‘Hostility toward unbelievers’

I read Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner’s Dec. 5 op-ed piece with great interest.

With all due respect, I’m afraid that he is not aware of the several suras and verses of the Koran that reveal deep hostility toward unbelievers. They call for their destruction by Muslim fighters (jihadists) or at least for their subjugation (if they surrender to Muslim rule and law-Shariah).

I cite the following few examples: under cursed Jews, see sura 4:46, 5:78, 9:30, under jihad, see sura 25:52, 60:1, 66:9; under rules of warfare, see sura 9:5; and under unbelievers, see sura 3:176-178, 4:76,151, 8:55, 29:68, 88:24.

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In the Hadith, a collection of sayings by Mohammad, etc., there is parable in which a rock (or a tree) calls out to a Muslim warrior informing him of a Jew hiding behind it and exhorts the fighter to “come and kill him.”

These and other examples lead me away from Rabbi Kirshner’s confidence in Islam’s peaceful, loving spirit, attitude, and teachings toward non-Muslims (infidels).