Turned

I think we may have pushed him over the edge. He's been the perfect liberal so far, but now the worm has turned.

What is important from the viewpoint of the Qur'an is the certainty of judgement, he says. We should prepare ourselves for our own death and our own judgement - whenever the last day comes!

I thought we weren't in Kansas any more, but I was wrong. To those who are upset with the iconoclasm of the Qur'an, I say: Yes, the Qur'an does threaten the unbelievers with hell - why shouldn't it?

Is this the same man who, just a few short weeks ago, was telling us that it is only our actions which will earn us the reward of our sustainer - the very point on which this passage concludes - not arguments about theology which ultimately reside with God alone who knows all, or that the fundamental question a Muslim will ask is not how many time fire is mentioned in the Qur'an, but why is the Qur'an using the metaphor of the fire?

It's a real transformation. He used to think it was just a question of different strokes for different folks, and love would conquer all, but since then he's had this time in our company, and now he thinks we're all going to hell.

That's not what iconoclasm means, of course. Iconoclasts smash images, they don't burn people. We aren't upset with iconoclasm, we're upset because we're sick of reading gruesome descriptions of our own posthumous dismemberment and immolation. It might work as a metaphor for smashing the graven images of the polytheists, but we're the atheists, we don't have them.

But I don't begrudge him this minor lapse. He's just upset. He's trying to square the unsquareable circle of modern liberalism and the Qur'an, and all the people who realise they aren't actually the same thing are pulling at him from both directions. It must be a strain. I expect he'll perk up again in a bit, and it'll be all sweetness and light again.

Not today though. The final paragraphs degenerate into incoherence.

Now, I do think that the complaining athletics are right to be upset with what the Qur'an says about them. The term kufr, or atheism, as used in the Qur'an is the antithesis of Islam. Those who commit kufr do much more than simply deny the Divine - they also consistently and perpetually deride those communities who believe in God and wish to live by God consciousness. The denial of God for some dogmatic atheists than emerges, as Bishop Kenneth Cragg, a celebrated Christian scholar of the Qur'an, notes, not as "metaphysical scepticism" but as a practice aimed at undermining the very existence of faith communities. Not surprisingly, the Qur'an, as a Divine text, condemns this attitude. And so do I.

I'm going to assume it means what I think it means, and isn't actually about athletics at all. I think he's saying that we're being a bit rude. He's got it the wrong way round though. The Qur'an doesn't threaten atheists with hell because of a combative atheism in the modern world. When the Qur'an was written, no such views existed, and from a historical point of view they represent a minute fraction of the history of unbelief. In fact, atheism in the modern world has become combative because of the horrors in texts like the Bible and the Qur'an.

And there's the usual can of worms hidden behind the phrase faith community. Because you're in a faith community, does that mean it's OK for you to start telling your kids what they're going to think about religion when they're six? Because you're in a faith community, if we attack your beliefs are we attacking your community? What does deride mean in this context, and when did it become OK to muddy those waters?

We believe in atheism, and we argue our case. We don't want to compel anyone against their will, but there is no-one that we don't want to persuade. In the sadly distant eventuality that we actually succeeded in persuading everyone, every single faith community in the world would cease to exist. Are we supposed to wish failure on our project, just because you're in a community? Speaking as a member of the community of people who are about to be burned, I entirely fail to see what gives you the right to be so touchy.