My previous post discussed the difficulty of reading the Qur'an. This post addresses a very specific challenging issue in Quranic translation, namely the meaning of certain 'fighting' verses. There are many verses in the Quran which refer to fighting and killing. I would like to consider...
I am grateful to the linguist Alton L. Becker for drawing my attention to a principle that language is both exuberant and deficient. His words sank deep into my consciousness at the time of first reading them over twenty five years ago: In the fifties, the...
The massacre of Christians at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad on October 31 2010 gained extensive world-wide media attention. This Assyrian Catholic church was taken over by jihadis, and during the course of the several hours during which they controlled the church, the...
