Israel launches Quran interpretation website

Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry announced the launch of an online Quran interpretation project to serve as a "bridge between the Muslim world and the West", in a move that has aroused the suspicions of Arab states.

The project, called Quranet, was developed by 15 Muslim Bedouin academics in Israel as part of their Masters program in educational counselling and is an "educational tool which reveals the beauty of the Quran and its respect for human dignity," according to a description by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The project, exhibited at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Occupied Jerusalem in May 2008, was supervised by Jewish professor Dr. Ofer Grosbard and reviewed by three Islamic preachers. It was also published in book form by Ben Gurion University Publishing House.

According to the ministry website, the project "transforms the Quran into a unique and useful educational tool for parents and teachers, and thereby renders the beneficial power of the Quran widely accessible."

To use the site, the user looks in the index for an educational topic and gets a relevant Quranic verse. The verse is followed by a story to demonstrate how it applies to everyday life.

The project started when a Bedouin student attending a graduate course on Developmental Psychology told Professor Grosbard that verses from the Quran would have the most powerful impact on parents when counselling them on their children’s problems.

Grosbard brought a copy of the Quran to the next class and asked the students to identify verses that were education-related. They selected 300 verses, linking each to a story and a brief educational and psychological explanation by Grosbard.

The verses focus on issues such as taking responsibility, respecting others, and telling the truth.

But the project has been met with apprehension from Islamic circles inside and outside Israel.

Officials at Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments said the project is a manipulation of the Quran to suit the interests of Israel.

The Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments, Sheikh Shawqi Abdel-Latif, told AlArabiya.net that the Ministry will issue a statement exposing the falsities in the project and will take measures to ban it in the Muslim world.

The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs said there was no reason to launch such a project as the Quran has been interpreted correctly many times before. The Ministry also said it doubted the validity of the interpretations.


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid).