Earth to Dubya.

Islam. Religion of peace?

Bubonic plague. Fun disease?

David S. Powers, professor of near eastern studies at Cornell University, has noted that Muslim scholars of abrogation such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) claimed the "sword verse" cited above (9.5) had abrogating power over 124 other verses, including "every other verse in the Koran which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the non-believers." U.S.-born historian John Wansbrough found that the sword verse "became the scriptural prop of a formulation designed to cover any and all situations which might arise between the Muslim community and its enemies." Influential Islamist authors such as 'Abd al-Salam Faraj, Maulana Maududi and Sayyid Qutb have all expressed their agreement with the classical interpretation of the commands to fight and kill.

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. . . Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, a guiding force of the Muslim Brotherhood (from which al-Qaeda sprang), wrote that the tendency to interpret the Koran as if it enjoins only defensive war is an error . . . .

This is an interesting article and warrants study. Of particular interest is the discussion of how Christians had to deal with the bloodthirsty parts of the Old Testament and succeeded by finding a more pacific purpose in scripture through the prism of the gospels, in effect a "reinterpretation" away of the inconvenient parts.

Sadly, in Islam, the author notes that the prism worked the reverse – later more violent pronouncements of Mohammed were interpreted by Muslim scholars to have abrogated the earlier and milder one.

"Islam: A religion of peace?." By Gordon Nickel, National Post, 6/13/06.