In Depth:  Patrick Sookhdeo

All over the UK today, supermarket chains, shops and restaurants are selling halal meat.

We may find it on the menu at our children’s school or the local hospital, or be offered it when we go to a sporting event. If we go for a meal with Muslim friends, any meat we are served will probably be halal. It can be hard to avoid eating this meat, especially as it is often not labelled and little information is available to the consumer.

Many people ask what the Qur’an teaches about violence, war and terrorism. In response to these requests, we publish this review of relevant Qur’anic texts. It should be noted that, although the Qur’an is the primary source of Islamic law, it is not the only source, so other material has also contributed to the classical Islamic understanding of this subject.

The question of whether violence is found in the Qur’an is very relevant today in the aftermath of the recent series of terrorist attacks, perpetrated by Muslim extremists. There is no doubt that the Qur’an includes a strand of passages extolling violence and jihad which have always served as justification for Muslims involved in such actions down through the ages. Some voices in contemporary Islam are calling for a more peaceable reinterpretation of such passages, arguing, for example, that they were only applicable in a particular historical or geographical context.

On Friday May 20 2005 a crowd of some 300 Muslims burned a wooden cross outside the American embassy in London. This was part of a protest against the rumoured desecration of a Qur’an by American soldiers in Guantanamo Bay, during which British and American flags were also burned. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this event was that it was not deemed newsworthy, receiving little attention in the national press.

This is reminiscent of what happens in so many Muslim-majority countries: a rumour of an insult to Islam, a violent and blasphemous anti-Christian reaction, police watching idly, and a complete lack of public interest let alone outrage. It could have been Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia or Northern Nigeria. But it was the UK.

If you were a shopkeeper in Iran, you would have to put a card in your window stating your religion, ensuring that most customers would pass you buy, afraid to be seen entering. If you were a pastor, you would receive regular summons to the police station and threatening phone calls that you know are serious - another of your colleagues was killed last year.

And if you were a Muslim who had recently become a Christian almost anywhere in the Muslim world, the chances are that you would be living far from your family and home, perhaps in fear of your life.