“God does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither fought against your faith nor driven you out of your homes. In fact God loves the equitable.” Chapter 60, Verse 8
My old Islamic studies teachers at my old Islamic school tried to get me to believe that God said in the Quran that Muslims shouldn’t be close friends with anyone who’s not a Muslim. They said, “Yeah, keep them as friends if you like, but not CLOSE friends. Don’t tell them your secrets or anything. Because they’re not Muslims and they may betray you. It says that in the Quran.”
Now, even as an impressionable eleven year old who didn’t know much about Islam, even THEN I knew that that was SOME NONSENSE.
When I asked where in the Quran God said not to be close friends with anyone that wasn’t a Muslim, they pointed me to the verse.
The irony?
It’s the verse in this surah, quoted above. It says:
O ye who believe! Take not my enemies and yours as friends (or protectors),- offering them (your) love, even though they have rejected the Truth that has come to you, and have (on the contrary) driven out the Prophet and yourselves (from your homes), (simply) because ye believe in Allah your Lord! If ye have come out to strive in My Way and to seek My Good Pleasure, (take them not as friends), holding secret converse of love (and friendship) with them: for I know full well all that ye conceal and all that ye reveal. And any of you that does this has strayed from the Straight Path. 60.1.
Yep.
Not even joking. THIS was the surah and the verse they used to try to “prove” that to me.
I was like, okay, and then I skipped down several verses and pointed to the one the OP posted. I was like, “What about that?”
They didn’t have an answer. (Because they were wrong, Wrong, WRONG.)
The Quran is very clear: Be friends with nonMuslims. Be nice to everyone. Be close friends with them if you like. Be kind and helpful and loving and compassionate to everyone. EXCEPT those people who say that Islam is a false religion, steal your stuff, and cast you out of your home, like the Makkan pagans did with the Muslims in 7th century Arabia.
It was basically the equivalent of God telling the early Muslims, “Hey, you know your Jewish neighbors in Yathrib/Madinah? You know your Christian neighbors in Abyssinia? Be friends with them! Hang out! Go bowling, I don’t know, I gave you free will, you figure out what you want to do. But you know those Makkan Quraish who literally stole your land, your home, and every single thing you own but for the clothes on your back? Yeah, maybe DON’T invite them to your bowling party. Because they will probably steal your bowling ball and run away with it and then no one will have any fun.”
:|
I should translate the Quran for children. And relate everything to bowling.
Friendly blasphemy aside, there’s a big difference between OMG DON’T BE FRIENDS WITH ANYONE WHO DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GOD AND MUHAMMAD AND EVERY LITTLE THING YOU BELIEVE, and, hey, maybe don’t be super tight with bigoted Islamophobes like Pam Gellar and Pat Robertson and Michelle Bachmann and Ann Coulter, because chances are they will screw you over.
People who teach the Quran to children should KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. It is so dangerous when they don’t.
:/
(via acquiringknowledge)
