Ibn Warraq > Quotes

“The harsh truth that this is the only life we have should make us try and improve it for as many people as possible.”
― Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim

“I wish more people would belabor the obvious, and more often.”
― Ibn Warraq, Why I am Not a Muslim

“Monotheism has also been recognized as inherently intolerant.”
― Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim

“One fact must be familiar to all those who have any experience of human nature—a sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man. Winwood Reade (1872)”
― Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim

“As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.”
― Ibn Warraq

“1. My contention is that "Surah" is an arabicized form of the Hebrew name 171'01 B' surah, that is, Gospel, given to the Christian Gospels during the early centuries of Christianity and adopted in the Qur'an for "revelation.”
― Ibn Warraq, What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary

“I do not wish to live in a society where you are stoned for adultery. I prefer to live in a society where we get stoned first, and then commit adultery.”
― Ibn Warraq

“Monotheism is in its turn doomed to subtract one more god and become atheism.”
― Ibn Warraq

“Since nadhir is a verbal adjective/noun of the basic (I.) form nad-hara-and not the causative (IV.) form andhara-it should originally not have had the meaning "warner," but the same significance as registered
for the feminine form nadhira (which can also be understood as a nomen unitatis of the masculine noun): namely, "votive gift" or "sacrifice."
In the end we come to the original meaning of XXV. 1, namely,
Blessed be He, who sent down the redemption on His servant that he might be (or: become) a sacrifice for the worlds.
Now XXV.1 displays the central Christian teachings on Jesus Christ: "sent down" (John 1), "as votive sacrifice" (Eph. 5:1; Heb. 10:10-14) "for the redemption" (Eph. 1:7 and often) "of the world" (John 3:17 f.).”
― Ibn Warraq, What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary

“Reading the Koran on its own terms, trying to interpret it without resorting to commentaries, is a difficult and questionable exercise because of the nature of the text-its allusive and referential style and its grammatical and logical discontinuities, as well as our lack of sure information about its origins and the circumstances of its composition. Often such a reading seems arbitrary and necessarily inconclusive.
G. R. Hawting”
― Ibn Warraq, What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary