Free Quran coming to your doorstep?

Free Quran coming to your doorstep?
Foundation: 'Just trying to be honest brokers of information. You make your own judgment'

If you're in your front yard, working in the flower bed or chatting with a neighbor, they'll pass by silently to attach one of the bags they're carrying to your frontdoor knob and leave without speaking or engaging you in debate.

Their mission? To place a copy of the Quran in every home in the United States.

"We're just trying to be honest brokers of information," Wajahat Sayeed, founder and director of Book of Signs, which is also known as the Al-Furqaan Foundation, told the Chicago Tribune. "You make your own judgment."

Al-Furqaan is distributing its 378-page paperback English translation of Islam's holy book using teams of paid walkers who descend on neighborhoods, going door-to-door, much like other deliverers of newpapers and advertisements. They don't hand them directly to residents but, instead, leave them at the front door – but never on the ground. That would be disrespectful.

The translation's forward asks readers to treat the book with respect. Those objecting to the free copy of the Quran are requested to call the foundation phone number to have it retrieved or to make a donation to a local mosque.

According to Sayeed, who checks for messages daily, 30 percent are appreciative, another 30 percent are indifferent and requesting that the book be taken back and the rest are often filled with expletives.

"It is not pleasant to hear that after all the effort you made," said Sayeed, who works full time for the foundation in addition to being a strategy consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Addison, Ill.-based organization says it has distributed more than 30,000 free copies of the Quran to homes around Houston, Texas, and another 70,000 in the Chicago area, including the evangelical stronghold of Wheaton.

Al-Furqaan's horizons go far beyond those two urban areas. The foundation aims to deliver copies of the Quran to every U.S. household. On its website, those interested can order copies by paying a shipping and handling charge. Sayeed is not concerned his American readers might be unable to understand the text.

"The general sense will be clear," he said, noting the foundation had chosen a translation Americans can easily read. "Islam teaches peace."

Al-Furqaan is not the only Muslim group distributing free Qurans.

WND reported in 2005, the Council on American-Islamic Relations came under fire for distributing a free English-language edition of the Quran that had been banned by the Los Angeles school district because commentary notes accompanying the text were regarded as anti-Semitic.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had previously included the edition in the Islamic book-package it offers libraries nationwide and was giving it away to help "improve America's image" through a program called "Explore the Quran."

A complaint by a history teacher revealed problems with the CAIR-distributed version.

Surah (Chapter) 2:65 of the Quran, which reads like most English versions, says: "And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed. In the matter of the Sabbath; we said to them: 'Be ye apes, despised and rejected."

In his corresponding note, the commentary reads: "There must have been a Jewish tradition about a whole fishing community in a seaside town, which persisted in breaking the Sabbath and were turned into apes."

Under the heading "Jews" in the book's index, is a reference to Surah 5:60, which says: " ... Those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some he transformed into apes and swine ... ."

In the index under "Jews" also are these phrases: "cursed," "enmity of," "greedy of life," "slew prophets," "took usury," "unbelief and blasphemy of" and "work iniquity."

Author and researcher Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, said that while the commentary notes in the CAIR-distributed version are particularly anti-Semitic, its rendering of the Quranic text largely is no different than any other version.

"It's an indication that what we think of as extreme in Islam is not really extreme but mainstream," he told WND. "You won't find a translation that doesn't have Jews being turned into apes and pigs."