Meccan Versus Medinan Verses Are Not Really Contradictory

A person named Tallulah left the following comment on the article, A Conversation About Islam:

It *is* helpful to read the Koran in its chronological order, because then you can see what came earlier in Mecca and what came later in Medina.

It's true that the Meccan verses don't advocate violence against the unbelievers and leave vengeance against them up to Allah, unlike in Medina where Mohammad begins the era of jihad. But the Meccan Koran is mostly aimed at how damned people are who don't believe Mohammad's claims and who refuse to follow him. As a reasonable person who has studied logical fallacies, it's so easy to see that the assertions that Mohammad puts forward as "clear proofs" are nothing of the kind. He uses circular reasoning, self referential assertions and threats of punishment in hell as his "clear proofs". But rational thinkers can easily see through these.

Many times while reading the Medina verses my husband and I (who read it together and would stop to discuss it) would laugh or raise an objection, and moments later, Allah would answer the kaffir who had done the same to Mohammad. So the damned of Mohammad's time saw the same flaws and laughed at the same things that we do today.

According to the Koran, Allah does not love the unbeliever. It's not bad people, rights violators, that he's talking about. It doesn't matter if you're a decent sort. What matters is that you don't believe what Mohammad, with all his inadequate "clear proofs" asserts to you, that you don't take him on faith while dropping the common sense you were born with. That's what gets you into hell.

And here's what gets me most about the Meccan verses: Allah says that those who make it to Paradise will be able to look down into hell where the unbelievers are being tortured in horrific ways and mock the poor sods as their skin is peeled off of them over and over and they're forced to drink scalding liquid.

That's entertainment.

I don't think I'd like to be in Paradise with people who would find that to be a desirable pastime. Those are mean-spirited brutes, and so is any god who would hate people and punish people for not being able to buy Mohammad's assertions of prophethood. It's a real stomach-turner for a reasonable and just soul to read that stuff.

You can only call the Meccan Koran "tolerant" in the sense that at that point in the Koran the Muslims are not supposed to punish people for Allah's sake. But it is nevertheless full of condemnation and hatred for those who do not believe Mohammad's claims.

It's easy to see how *that* attitude towards unbelievers could eventually turn into outright violence against those stubborn people who keep making fun of Mohammad's unsubstantiated claims.

As far as abrogation goes, I know of the doctrine but I don't think it's necessary because if you see the verses in the context of the Sira — of Mohammad's life story — it's clear that in Mecca Mohammad didn't have enough followers to enforce his religion by violence. He only had about 150 of them by the time he left there. But in Medina he gained many more followers and became *capable* of using the sword to gain more enforcement power. And that's the lesson there: when force doesn't have a good chance of winning, lie low, play nice, try dawa without physical threats. But when you have the means to succeed at war, you *must* then enforce Allah's laws on whomever you can, bring them under Islam's rule.

It doesn't seem contradictory at all when put into full context. It's only when it's all jumbled up, out of chronological order, and without Mohammad's life story to make sense of it, that it seems contradictory.