Muqtedar Khan on Koran Desecration

Thanks to Statisticasaurus Rex for this other view of Koran desecration.

I'm still not even close to buying this view of the severity of the acts. It's a tough one, and I haven't thought about it nearly enough, but what we seem to have here is a case in which group A reveres a certain type of object and group B does not. It's like a case in which I revere frisbees and you don't Now, you might choose to be polite and humor me, but, given that you clearly recognize that there's nothing particularly special about frisbees, if my demands become too shrill or onerous or irrational, you can't really be expected to go along with them. As I said before, it might be prudent for us to humor the Islamic world on this one, but I doubt that we have a moral obligation to do so.

If we went out of our way to "desecrate" the book--e.g. by intentionally burning it or urinating on it--then that would be an intentional insult, and I think they'd be justified in getting pissed off. On the other hand, if they really want to demand that we all carry the thing around with gloves on...well, forget about it. It's simply an unreasonable request so far as I can tell.

Perhaps this is a decent analogy: I can reasonably demand that you not call my mother insulting names, but I cannot reasonably demand that you call her "the revered Donna Jean."