Qur’an

Juan Cole’s New Book

On How Everything Sam Harris Says about Islam is Wrong (1)

Of the 100 million or so people I estimate were wiped out by political violence in the twentieth century, the vast majority of them were killed by secular nationalists, Communists and Fascists

Islam

Juan Cole @ Rising up With Sonali on “Muhammad: Prophet of Peace”

Juan Cole

Islam is the youngest of the world’s major religions – and sadly the most misunderstood

Qur'an

The Qur’an and the Modern Self: A Heterotopia

Juan Cole

The Qur’an has subsisted in the literature of Christian and post-Christian Europe and the Americas in a shifting borderland between self and other.

Islam

The Qur’an insists that Synagogues and Churches be Preserved and Respected

Juan Cole

“They should not have entered them save in fearful reverence.”

Islam

In the Muslim Scriptures, making Peace takes Precedence (re: Juan’s new Book)

Juan Cole

The chapter of The Cow in the Qur’an, 2:224, says, “Do not render your oaths in God’s name an obstacle to being pious and godfearing, or to making peace among people. Truly God is All-Hearing, Omniscient.” As with many Qur’an verses, the exact issue here is not clear, since the Prophet Muhammad recited the Muslim […]

Qur'an

Juan Cole on “Muhammad: Prophet of Peace” @ Zero Hour (Video)

Juan Cole

The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow

Islam

Islam: The Essence of the Qur’an is Compassionate Love: Qur’an 90

Juan Cole

An early chapter of the Qur’an is 90, “The City.” It contrasts the wealthy elite of Mecca in western Arabia in the 610s of the Common Era with the small band of Muhammad’s Believers. Verses 12-17 go this way: And how would I make you understand the steep path? It is freeing a slave or […]

Islam

Did Islam grow up as a Reaction to the Survival of Paganism in the Eastern Roman Empire?

Juan Cole

Both the Qur’an and later Muslim sources indicate that there were controversies in Muhammad’s home town of Mecca (and perhaps elsewhere in the Near East) that began some three or four years after his initial experience of revelation in 610. If Muhammad did keep his teachings secret 610-613, then it was sometime after he began […]