Al-Tirmidhi Hadith 5648 Narrated by AbuSa’id
Allah’s Messenger said, “The lowliest of the inhabitants of Paradise will be he who has eighty thousand servants and seventy-two virgins ….
*** Muhammadan scholars indoctrinate their acolytes to commit slaughter and murder of all UNBELIEVERS in “The Name of Allah” with promises of seventy two virgins based upon the above Ahadith.

The same followers of Muhammad, who when alive and in the physical world, are allowed a maximum of four wives, and a minimum of pleasures since they are prohibited from:

Gambling, Drinking Wine, Singing, Dancing, Painting, wearing Gold or Silk, reciting poetry, playing chess, etc, etc, are allowed in death, seventy two virgins with unlimited Sexual, Carnal and Sensual Pleasures.

Muhammad’s version of Paradise becomes a WHOREHOUSE for those who commit atrocities against all humans who do not believe in ‘Allah and in his messenger Muhammad’.

I don’t know how many years it’s been, but the number of years of research he’s done to do this is impressive.

Jaynie59 on August 11, 2008 at 4:30 PM

I am sure that Robert appreciates your accolades Jaynie59.

As a matter of fact, I will add my thanks to Robert as well, for his intrepid scholarship and education of the Qur’an. Otherwise you can always rely on Islamic apologists and that tired “Islam means peace” mantra.

Squiggy on August 11, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Growth is relative, I suppose. I know more than I used to because of the Qur’an Blog.
Oh, and thanks again Mr. Spencer.

As you will find your understanding of Islam grow.

dentalque on August 11, 2008 at 7:38 PM

That’s a bit of an overstatement, methinks. I have most definitely learned a lot about Muslim beliefs, but I’m not sure I would say I understand it any better. It gets more foreign to me the more I learn.

Oh, Robert? I haven’t told you how much I appreciate the job you’re doing. Outstanding work. My lack of understanding Islam has nothing to do with your effort. It has to do with the fact that you are trying to explain color to a blind man.

urbancenturion on August 11, 2008 at 5:39 PM

Take it from the top. RS Has been answering our questions for over a year now. He also answers relevant questions at posts on Jihadwatch.com. I do not know when he sleeps! I did not start asking questions until about Sura 13 as hot air was closed and that’s about when they opened it up. Just be sure to challenge your friends with facts or as RS says take the “…opportunity to discuss some of the relevant material here more fully, and to joust with the occasional critic.” As you will find your understanding of Islam grow.

Whoa, I never expected a response from the top man, himself.

When I first agreed to write this series here, Michelle Malkin asked that I answer questions in the comments field. I have much enjoyed doing so, even though there have generally not been many comments at all. It has been an opportunity to discuss some of the relevant material here more fully, and to joust with the occasional critic.

Robert Spencer on August 11, 2008 at 12:00 PM

Whoa, I never expected a response from the top man, himself. That makes sense: a little irony.

Don’t take my inattention the wrong way, though. I just assumed that you know your stuff and don’t need any help from me. Frankly, I can’t bring myself to get into this stuff too much, lest I get too irritated to function. Thanks for holding down the (intellectual) fort on the silliness of Islam from an academic prespective.

I don’t see how anyone can claim they get anything out of reading the Koran except for being able to say they read it. And the only thing that does for them is it makes them think it gives them some credibility during an argument. With liberals it does give them credibility as long as whatever conclusions they drew from reading it already match what liberals believe about the religion in the first place. (That it’s a peaceful religion, of course.)

I was pretty motivated to read it and I couldn’t get though it. I didn’t even try to read it all at once. Even in small installments it was tough to get through. I couldn’t pronounce a lot of the words. After a while all the Peace be Upon Him’s, and Most Merciful’s, and all the other flowery language gets old real fast.

I jumped over to the Hadiths for a while because they seemed easier to read and more interesting, but after while of that I just got more confused. I don’t know if I read the same Hadith 27 times or 27 different Hadiths all on the same subject. I have no idea how much of any of it I did read.

I don’t believe anybody who says they read the Koran and came away with any kind of understanding of it. I think they just say that so they can claim they read it.

Mr. Spencer’s blogging is the only thing I’ve ever seen anywhere on the internet that really explains it as Muslims themselves understand it.

I don’t know how many years it’s been, but the number of years of research he’s done to do this is impressive.

McDonald’s chocolate milk shake?

Well, those things make me feel miserable enough that they could well be the dark murky drink of Hell.

a fluid dark, murky, intensely cold

McDonald’s chocolate milk shake?

this is the first one of these I have looked at–simply because I have no interest in the Q’uran (or however you spell it). But I was wondering about the Britney reference. But I still don’t see how it relates. Help?

Qur’an.

