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How many of you've read the Quran? Garry Wills

 The philosopher Garry Wills surprised his audience by this question.

Garry Wills

In one of his lectures the American philosopher Garry Wills embarrassed his audience by an unexpected question. Here is the video with the English transcription
 


 The transcription:


 As a Christian I consider Jesus a prophet but he’s the prophet of the one God there’s not several. So as a Christian I worship Allah. 

How many of you have read the Quran? A minority certainly.

 Well, I do not want to shame you but I do. I think we should all be ashamed. You know we’re throwing our weight around the world where almost a quarter of the population are Muslims and not to know! 

How can you say the Islamic state is a false construct if you don’t know what true Islam is. This book I published is the product of my shame. I was embarrassed, after the 9/11 I was talking with a group of academic friends we were wondering you know is this really an Islamic event (the 9/11 attack. And at some point people asked well, who here has read the quran? None of us happened. And a friend of mine said not even you Garry! I thought you were a student of religion. I said yeah that’s the problem I’m totally ashamed.

So I went and had been trying to repair that stupidity ever since. In the quran they asked Allah through Muhammed how they should pray? And here’s one of many creeds in the Quran : 

“We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the 12 tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus and all the prophets by the lord. We make no distinction between any of them and we devote ourselves to him and all of them” 

That’s a very inclusive creed! Judaism sometimes say that the chosen people are the circumcised and narrow believers in chistianity sometimes say that the chosen people are the baptized. But the Quran says God’s chosen people are all the monotheists from the beginning of the creation

Adam is the first prophet because he falls as in genesis but he repents and the God makes him the first prophet the covenant with the lord. Allah says he has sent messengers at every stage of creation. All of his human creatures are given a message from him. 

He said I give it in the language that they use. I give it in Hebrew for the Jewish covenant. I gave it in Greek for the Christtian covenant. And I give it in Arabic for the Islamic covenant but they’re all my people. 

 And when we think of the succession of the prophets. They’re given great praise. Muhammed praises Moses. In some ways, the most important prophet before Muhammed though they’re all directly from God, it’s Jesus. Jesus has been given a bigger accreditation than other prophets John the Baptist is given made a prophet so that he can prophesy Jesus. 

Mary his mother is the only women named in the Quran. No wife of Muhammad is named. There is no Adam and Eve. There’s adamant spouse. But Mary is not only named, she’s made sinless, she conceives Jesus in virgin birth. She is tremendously honored. One can only hope that more people use freedom to do things like read the Quran rather than hate the Muslims

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