Australian scholar, Rev Dr Mark Durie explains that in understanding Islam, taking into account and understanding the full “context” may reveal it is even LESS peaceful than first impressions.
http://markdurie.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/violence-and-contexts-in-islamic-texts.html
Taking context into account, however, can actually make a “peaceful” verse quite nasty, and a violent verse even worse. There is nothing about “context” that makes it a magic wand to render peaceful and harmless every text over which it is waved. Context is neither a silver bullet against violent texts, nor is it a disinfectant for theological unpleasantness.
… radical jihadis themselves use a contextual model to interpret the Koran: they do not simply rely on context-free interpretations or on proof-texts — quotes taken out of context to support an argument. The Bin Ladins of the world — and theologians such as Sayyid Qutb who paved the way for them — have been more than familiar with interpretive tools such as the “context” of revelation, “abrogation,” or the life of Muhammad. Such subjects are on the curriculum in the jihad factories.
… In hermeneutics — the understanding and interpretation of texts, especially religious ones — context is everything. But context itself is blind to morality, and is not inherently a force for good. Unfortunately, for each and every verse (from the Koran)Â Abdalla cites, a reasoned contextual interpretation makes the meaning not better but worse.
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