Can someone please explain these

Avapxia

Salaam all,

can someone please explain these suras?

(9:29) "Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low."

(8:12) Recall that your Lord inspired the angels: "I am with you; so support those who believed. I will throw terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved. You may strike them above the necks, and you may strike even every finger."

Thank you very much,
Fi amanullah

wes

Your best bet would be to read them in context. I am no expert and don't have the full verses on hand right now. I am sure others will be along soon to explain it.

Schuhart

I haven’t come across any commentary on 8:12, but the link below gives some background to 9:29. Its suggests to me that the passage has little contemporary relevance.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996015374&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE

the_new_mr

Salam Avapxia. You're very welcome here. Sorry I didn't say so before. Bad manners on my part.

Here's a good page on verse 8:12.

http://www.islam101.com/terror/verse8_12.htm

PoleStar

Perhaps someone can explain this to me as I have seen read similar passages beofre myself in the Qu'ran and also passages referring to the Jews.

If the Qu'ran is the word of god and taken by Muslims as a timeless book, why is it that then its not to be taken literally, whys is it that some passages are to be taken literally and some to be ignored and to "be taken in context"?

wes

PoleStar wrote:

Perhaps someone can explain this to me as I have seen read similar passages beofre myself in the Qu'ran and also passages referring to the Jews.

If the Qu'ran is the word of god and taken by Muslims as a timeless book, why is it that then its not to be taken literally, whys is it that some passages are to be taken literally and some to be ignored and to "be taken in context"?

Erm lots of things can come of very different taken out of context not just the Koran. All Holy books receive intense scrutiny. There were time when the Bible was saw to justify both racism and violence, despite the fact it doesn't actually justify any such thing. People mostly take what they want.

There is an entire history of interpretation of the Koran and a lot of it allegorical and not meant to be taken literally. A lot of early way to communicate things was by allegory and as time goes on everyone get different things out of it as we understand more out of our world.

the_new_mr

Every verse of the Quran should be read in context really.

As well as the verses themselves, it's often important to understand the reason for revelation to help understand the reason why such a verse was revealed and this gives us some insight into what circumstances are required for a particular verse to be applied.

For example, any verse that mentions fighting people of the book are for times of war. But, as the links mentioned already have shown, other verses say that you shouldn't fight if the other side doesn't want to etc. So, understand the reason for revelation is important.

And God knows best.