[newman]

Oh, agreed.

[Polpolion]

I hope I'm not the only one that accidentally read "Korans" as "Koreans" and thought "holy **** what the hell are we doing over there" and then realized it said "Korans" and then stopped caring.

[deathfun]

I was under the impression the proper was Quran anyhow

[samiam]

There is no generally accepted way to Romanize Arab words. Some transliterations are just more common than others.

[castor]

So really, NATO wasn't doing anything wrong. People just fail to understand their own religion.

NATO is in Afghanistan at the express wish of the democratically elected government of Afghanistan and is widely supported by the Afghan population. The Bonn Agreement of 5 December 2001 requested the United Nations to authorise the development of a security force to assist in maintaining security in Kabul and its surrounding areas. On 20 December 2001, the UN Security Council approved the first resolution authorizing the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

In light of their mission, yes, they did wrong.

[jr2]

From the same forum I quoted earlier, directly below the post I quoted: (emphasis mine)

http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?3443-ANSWERED-How-do-we-dispose-of-scripts-of-the-holy-quran

 for the useful links. There's also this:

Disposing Unusable Copies of the Qur’an

As far as old and unusable copies of the Qur’an are concerned, it is not permitted to burn them unless there is no other way to dispose of them.

The great Hanafi Imam, Imam Ibn Abidin (may Allah have mercy on him) states:

“If a copy of the Mushaf (qur’an) becomes old and it is difficult to read from it, it should not be burnt in fire. This is what Imam Muhammad (m: student of Imam Abu Hanifa) pointed out and this is what we take. It will not be disliked to bury it. It should be wrapped in a pure cloth, and a Lahd grave (m: grave that has a incision in the side wall, customary in hot climate countries where the earth is solid) should be dug, because if a Shiq grave (m: grave with a straight opening, common in cold climate countries due to the earth being soft) is dug and the copy of the Qur’an is buried, it will entail the soil falling on top of the Qur’an which is a form of disrespect, unless a slab is placed as a roof…” (Radd al-Muhtar, 5/271)

In light of the above, there are two methods of disposing of an unusable copy of the Qur’an:

1) Wrapping it in a pure piece of cloth and burying it respectfully in a place where people (normally) do not walk about. In cold climate countries (such as the UK), one may dig a Shiq grave, but a slab should be placed first and over it the soil.

2) Fastening the Qur’an with a heavy object like a stone and then placing it respectfully in flowing water.

If one is able to implement the above two methods, it would not be permitted to burn the copy of the Qur’an. However, if the above two methods are difficult to carry out, then one may burn the Qur’an and bury or drown the resulting ash.

(http://www.daruliftaa.com/question.a...nID=q-08570775)


Please see the above link for more info.

Allah knows best.

Wassalam,
Ziad

Note, this is the opinion of Muslim cleric / scholars, as the Koran does not specify how old copies are to be disposed of (neither does the Bible, however, it is commonly accepted that burning is ok and respectful, same with the US flag, if it's done in the correct manner).  Apparently, it is acceptable to burn a Koran if it's not possible to bury it in the earth or at sea, so do you think it would be forgivable for NATO forces to accidentally carry out a proper Koran disposal that is not quite correct?

Yeah, they should have checked.  No, burning with the trash isn't acceptable (ashes should be buried at sea or in the earth).  But, apparently, burning is an alternate method of disposing of Korans, so why the big fuss?  Brake check.. why didn't the Muslims witnessing the burning simply inform the NATO workers of the correct way to dispose of the Koran copies and offer to help them do it properly?  Maybe because they've been programmed to think that the big bad West has it in for them and their religion.  Anyway.  Following link is interesting.


http://www.npr.org/2012/02/24/147321213/how-to-properly-dispose-of-sacred-texts

Excerpt:

Malik, who spent time in Afghanistan in November 2010, says the troops should have asked for guidance.

"If one said, 'Well, we're burning some Qurans today,' that wouldn't incite riots in Afghanistan," he says. "The problem is when one puts a malicious intent as part of the burning."


Malik says the assumption there is that Americans disrespect Muslims. That's why there would be such a visceral response to burning the Quran, even though a layperson could do so under Muslim law — as long as the intent was respectful.

[deathfun]

I believe I said the same thing on the previous page...

[jr2]

Ah, it appears you did.  I did skim over it; I guess I missed most of it however.  Sorry.

[Dragon]

The problem with fanatics is often that they don't really understand what they're making a fuss about. While every Muslim is supposed to have a copy of Koran, I don't think that those fanatics actually read and understood it.
This isn't exclusive to Islam, anyway. Compare the actions of Christian fanatics to actual teachings of Jesus Christ. It's obvious that those people either didn't read or understood the Bible.
TBH, Buddhism (and perhaps Hinduism) is the only big religion I know of that didn't suffer from this.

