Mark writes:

> A German scholar contends that the Islamic text has been mistranscribed and
>  promises raisins, not virgins
>
>  http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/940974.asp?cp1=1

This analysis was mentioned on the list more than a year ago:

     http://raven.utc.edu/cgi-bin/WA.EXE?A2=ind0205E&L=hp3000-l&P=R2123

The most significant paragraphs of the above text are:

"Andrew Rippin, an Islamicist at the University of Victoria in British
Columbia, Canada, says that freedom of speech in the Islamic world is more
likely to evolve from within the Islamic interpretative tradition than from
outside attacks on it. Approaches to the Koran that are now branded as
heretical -- interpreting the text metaphorically rather than literally --
were widely practiced in mainstream Islam a thousand years ago.

"When I teach the history of the interpretation it is eye-opening to students
the amount of independent thought and diversity of interpretation that
existed in the early centuries of Islam," Mr. Rippin says. "It was only in
more recent centuries that there was a need for limiting interpretation."

Wirt Atmar

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