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Burning the Qur'an, Offending God

Whatever I have presumptuously uttered from love or carelessness, addressing Thee as O Krishna! O Yadava! O Friend! regarding Thee merely as a friend, unknowing of this, Thy greatness, In whatever way I may have insulted Thee for the sake of fun while at play, reposing, sitting or at meals, when alone (with Thee), O Achyuta, or in company—that I implore Thee, immeasurable one, to forgive! - Arjuna addressing Krishna in the Bhahagavad-Gita (11:41-42)

"You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,

or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.

But you have burdened me with your sins

and wearied me with your offenses." - Isaiah 43:22-24

My country has recently become sort of known for burning holy scriptures. That's kind of unfair, considering it's not a lot of people doing it, and honestly even fewer of the ones doing it are even from Sweden. But Sweden is one of the countries in Europe where burning religious scripture is protected under freedom of speech laws, and where there's political motivation to do so, considering it has caused the outrage of major islamic countries like Turkey, who Sweden desperately needs to be on good footing with in order to enter NATO.

The point made by the burnings is that muslims uniquely show this level of outrage, compared to other religious groups like christians or jews. But that's not an entirely fair comparison, considering the fact that christians and muslims have an entirely different view of scripture. There's maybe a secular view that scripture is scripture, but the way muslims view the Qur'an isn't comparible to how a christian views the Bible - it's more comparable to how a christian views Jesus.

Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God. Sunni muslims - the larger muslim population - holds the view that the Qu'ran is uncreated and eternal. Before touching a copy of the Qur'an, muslims must go through a ritual cleansing, and someone unable to go through the cleansing cannot touch it (for example a woman menstruating.) The Qur'an cannot really be translated, since it's straight from God, and any changes would just be an interpretation of it.

The christian comparison isn't the Bible, it's Christ. It's God with us.

Sufi mystic and alchemist Bukhart uses the symbol of a globe with a cross over it (known in christianty as a globus cruciger) to symbolise the Incarnation - the circle representing God (wholeness; the sun) and the cross representing the world (north, south, west and east in older symbolism; suffering in christian symbolism), the circle under the cross representing God under the cross of the world.

This is also why - personally - I don't understand christian outrage over irreverence towards the crucifix, for example the recent lil nas x music video where he portrays himself as the crucified Jesus, or the in-famous Piss Christ. I just think it takes a culture that is so numbed to the humiliation of a crucifixion to think that something additional could be added to it that would be the final straw pushing it over to something demeaning, offensive, and suddenly demanding of christian outrage. The entire point of the roman crucifixion was that it was humiliating as well as painful -- and half the point of the Passion of Christ was that no one can do anything worse to God than what he's already put himself through willingly for our sake.

In the end, I can't say wether or not someone should be offended over someone doing something provocative towards their religion. I just wonder if the anger is really directed towards an individual or towards the conundrum it poses - that the all-powerful holy God makes himself into a thing existing under the same laws as we do, in an attempt to get to talk some sense into us. While I wonder if a muslim scholar or mystic would really find this that unthinkable, I've heard a fair number of muslim apologists argue that this fact - that is really unavoidable - is really unthinkable. There's almost an instinctive reaction of violence, as if the physical show of violence would compensate for the lack of Divine Rage (in fact, Andrew Tate - obviously not the numer 1 consultant of Islam, but still telling of something - argued that this was one of the reason Islam would be true over Christianity.)

But what if the crazy thing is that God would be willing to step down to talk to us? I think the idea of that awakens a sort of fear and instability in the person that actually considers it. It's the same trembling sense that the Gita tries to put into words when Arjuna sees the true face of God and cries out that he's apologetic if he's ever thought of this Being "merely as a friend" who kept him companion in battle, made jokes with him, in the closeness forgetting the insanity of what he's been experiencing. I think it's why Ecce Homo paintings are so mesmerising. It's the same uncomprehension, the same inevitability of messing it up, as the christian communion, the absolute anarchy of eating God, the closeness to which the first human reaction is that it's too close, too much. What if every single one of us can't help but be irreverent, incapable of understanding what we're doing, when we try to approach God? What if he knows that for every step he takes forward someone will make the worst of it? What if he approaches us anyway? What if he doesn't care? What if the spear in his side, the pain of the slap, the burning rage, is a real pain of wounded love, not one of wounded pride and reputation?

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