Allah is very much the god of the old testament. I suppose it's the same as those who claim yahweh isn't all that bad. Lot of cherry picking and ignoring I'm guessing.
Definitely. Angelika has been criticised for being too sympathetic to Muslim traditional accounts and this reference surprised me when I came across it.
I love this specifically:
Sometimes curses are uttered, against absent persons.
Allah sounds like a mentally deranged nut job having a rant becuase nobody is paying attention to him.
Abu Ali, the point isn't that the Qur'an is hurling abuse at unbelievers. I'm sure that you can take the covnersation further than that. For instance the earlier verses are polemical in nature whilst the later ones are more toned down according to Neurwith because Muhammad was trying to create a discourse with other tribes and further legitimise his 'prophethood' by positioning himself within other competing faith narratives at the time.
Interestingly, some people have argued that it is the earlier verses that are less violent and were exchatalogical in nature when in fact all throughout the Qur'an there's a plethora of direct/indirect threats both of a temporal and non-temporal nature. That Muslims and non-Muslims alike are able to read the Qur'an, which is interspersed with verses of hate, and still call it a thing of transcendental beauty astounds me still