An Analysis of Brockopp’s Views on Islam and the Qu’ran

In this reading by Brockopp was of particular interest to me. The thesis of this writing is that there are many interpretations of the Qur’an, some good some bad, some violent and some peaceful. It is up to the reader to determine how religion is portrayed in these stories and event. This becomes an increasingly challenging task when looking at the word jihad and trying to determine how it should be defined.

When the September 11 attacks on the World Trace Center happened people became frightened and confused by the muslims in their community. This is due to Americans not understanding the difference between the greater and lesser jihad. the word jihad is the concept of struggle, and this is broken down into two basic catagories. The greater jihad, which most muslims strive for, can be defined as the struggle with ones own evil tendencies. This means that people practicing these beliefs are trying to better their own self and rid theirselves of any evil that could be within. The lesser jihad basically defines the meaning of jihad as warfare; that the jihad suggests that anyone who can fight should always do so, and they see the prophet Muhammad as a great warrior. Its hard to say which way the Qur’an is intended to mean because if taken literally there are some parts of the Qur’an that say stealing should justify cutting that persons hand off. Brockopp also makes the point that the Qur’an gets confusing because of the order in which the information was laid out and the fact that god can abrogate his word. For example god originally tells the people to pray towards Jerusalem but later abrogates that comment and has Muhammad and the people then face towards Mecca. This becomes very confusing when something appears first in the Qur’an but when you keep reading you learn that, that had previously been abrogated.

It is practically impossible to say what the prophet’s distinction between the greater and lesser jihad because these, along with Abu Bakr’s rules of engagement (Basically stating the rules of warfare) have been lost over the years. This gives a lot of “grey area” to the muslim religion and almost encourages different interpretations. This being said The muslim religion is not a bad one, and doesn't always involve terrorism, in fact it is often very peaceful and strives towards the greater good. for this reason the muslim religion continues to grow even here in the United States.

I thought it was good how the author used different stories in the Qur’an to show how diverse the interpretations of this book can be. He uses peaceful stories along with violent ones in order to demonstrate the vast contradictions between good and evil. I have always been interested by what people like Osama Bin laden find in the Qur’an that makes them act so violently but it becomes easier to see when literal translations of the text call for violence (even saying that thieves deserve to lose limbs). I think that the broadness of this text is very problematic but when its the holly book for the largest religion in the world it is hard to do anything about it.