Jews, Christians, and Muslims, are people of the Book.  The Torah, the Bible, and the Quran are sacred texts.  There are also sacred texts of other religious traditions.  The common challenge is to interpret and reinterpret them to explain the meaning of faith in our contemporary world.  The Quran is new to most people in the West and many people say a great deal about the Quran that is not actually in the Quran. 

There is a fantastic book called The Study Quran – A New Translation and Commentary by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.  It is difficult to read. I started and stopped more than once.  I have not finished the final section of commentaries.  However, recently, a public intellectual Garry Wills, wrote a book called What the Qur’an Meant ... And Why It Matters. He points out an initial obstacle that some people do not want to recognize the legitimacy of different religions in our midst.  Wills points out three kinds of ignorance; secular ignorance which made the US blunder into Iraq; religious ignorance which pits our crusaders against their jihadists, and fearful ignorance which makes us think Muslims are infiltrating our governments and national life. Ignorance can no longer dictate the meaning of the Quran.

The Quran is a desert book and the yearning for water is everywhere in the Quran –water is a symbol of God’s blessing.  Water becomes more precious than gold.  Everyone with Mohammed is bathed in this sacramental water. The Quran reads; “Those who believed and did good deeds will be brought into Gardens graced with flowing streams, there to remain with their Lord’s permission; their greeting there is Peace.”   

God speaks through the sacred texts and we are to join in the conversation.  Mohammed’s revelations are meant to lay the basis for peaceful relations between followers of the Torah, Gospel and Quran.  Say Prophet to Jews and Christians; “How can you argue with us about God when he is our Lord and your Lord?  Our deeds belong to us and yours to you.  We devote ourselves entirely to Him.”

Jihad is best translated as zeal.  People often quote the “sword” verse and use it to foist on Muslims the idea of a holy war against all infidels (including Christians and Jews) but the verse proves just the opposite.  The word “sword” is never used in the Quran.  The Quran is far more forgiving and pacific than non-Muslims may know.  As to the word Shari’ah, it only occurs once in the Quran and there it does not mean law.  It is Allah’s reassurance to Mohammed that he is travelling on the right path (shari’ah). Yet several American Legislatures have outlawed what does not exist.  

On women and marriage the women even in plural marriages (many wives) are given full rights to their money and they have the right to withdraw from the marriage.  The treatment of women in the Quran, even with its patriarchal setting, offers better grounds for feminism than that written about in other sacred writings.  Women have a right to property, which was not true of women in the West who needed their husband’s permission for anything legal. Many practices and judgements, wrought by history’s uneven development and distortions, would make women far more vulnerable than they had been in the Quran.

Finally the Veil.  Wills quotes Leila Ahmed; “The idea that other men, men in colonized societies or societies beyond the borders of the civilized West, oppressed women was to be used, in the rhetoric of colonialism, to render morally justifiable its project of undermining or eradicating the cultures of colonized peoples.”

The cry was;  Here come the foreigners to rescue our women.  One Muslim woman argues for a feminism that retains the woman’s veil and her reasons are secular; to protect the history of the endemic cultures, to remain in solidarity with those countrywomen who are veiled, to ease exchanges with Western feminists, to protect the safety of Muslim women out in the world, even to give a more economical way of clothing.  In the Quran not much is said about the veil.

It is my belief as a priest that the way to study and understand the Quran is to use a compassionate interpretation, and, then, we can expect the same for the Torah and the Bible. At last, confrontations can lead all of us to healthy conversations.