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For another approach, you may wish to have a look at this post
https://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=12328.msg96637#msg96637

Peace

The verses tell us that the disbelievers believed it to be majic,

Hi Bigmo,
Could you please tell me which verses you are talking about ?
Peace

You may wish to have a look at my post about the social purpose of rituals.
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9597335.msg182758#msg182758

It may help linking the ritualistic aspect of the salat with its non ritualistic aspect.

peace,

Many people have written on this, including many posts on this forum, to name a few e.g.

http://fazlur-rahman.livejournal.com/2102.html
http://quransmessage.com/articles/riba%20FM3.htm
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=12997.0
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9604876.0

If you do have an alternative, please also state clearly why other understandings may be wrong, be specific etc.

Another article, according to which Riba is interest charged when the borrower is no longer solvent.
http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Riba3.pdf

[questions the Virgin Birth]

Aslan, for instance, questions the Virgin Birth, which the Qur'an affirms, and insists that Jesus was really crucified, which the Qur'an denies, holding that Jesus was taken up to heaven before the crucifixion and his place taken by a man who merely looked like him. There is nothing particularly Islamic about Zealot; if Aslan did not identify himself as a Muslim on page 2, there would be no way of knowing his faith committment.
http://peoplesworld.org/reza-aslan-s-zealot-exposes-christianity-s-revolutionary-roots/

Can someone comment on that ?
Does he back that with a specific exegesis of the Quran ?

Here is the second part of the article
http://www.lescahiersdelislam.fr/Des-Houris-des-hommes-2-2_a334.html

[the Jews and Christians pass over much of what is in their scriptures]

I have not carefully studied the verses about how people of the book were distorting the message of God they had.

But here is an opinion about it :

Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) believes that the Qur'an criticizes the handling of scripture by some Jews and Christians rather than their holy books. According to Gary Miller, Qur'an only makes the following three accusations:

• "The Qur'an says some of the Jews and Christians pass over much of what is in their scriptures."
• "Some of them have changed the words, and this is the one that is misused by Muslims very often giving the impression that once there was a true bible and then somebody hid that one away, then they published a false one. The Qur'an doesn't say that. What it criticizes is that people who have the proper words in front of them, but they don't deliver that up to people. They mistranslate it, or misrepresent it, or they add to the meaning of it. They put a different slant on it."
• "Some people falsely attribute to God what is really written by men."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrif
http://www.missionislam.com/comprel/gospelsmean.htm

Many people of this forum may think the same can be said about traditional muslims and the Quran.

In The Quran, there are (at least) 2 groups :

• The ones that are currently receiving the message of God (the Quran), and thus are in the right path
• The ones who belong to people who have received the message of God centuries before.

To which group are the people who today follow the Quran (be it with hadith or not) closer?

In my opinion, we are closer to those who are called ?people of the book? in the Quran.
Because like them, we are following a message of God that was revealed centuries before.

And as a consequence, we should be cautious of not falling in the same traps as the ?people of the book?, and be more humble about our faith.
We should see all critics made to ?people of the book? in the Quran as warnings for us.

Does it make sense ?

If it makes sense, anyone who claims to follow the Quran (regardless of whether he follows hadiths) should easily admit it.

I sometimes think that the biggest issue with sunnis, which may lead in the extreme case to terrorism, is some kind of moral arrogance,  the idea that they are morally superior to other people, this because they follow true islam.

The Quran was revealed to the prophet Muhammad about 14 centuries ago.
At this time, there were people called ?people of the book?, which were the descendants of people to which God has previously revealed the book.

In the Quran,  we see that, although some of the people of the book are good people, most of them are bad.

I think that in light of the Quran, the people who call themselves ?Muslims? today should rather call themselves ?people of the book?.
This is because they are in the same situation as ?people of the book? in the Quran ; i.e : people whose ancestors have received the book.

In that context, they would feel more concerned about all the verses that criticize the ?people of the book?.
It would make them less arrogant, less sure they own the truth.

What do you think ?

The tunisian government has not authorized the historian Mohamed Talbi  to create his "quranist" association.
http://latroisiemerepubliquetunisienne.blogspot.ie/2013/03/refus-de-visas-pour-une-association.html

It's a good opportunity to create a thread about this "quranist" voice unknown in the English-speaking world.
http://mohamedtalbi.com/

The sites are in french, please use Google Translation, and feel free to ask me if you need help.