An Islamic story for Easter

I had missed the fact that Robert Spencer, the anti-Karen Armstrong when it comes to assessing the nature of Islam, has been "Blogging the Qur'an" for nearly a year now. (Karen Armstrong rubbished one of Spencer's books, but Spencer gave a spirited rebuttal.)

This is a very worthwhile exercise, since (as his introduction explains,) picking up and reading the Qur'an in translation is very heavy going due to its wildly disjointed nature.

I haven't read many of the entries yet, but the latest one is of particular interest. It tells the Qur'an-ic story of Moses and Khidr (the "Green Man"), about which I had not previously heard.

The exact nature of the Green Man is unclear, but he is meant to be good (a saint perhaps) and teaches Moses a lesson by doing some weird, apparently pointless, things, and only explaining the hidden "good" reasons for his actions at the end. The lesson to take from it is this:

“There are paradoxes in life: apparent loss may be real gain; apparent cruelty may be real mercy; returning good for evil may really be justice and not generosity (18:79-82). Allah’s wisdom transcends all human calculation.”

But, the part of the story that is disturbing is that one of Khidr's acts is this:

So they went on until, when they met a boy, he slew him. (Musa) said: Have you slain an innocent person otherwise than for manslaughter? Certainly you have done an evil thing.

The explanation Khidr later gives is:

As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to Allah and man). So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection.

As Robert Spencer notes, it's not hard to see how such a story can be used to support, at least psychologically, the awful practice of honour killings in Muslim society.

I've been trying to think of some biblical story which is as offensive to me in quite the same way. I don't think God telling the Jews to be ruthless in attacking their enemies is the same (and besides which, Islam has the same issue.) The lesson about the nature of God in the Book of Job is, I suppose, similar to the Green Man's lesson, but it is not God who directly inflicts the evil that befalls Job. And of course, although Jesus at times spoke not coming to soothe families, but to break them up, one of the best known parables is that of the Prodigal Son. Of course, it is mainly about humans who return to the path of God, but you could also read it as encouraging forgiveness of parents towards their children.

No, I just can't see how you can read as being an "acceptable" metaphor or lesson the precautionary killing of a young man because he will upset his parents in the future by being rebellious.

Oddly, Robert Spencer doesn't really dwell on this aspect very much; in fact, in the comments following the post he makes it clear that he actually meant to convey that he "loves" this "wild story". (The next comment questions this, as do I.)

For this Easter season, I will stick to Christianity as an "objectively" better religion, thank you very much.