Islam and War

I listened to an address from Karen Armstrong at Carrs Lane Church Centre
in October 2007. It was the first in the series, 'Dialogues in Faith' that
were recorded and put on CD.

"Islam means surrender", commented Karen Armstong. The war cry from the
fundamentalist, evangelical Christians of N Ireland is 'No surrender'. I
heard it with my own ears, shouted at us, in 2007 on an open top bus tour
of Belfast when we drove through a Loyalist area! And, it is the
evangelicals and Loyalists of N Ireland who support the War of Terrorism
and not the Republicans, from the panelists speaking on Question Time a
year or two ago.

Karen said,

"We talk about Islam today as though it is inherently violent. This is
nonsense of course. We should never equate a few extremists with the vast
majority of billions of Muslims who have lived throughout history far more
peaceably with peoples of other faiths than the people in western
Christendom, for example.

"You may hear in the Koran, in an English translation, talk about infidels
- a very bad translation. The word translated infidel does not mean an
unbeliever. ... The word for infidel means ingratitude to Allah; hurling
God's bounty back at him and, not being generous and peaceable. Another
word translated as infidel means aggressive, irascible, a pre-emptive
strike. ... It has nothing to do with unbelief.

"The Koran permits only war in self-defence in order to maintain decent
values. Mohamed was creating primitive just war theology, as we in the
West call it. So religion is not violent."