Topics

Peace

The relevant verse is
5:72
YUSUFALI: They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.


I am of the opinion that good works outweigh the mere utterances of shirk.  This verse contradicts that.  I'm sure Mother Teresa said 'Jesus is God' many times in her life.  I feel that a Good God would not send a good and morally upstanding person to hell for saying that.

Salaam

Now I believe the Quran only allows fighting in self defence. Yet in 9:29, the Quran says fight until they pay jizya. Then what is jizya?  I read Yusuf Ali's footnotes and he said jizya's root meaning is compensAtion and tax is a derived meaning.  Why is this the derived meaning? Are there other derived meanings or should we just go back to the root meaning when we read translations (interpretations) of the Quran?  Also, does jizya only apply to people of the book?  I think Yusuf Ali translates it as if they disbelieve and etc which includes polytheists.  I really have no position on this translation because my knowledge of arabic is horrible.
Peace

Salaam
I have been listening to a debate between William Lane Craig and Jamal Badawi.  An interesting argument I heard put forth by Dr. Craig was that the Islamic conception of God was deficient because in the Quran, God is not all loving.   
For example,
God does not love the al-mua'tadeen Those involved in brutal aggression.

Those who are overstepping the boundaries or limits.

2:190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors [la uhibb al-mua'tadeen]

Thus the argument Dr. Craig pushes is
a) The Qu'ran describes God as a 'hater' of sinners, prodigals, etc..  Thus,
    appearing not to be an all-loving entity.
b) The Christian view of God is all-loving
c) God must, by definition be all-loving
d) Ergo, the Christian version of God is superior view.

Here, I accept conclusion c.  I understand some may think b is not a valid conclusion.  Lets assume it is true though for the sake of argument.  My main issue is with point A.  Could Allah be all loving and still not love or hate many people?  Or does God hate the sin but still love the sinner?  Hopefully Quranic evidence is the basis for any view someone brings to the table. Thanks for your time.

P.S. Dr. Craig does not seem to be a Robert Spencer type polemic; he actually made a point to say that he did not mean to disrespect his Muslim audience.  He was just presenting what he thought was a logical difficulty.