Some verses of "The Holy Qur'an"

As a suggestion from Miles, I wanted to look at these verses that he said were of importance. Each verse will be followed by the commentary with reference numbers provided. Verses will be noted by a colon, and commentary is just a single number. The book is from the "Royal Consulate General of Saudi Arabia."

The first thing for me to overcome is that the book is opposite in pages turn from left to right, and the front of the book is the back as western books are.

2:39 "But those who reject Faith
Amd belie our signs
They shall be Comapions of the Fire;
They shall abide therin."
57 As their rejection of faith was deliberate and definite, so the cosequences must be a punishment of an abiding character.

It does not look like a tolerant passage.

2:40 O Children of Israel! call to mind
The (special) favour I bestowed
Upon you, andfulfil your Covenant
58. The appeal is made to Israil subjectively in terms of their own tradition. You claim to be a favoured nation: have you forgotten My favours? You claim a special Covenant with Me: I have fulfilled My part of the Covenant by bringing you out of the land of bondage and giving you Canaan, the land "flowing with mild and honey": how have you fufilled your part of the Covenant? Do you fear for your national existence? If you fear Me, nothing else will matter.
Now we go on to the Children of Israel (Jews), this passage and commentary makes it seem that Jews have to follow the words of Mohammed. They do not consider him a prophet and as such have no reason to follow his words. I am not familiar enough with what they refer to as the "Covenant". But it does look as if this book indicates that Jews must abide by the Qur'an or lose their national identity.
This also brings up an interesting issue that if the Mohammed identified the "Covenant" back then then Israel has an established right to exist according to the Qur'an.
Oooops wrong passage according to Miles.

2:190 Fight in the cause of Allah
Those who fight you
But do not transgress limits;
For Allah loveth not transgressors.
204. War is permissible in self-defence, and under well-defined limits. When undertaken, it must be pushed with vigour, but not relentlessly, but only to restore peace and freedom for the worship of Allah. In any case strict limits must not be transgressed: women, children, old and infirm men should not be molested, nor trees and crops cut down, nor peace withheld when the enemy comes to terms.
Makes sense, but this deffinitely does not condone terrorism as many of the victims are women and children.

2:191 And slay them
Whenever ye catch them,
And turn them out
From where the have
Turned you out;
For Persecution
Is worse than slughter;
But fight them not
At the Sacred Mosque,
Unless the (first)
Fight you there;
But if the fight you,
Slay them.
Such is the reward of those who reject faith
205. (Edited) In general, it may be said that Islam is the religion of peace, goodwill, mutual understanding, and good faith. But it will not aquiesce in wrong-doing, and its men will hold their lives cheap in defence of honour, justice, and the religion which they hold sacred.
206. Supress faith: in the narrower as well as the larger sense! If they want forcibly to prevent you from exercising your sacred rites, they have declared war on your religion, and it would be cowardice to ignore the challenge or to fail in rooting out the tyranny.
Makes me wonder why so many Mosques in Iraq were used as staging locations for the terrorists? Considering lives in the cheap seems to promote terrorism to me.
On 206, so anything that may or does prevent someone from worshiping his faith may lead to war. Maybe this is why the cartoons may lead to war, and that innocent women were threatened with beheading over Muslim dress in secular schools in France.

2:192 But if they cease,
Alah is Oft-Forgiving,
Most Merciful.
2:193 And fight them on
Until there is no more
Persecution
And the religion becomes Allah's.
But if they cease,
Let there be no hostility
Except to those
Who Practise oppression.
207. The Arabic word is Din, which is comprehensive. It implies the ideas of indebtedness, duty, obedience, judgment, justice, faith religion, customary rights, etc. The clause means: "until there is Din, for Allah."
No mention of forgiveness.

6:104 "Now have come to you,
From you Lord proofs
(To open your eyes):
If any will see,
It will be for (the good
Of) his own soul:
If any will be blind,
It will be to his own
(Harm): I am not (here)
To watch over your doings."
Not sure what this passage means. It seems to suggest that if you do not believe then harm will come to you but I am not here to watch over you as Christians believe God does.

8:39 And fight them on
Until there is no more
Persecution,
And religion becomes
Allah's in its entirety
But if they cease, verily Allah
Doth see all that they do.
1208. If the cease from fighting and from persecution of truth, Allah judges them by their actions and their motives, and would not wish that they should be harassed with further hostility. But if they refuse all terms, the righteous have nothing to fear Allah will help and protect them.
Religion to me is an establishment of a hierarchy. But Christianity is devotion to God's word.
This passage seems to imply that Allah will only be happy if all worship him and come to "all terms" that Islamic teachers dictate.

8:61 But if the enemy
Incline towards peace,
Do thou (also) incline
Towards peace, and trust
In Allah: for He is the One
That heareth and knoweth
(All things).
1228. While we must always be ready for the good fight lest it be forced on us, even in the nidst of the fight we must always be ready for peace if there is any inclination towards peace on the other side. There is no merit merely in a fight by itself. It should be a joyful duty not for itself, but extablish the reign of peace and righteousness and Allah's Law.
Joy seems to be a funny word to describe going to war. Of course many suicide bombers considered it joy by helling out praises to Allah as they killed innocent people.

