On sensitivity and religious symbols ... this blog gets educated

Last week, I wrote a post questioning the extent to which a government needs to accomodate the sensitivities of a religious group. I was wondering about Muslim outrage at the news a Koran was supposedly flushed down a toliet at Guantanamo.

The newest issue of Christianity Today has an interesting piece from a Christian professor who is expert on Muslim issues. He writes about how Christians should be careful about what they say, write, and post on their church signboards because it could lead to deaths overseas. He explains the especial sensitivity of Muslims regarding the Koran:

Sunni Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the uncreated, literal speech of God. The Qur'an states that there eternally exists in Paradise (and therefore free from human influence) the Preserved Tablet, (Lawh-i-Mahfuz), the eternal Word of God, from which revelation descends to humanity—Surah 13 Ra'd 13:39 ' … with Him is the Mother of the Book.'

It is not quite accurate to compare the Qur'an to the Bible. The traditional Christian position is that the Bible reveals Jesus, who is held to be the eternal, uncreated Word of God, whereas in Islam it is Muhammad who reveals the eternal, uncreated Word of God—i.e. the Qur'an. Thus, the Bible corresponds to Muhammad and Jesus to the Qur'an. One offense of Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses was its seeming denigration of the Qur'an: it was the equivalent for Christians of blaspheming Jesus.