"But There Are Peaceful Passages in the Quran Too"

THIS IS ANOTHER in our series, Answers to Objections. This one is easy because the Islamic world already has a well-established answer to the question. Every reader of the Quran, since the time it was written, has noticed conflicting messages. And they've had the question, "When two passages from the Quran conflict, which one should I follow?"

The Quran itself answers the question. It says if two passages conflict, the passage revealed later is better than the one revealed earlier. The policy is known as abrogation. Learn more about abrogation here.

Since the order in which the chapters of the Quran were written was carefully recorded, each instance of a conflicting passage is easily settled. The bad news is: The peaceful passages were some of the first written, and the intolerant, violent passages were almost all written later.

So the short answer is, "Yes, there are peaceful passages in the Quran. But they have all been abrogated."

Read how many passages are positive and how they were abrogated. And learn more about Mohammad's last word (last revelation) about non-Muslims.

If someone has resisted what you are saying by insisting there are peaceful passages in the Quran, and if you came up with a different answer than mine, please add it to the comments on this post for future readers. Thank you.