I posit that it is interesting as an insight into the mindset and beliefs of Islamic terrorists.

But in any case, Britney: I chose the photo as a wry illustration of the Qur’an verse underneath it. “Therein will they recline at ease. Therein can they call for fruit in abundance, and delicious drink; and beside them will be chaste women restraining their glances, companions of equal age.”

That is a vision of Paradise. So I found a picture of a chaste woman of just about the requisite age — Britney — holding a delicious drink in the company of a male companion.

Just a little joke. Very little, from the looks of your post. But it beats yet another illustration of the pains of hell.

But I was wondering about the Britney reference. But I still don’t see how it relates. Help?

urbancenturion on August 11, 2008 at 11:35 AM

Simply reading the Qur’anic Sura 38 verses quoted under the pic.

Not that there aren’t euphemisms and fig leaves, of course. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, for example, in his translation of 4:34, the notorious “wife-beating verse,” renders it “beat her (lightly).” But there is no “(lightly)” in the Arabic. It’s just “beat her.”

Robert Spencer on August 11, 2008 at 10:18 AM

“Lightly” is inferred, as the parable of the wise imam Al-bumin states “wives are like soufflés.”

Yes, but I don’t think that in the case of the Qur’an translations of phrases such as jihad fi sabeel Allah that it is a case of euphemisms being employed. It is a correct translation that simply doesn’t and cannot convey the theological import of the phrase itself.

Not that there aren’t euphemisms and fig leaves, of course. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, for example, in his translation of 4:34, the notorious “wife-beating verse,” renders it “beat her (lightly).” But there is no “(lightly)” in the Arabic. It’s just “beat her.”

Robert Spencer on August 11, 2008 at 8:53 AM

There are euphemisms in the Bible, as in Canticles and Ezekiel, where vivid sexual imagery is glossed in the interest of English or American moral sensibilities, but interestingly the English translations of the Bible with which I am familiar translate all the head cracking and evisceration quite unashamedly.

I have a Koran that I purchased when I lived in Cairo many years ago in a “parallel” format with English and Arabic. I have been told that many, if not all, translations available in English now are heavily “sanitized”. Could it be that Beck read one of these, with all the “icky” parts snipped out?

All the English Qur’ans fail to convey in full the violence of the original. This is not in every case due to an attempt to sanitize the original, although there are such attempts by some translators. (I should note, however, that they don’t “snip out” the “icky” parts — they just obscure them.) Some of the obscurity comes from the difficulty of conveying in English not the meaning of the Arabic words, but their import. For example, jihad fi sabeel Allah, jihad in the path of Allah, always refers in Islamic theology to hot warfare. But in some translations it is rendered as “strive hard in the way of God,” which sounds like an exhortation to piety, not to warfare. Yet strictly speaking the translation is legitimate. Only an honest explanatory footnote — which most English Qur’ans are far from having — would adequately explain something like this.

I have a Koran that I purchased when I lived in Cairo many years ago in a “parallel” format with English and Arabic. I have been told that many, if not all, translations available in English now are heavily “sanitized”. Could it be that Beck read one of these, with all the “icky” parts snipped out?

TBinSTL on August 11, 2008 at 2:58 AM

All the “classic” English translations of the Qur’an and Sunnahs are at your fingertips at USC. Bookmark it.

Gross. I’d like to think that the glowing portrayal of a 50 year old consummating his marriage with a 9 year old was part of the reason the book got canned. That may be giving the publisher too much credit though.

Yes. Judging from the news accounts, which of course may not be accurate, that does seem to be giving the publisher too much credit.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the only way that someone could read the Koran and believe Islam to be a “Religion of Peace” is if he purposely shuts the eyes of his mind and keeps them shut by force.

Indeed. On the other hand, in Beck’s defense, I did hear shortly after 9/11 about a man who bought a Qur’an on 9/12, read through it quickly, and pronounced it innocuous and nonviolent. Incredulous when I heard this, I began asking the man who told me — a friend of his — “Well, did he read chapter 9? Chapter 8? 2:190-193? 5:33? 47:4?” Etc. etc.

However, it did occur to me that the book is quite repetitive, and quite opaque in many sections, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that, numbed by the repetitive condemnations of unbelievers, one might glide by the passages that should bring the attentive reader up short.

So, if Muhammad said first to worship one god, then switched to another, doesn’t this then cause problems for Islamic apologists?

No, because he didn’t give up the first one. He just said they were one and the same.

It wasn’t unusual to have sex with nine-year-olds?

No, it wasn’t all that unusual for young girls to be married off. And it still isn’t in some areas, thanks to Muhammad’s example.

I had a discussion with a Muslim, and he claimed it was okay as she’d started her period.

This is a common apologetic argument among Muslims. But there is no mention of this in the early Islamic literature.