A couple of months ago, we posted a short video detailing '12 Facts About Islam', using the Quran and Hadith's own words. No additional opinion was added to the video and each verse was referenced for full transparency.
A few Muslims were appalled by these verses from their own sacred texts, and wrote messages expressing various levels of outrage at what they'd been reading. There were rather measured and polite messages like this one:
And then there were more vitriolic ones:
We responded to each one with roughly the same message (as seen opposite). Knowing that many Muslims are nominal, in the sense that they only call themselves Muslim because it's their family or cultural tradition, and that many of them haven't really read the Quran to know what it says, we wanted to encourage them to be bold enough to question what had been handed down to them. To actually open up these verses and to study them for themselves. (Or even just to do a quick Google!) Because the truth is that if anyone does find those verses reprehensible, then their issue isn't really with this ministry; their issue is with Islam itself, for this really is exactly what it teaches.
Now I don't know whether any of the protesters actually did go away and question their faith, but what I do know is that not a single one then replied again to expand on why they thought any of the verses quoted were 'lies'.
The one writer who made some attempt to use the Quran to refute the verses was this one opposite. As you can see, he briefly quoted Quran 5:32-33, the most commonly verse used to express a peaceful view of Islam: "He who kills a man kills all of mankind."
Unfortunately, this verse in full context isn't peaceful at all. It reads: ‘We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption done in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, even after that throughout the land, were transgressors. Indeed the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon the earth to cause corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.’ (Quran 5:32-33)
So the context for the verse is that Muslims had started trying to convert Jews (the Children of Israel) by force, and there was fighting between them. Muslims decreed that if the Jews should reject their 'clear proofs' that Muhammad was God's messenger and kill any Muslims in the fighting, they would be dealt with 'as if he had slain mankind entirely' and they could expect to have limbs chopped off, be killed or crucified. So that snippet of the verse only applied to the Jews, not the Muslims themselves. The Muslims were free to kill, torture and maim anyone who opposed them.