I clearly don't know the Quran as well as some posters here, but I have read large parts of it. Most of what I know about Islam stems from the fact that I live in a community with a large South Asian Muslim population
[1] and a much smaller Arab and Indonesian Muslim population. I have Muslim friends and staff and colleagues and neighbors and doctors and business relationships. I have playdates with my daughter in Muslim homes, and chat with Muslims about family and community and holidays and beliefs and hopes and dreams.
In my experience, most Muslims embrace SPAG in the same way most Christians do. While most Christians don't embrace the concept of stoning folks who work on Sunday to death, most Muslims don't embrace huge parts of the Quran that promote absurdities.
That said, there are certainly some absurdities that most Muslims do embrace.
Within the South Asian community, (which is the one I know best) geopolitical disputes between Muslims and Hindus (and to a lesser degree Sikhs) colors their interpretations of the scriptures. Most South Asian Muslims I know, will say of Christians (and usually Jews) "
But we all believe in the ONE GOD."
In their minds, "people of the Book" are all ok. The problem is those damned Pagans. And that would be the Hindus. I have Muslim friends who regularly give Christmas cards to Christian friends, because they are happy to help their friends celebrate the birth of Jesus, which is written about extensively in the Quran. But when it comes to Hindus, they will whisper "but they are PAGANS." According to folks in the South Asian community, Mohammad was much more concerned about pagans than Christians and Jews. Again, these interpretations probably stem more from geopolitical issues than from the scriptures themselves, and adherents look to their holy book to find justification for their political stances.
As with any diaspora, members of the South Asian community are just a little homesick. And although many Muslim South Asians may bash the paganism of their Hindu neighbors, they do tend to join in for Hindu holiday celebrations that remind them of home, such as Diwali.
Among the Muslim community that has geopolitical disputes with power structures associated with other religions, (such as much of the Arab world) it is pretty clear that their interpretation of the scriptures focuses on passages that support a different set of concerns and priorities.
Arabs tend to get most of the attention, but it is important to note that there are more Muslims in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan) than there are in the entire Arab world. And they have very different priorities and very different interpretations of Islam.