Also, America happens to be a country with a relatively reasonable approach to religion, so it's a bad example for comparisons. Burning a Bible in, say, Poland would have a similar effect to burning a Koran in Iraq, minus the killings (though, considering the recent events, who knows...), and that's mostly because Polish civilians don't usually have weapons (getting a permit is a bureaucracy-laden obstacle course, like most things in there).

[jr2]

-_-  It's not that hard to kill people without weapons, you know.  Or, let me rephrase: it's relatively easy to kill people with weapons of opportunity and the element of surprise.  Unless they, you know, think fast on their feet, and particularly if they are armed with a real weapon themselves.

[Bobboau]

is it just me or are the reports saying Afghans were the ones killed? I'm not even sure how that happens.

[jr2]

AFAIK, there were like 6 Afghans killed, as well as separately, 2 US (I think, maybe non-US NATO) troops killed when an Afghan security personnel turned his weapon on them.

[NGTM-1R]

The problem with fanatics is often that they don't really understand what they're making a fuss about. While every Muslim is supposed to have a copy of Koran, I don't think that those fanatics actually read and understood it.

Even calling a lot of sectarian violence the product of fanaticism is wrong. Religious freedom is not a right in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or a lot of other places we regard as fanatic infested. Without legal protections people will seek physical protection. There's nothing unusual or fanatical about that; you can pretty much put it down as a law of nature. It's why we have Somali pirates and Sudenese warlords. It's how you build a dicatorship by turning your populace against each other.

Safe and comfy in a world where the ability to worship as one chooses is enshrined in law, and the laws to defend it are effective, we forget that for decades an Afghani has only been able to defend the ability to worship as they choose with bullets. Fanaticism is not required; if you told all the Baptists or the Catholics or the Lutherans they were no longer allowed to worship as their chosen sect, you'd get riots and bombings and mob violence in any country in the West.

That wasn't the intention of this act, but it sure looked like more of the religious sect suppression the Middle East has been dealing with for decades. It was responded to as such.

[samiam]

Fanaticism is not required; if you told all the Baptists or the Catholics or the Lutherans they were no longer allowed to worship as their chosen sect, you'd get riots and bombings and mob violence in any country in the West.

Oh there are plenty of people in all of those groups who are plenty fanatic, just watch Borat. The only difference is that they're a minority, and not in a position to start a riot every time someone burns a bible. Otherwise, Catholics and Lutherans have spent many centuries killing each other before they were constrained by society as it adopted liberal values and secular law. Whereas the Afghan government isn't capable and equipped well enough to just arrest and teargas anyone who starts a violent protest.

Then again things were likely a little more peaceful than what was portrayed in the news article, since the media always has to highlight the most craziest crazies on both sides.

[Nuke]

well at least they didnt use them as toilet paper.

religious texts make really good toilet paper.

[BritishShivans]

Some new information claims that some guys on base were scribbling **** in the Korans, whose basic information was basically "WENDY HAS A HUGE DICK". The other guys found this out and went to chuck it in the confidential burning bag, but they but it in the non-confidential and thus we learnt of this.

Burning the Koran is a major offense to Islamic religion unless it can't be disposed of the traditional way.

Desecrating it is one too.

Dickbags. Learn your culture before you go to foreign countries, K? I heard it tends to improve your relations with the people who live there. 

[Dragon]

Ah. If the wrote "US Army grunts." instead of "NATO Personel", then it'd be clear from the start (yes, I'm on USMC side). 
Jokes aside, they should have been taught that Korans are important to citizens of the country they're going to. It's hard to blame the Afghans for getting angry about the incident.

[stinkyFeet]

I got a weird pocket bible from some religious people at the fair once. I used it to start a fire in the fireplace, not out of disrespect, but because it's what I had on hand and wasn't religious. Oddly enough, I got a nose bleed right after doing it.

Anyway, I'm sure people do much more disrespectful stuff to Qorans than burning them on a regular basis.  There's lots of people who, fairly, wouldn't see doing what these arabs would consider as unconscionable as bad in the slightest. Heck, there are probably lots of ex Muslims who didn't care what happened to some old holy books and threw them out.

Anyway,
Burning Korans: When all you need is an excuse.

[NGTM-1R]

Oh there are plenty of people in all of those groups who are plenty fanatic, just watch Borat. The only difference is that they're a minority, and not in a position to start a riot every time someone burns a bible.

The point was over here, you missed it.

Every time people don't have a legal right to be not-X, they get a tiny bit upset and seek to secure the right to be not-X with force of arms. Doesn't matter if it's the right to be not-Catholic or the right to be not-white or the right to be not-starving. The use of force of arms has been the only way to be not-X in Afghanistan for decades.

[samiam]

Yeah but decent riot police would take care of that problem pretty fast. At least the protest part.

What the ISAF really needs to do is legalize and tax opium so the tiny fraction of the Afghan government that isn't corrupt can fund itself.