My sense is that he may have exaggerated the importance of the Fath al-Bari just a bit. Nevertheless, Joel Blecher’s fundamental point remains both sound and important:
In particular, I often encounter critics of Islam who think that, by quoting a cherry-picked passage or two from the Qur’an — usually cherry-picked for them by a hostile website, without regard to historical context or the history of interpretation — they’ve settled the question of “What Muslims believe” or “What Islam teaches.”
Blecher is right to point out that it’s nowhere near that simple.
Posted from the Mediterranean Sea
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