Ok. I meant the 99% of non Muslims that DON'T study Islam for a living. Like everybody on this site. The ones that search up "violent Quran passages" on google and than post it on a forum like they're proving some magnificent point or argue that "Islam stands for violence" with little reasoning to back up the claim. Don't necessarily understand how one can become an "expert" on a specific religion seeing as religion means something different to everybody, but if they are knowledgeable of the Quran, than by all means the names you mentioned have a right to an informed opinion.
Studying it for a living would just make them theologians, historians, etc. People who are paid to do so. That doesn’t make them any more or less credible than someone who isn’t paid to do so, provided they have an equal understanding of the texts, or the religion, or the region, or the history, etc. You’re basically playing one giant appeal to authority game.
Everyone has a right to an opinion, informed or uninformed. Not everyone has the right to actually be right in their opinion, informed or uninformed. The more uninformed, the more likely it is your opinion will be wrong.
I’m not a historian, or a theologian, or a writer or a philosopher, etc. Do I have no right to speak about the influence of Islam, or religion because I was never a Muslim? Because again, this harkens back to what I just said above — that allowing religious leaders, or even the religious themselves to be the only ones allowed to speak about their beliefs leads to ignorance. You are creating a protected bubble around people who can potentially harbor pernicious thinking that can lead to real harm, all in the name of what — not wanting to be offended? Or not wanting to offend someone else?
Sorry, but that’s not good enough. Whether you are offended by that opinion or not.
All I'm saying is, that if a Muslim or a Buddhist came up to me and told me what it means to be a good Christian from a literal interpretation of the bible, I would tell them to shut the hell up. I imagine it's much the same with Muslims and all the "analysis" of their religion they must endure by a majority of people who have very little understanding of it.
And you’d probably have your head cut off for it if you did so in Syria. Because many of the Muslims in that nation, or in Egypt, or other fundamentalist Islamic countries believe in things like Sharia law, and believe in blasphemy laws and similar constructs that prohibit their religious positions from being questioned or challenged in any way.
But hey, we don’t want to offend their beliefs though, right? I mean, clearly their “culture” is more important than you being harmed for saying anything they don’t agree with, right?
