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Article: Qur'an abuse story roils Islamic world.(News)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- June 14, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If a Qur'an is accidentally dropped on the floor, the person who dropped it makes a contribution to charity in atonement. Copies are never placed at the bottom of a pile of books. And because the toilet is considered an impure place, the Qur'an is never taken into the bathroom.
This reverence for the Islamic holy text helps explain the explosive international reaction to a Newsweek report--since retracted because it was erroneous--that a copy of the Qur'an had been flushed down the toilet in the course of interrogations of detainees at a U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"This is the ultimate spiritual torture," said Muqtedar Khan, a non-resident ...