8:62 Should they intend
To decieve thee,-verily Allah
Sufficeth thee: He it is
That hath strengthened thee
With His aid and
With (the company of)
The Believers,
1229. In working for peace there may be a certain risk of treachery on the other side. We must take that risk: because the men of Faith have Allah's aid to count upon and the strength of the united body of the righteous..
I guess the question is: if Muslims are to put their faith in Allah then why do the Palestinians intigate suicide bombings. Sounds like many of those attacks are preemtive and not reactionary.

17:7 If you did well,
Ye did well for yourselves;
If ye did evil,
(Ye did it) against yourselves.
So when the second
Of the warnings cam to pass,
(we permitted your enemies)
To disfigure your faces,
And to enter your Temple
As they had entered it before,
And to visit with destruction
All that fell into their power.
2177. This is a parenthetical sentence. If anyone follows Allah's Law, the benefits goes to himself: he does not bestow a favour on anyone else. Similarly evil brings its own recompense on the doer of evil.
2178. The second doom was due to the rejection of the Message of Jesus. "To disfigure you faces" means to destroy any credit or power you may have got: the face shows the personality of the man.
2179. Titus's destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was complete. He was the sone of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, and at the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, had the title of Coesar as heir to throne. He ruled as Roman Emperor from 79 to 81 A.D.
2180. Merivale in his Romans under the Empire gives a graphic account of the siege and final destruction(ed 1890,vii221-255). The population of Jerusalem was the 200,000. According to the Latin historian Tactus it was as much as 600,000. There was a famine and there were massacres. There was much fanaticism. The judgment of the Merivale is:"They" (the Jews) "were judicailly abadoned to their own passions and the punishment which naturally awaited them".
These passages seem to indicate that because of the Jews sins that they lost their lands. Thus it could be concluded that Arabs think Jews do not have a right to Israel.

18:29 Say, "Truth is
From your Lord"
Let him who will,
Believe, and let him
Who will regect (it):
For the wrong-doers We
Have prepared a Fire
Whose (smoke and flames),
LIke the walls and roof
Of a tent, will hem
Them in: if they implore
Relief they will be granted
Water like melted brass,
That will scald their faces,
How dreadful the drink!
How uncomfortable a couch
To recline on!
2371. Our choice in out limited Free-will involves a corresponding personal responsibility. We are offered the Truth: agian and again is it pressed on your attention. If we reject if, we must take all the terrible consequences which are prefigured in the Fire of Hell. Its flames and roof will completely enclose us like a tent. Ordinarily there is water to quench the heat of thirst: here the only drink will be like monten brass, thick, heavy, burning sizzling. Before it reaches the mouth of the unfortunates, drops of it will scald thir faces as it is poured out.
Again with the faces. Does this have any correlation with Nigerian custom of scaring the face of your boys?

22:39 To those against whom
War is made, permission
Is given (to fight), because
The are wronged;-and verily,
Allah is Most Powerful
For their aid;-
2816. Several translators have failed to notice that yuqatluna (in the best-approved text) is in the passive voice, "against whom war is made",-not "who take arms against the unbelievers" as Sale Translates it. The clause"and verily...their aid" is parenthetical. Verse 40 connects on with "they are wronged". The wrong is idicated:'driven by persecution from their home, for no other reason than that they worshipped the One True God.' This was the first occasion on which fighting-in self defence-was permitted. This passage therefore undoubtedly dates from Madinah.
Yes it understandable that all religions have to say that they worship the "True God". Every meme to gain strength must say that they are better than other memes.

76:3 We showed him the Way:
Whether he be grateful
Or ungrateful.
5833. Besides the gift of the faculties. Man has been shown the Way by means of Revelation, through men of the highest spiritual standing. If he is grateful, he will accept Guidance, be of the Righteous, and join the company of the Blessed. If not, he puts chains round himself, thus burdening himself with sin, and gets into the Blazing Fire of Punishment.
Much of the foundation of Islamic and Christian faiths are the same and as such we see the "gifts" that are mentioned. But now who decides who the "men of highest spiritual standing". I think it is safer for people to read and understand their Bible and not told what to believe. It will always be a need for teachers, but there is a line between teaching an instructing as to "The only Way".

I am not sure why these passages were choosen by Miles, but it was interesting.

P.S.: 2:256 Let there be no compulsion
In religion: Truth stands out
Clear from Error: whoever
Rejects Tagut (300-a Tagut here means anything worshipped beside Allah.
and believes
In Allah hath grasped
The most trustworthy
Hand-hold that never breaks.
And Allah heareth
And knoweth all things.

300.Compulsion is incompatible with religion: because (religion depends upon faith and will, and these would be meaningless if induced by force: (2) Truth and Error have been so clearly shown up by the mercy of Allah that there should be no doubt in the minds of any persons of goodwill as to the fundamentals of faith; (3) Allah's protection is continuos, and His Plan is always to lead us [strike]t[/strike] (f)rom the depths of darness in to the clearest light.

They have some typos. Yes this would support your points of view.
From my upbringing the word "religion" was more or less a bad word. It described a man made institution and not a description of how man and God communicates.

The second verse is already on my blog. And yes you are correct, but I wonder what was meant by "We" in:

For the wrong-doers We
Have prepared a Fire