Boreal Books
Let Me Rephrase That!
Your Layman's Guide to Abrogations
Paperback 204 pages
16:101 And if We replace a verse by another – and Allah knows best what He reveals – they say: “You [Muhammad] are only a forger.” Surely, most of them do not know.
Of all the incongruities that devotees of a religion steeped in incongruities have to accept, the concept of abrogation has to be the most outlandish. Abrogation is common in the real world as better information replaces old information. In a collection of immutable facts communicated to a mortal by a god, abrogation should not even be the exception.
For the rational mind it is inconceivable that a god, in an eternal book He claims to have written, in Arabic no less, in which He lays claim to infallibility, has to retract, annul or amend i.e. abrogate what He said earlier. Knowing what more than 200 revealed truths an omniscient deity abrogated, as mindboggling as that may seem, is essential to understanding the Koran.
If you found one or more more of the following excerpts useful please consider buying the book.
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CONTENTS
The Before and After Solution
Charity Becomes Compulsory
No More Mr. Nice Guy I
A Change of Direction
Safa, Marwa and the Religion of Abraham
Charity Becomes a Tax
From Curser to Pardoner of Jews
Providing for a Widow
Dying a Muslim by Doing What a Muslim Does
No More Mr. Nice Guy II
Indoctrination and War
A Blood-Money Conundrum I
From Killing Ten to Killing Two
Entering a House Other Than Your Own
Marriage is Good, Adultery Bad
From Whipping to Pardoning Slanderers of Chaste Women
Generalities about a Woman's Finery
Slave-Girls and Children Close By and You're Naked
Wives for the Messenger
The Prophet as Savior
They Also Carry Allah's Throne
Wages for the Messenger
The Reward of Beneficence
For the Prophet Only
Forgive and Forget is Not Allah's Way
That Sound You Hear
It Was Not a Weighty Message After All
Wishing Won't Make It So
Mouthing the Koran Was Not Good Enough
A Blood-Money Conundrum II
Wills and Testaments
Intoxicants
The Divorce Ransom and Marriage to an Impotent Man
He Said, She Said
The Manifest Victory
Myth of the Month of Revelations
Something for the Tax Collector
Brides For Believers
First, Kill All the Unbelievers
Hell Is for Those Who Love Life
The Bedouins Learn Their Lesson
No More Mr. Nice Guy III
Mercy for Adulterers!
Not All Poets Are Perverts
Evidence of a Master Copy of the Koran in Paradise
Abrogation and Genocide
A Declaration of War
Putting Words in God's Mouth
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Cover art is a rendition of a picture of George Burns from a poster for the 1977 Warner Bros. film "Oh, God!". Like the movie, I hope you will consider Let Me Rephrase That! a mildly irreverent but never gratuitous treatment of a reverential figure.
