

For instance, and in contrast, few translations of the Bible were translated by one person. Often a group of scholars work to piece together the original (or copies of the original) texts. You could say that with more people translating, they're multiplying their individual biases into the final translation. I argue, however, that other scholars can check the rest against such biases by arguing their interpretation of a certain verse or chapter. As they argue, the likelihood they can discover the original intent and meaning becomes greater.

Two things concern me about reading the Quran. One is that I can't read Arabic, so I'm not reading the Quran as such, but one man's interpretation of it.

I'm also bringing in my own biases to the challenge. Like it or not, my mind has been filled with the opinions of others with regard to Islam, so I am not approaching it with a true open mind. I fear I will not try to understand the Quran as much as find ways to argue with it, and compare it to my own faith and understanding of God.

The second reason is as much as I want to understand Islam, I don't want to be influenced by it. Will it shake my faith so much that I doubt or lose it? I doubt it, but it's a fear I must acknowledge before diving in.

I can't answer any of those concerns until I start studying. Now I just have to find the time . . .

Oh, and I've written nearly 70K words total (almost 50k since mid-December) of my WIP with about 10-15k more to go. Yay me!