"9:30 AND THE Jews say, "Ezra is God's son,"..."
The Qur'an denies the divinity of Jesus and criticizes the Christians several times in this fashion for that belief. Same with the Jews, although I'm not sure where the allegation about Jews believing in Ezra as God's son comes from. The source of this disagreement is the Islamic precept that God is one and has no equal, nor any kind of divine family.
Just thought I'd mention this, Jews don't believe that Ezra was G-d's son. Muslims adopted the Jewish belief that no one is G-d's equal. I'm not bashing Isalm of the Qur'an, I just thought I should point that out. The closest thing to a "son of G-d" in the Jewish faith is the Messiah, who we believe has yet to show up.
As for the whole "Muslims are evil" thing, I don't believe that at all. Islam, like every religion, has its fringe lunatics.
I don't judge all Christians on the likes of the Pat Robertson, and I would hate to be judged as a Jew based on the actions of my faith's nut jobs. Same goes for Islam. I'm not going to condemn every Muslim just because Osama and co. are perverting the faith to justify mass murder.
The way I see it is that Islam is going through the phase Christianity went through during the Crusades. All major religions have that phase. During the time of ancient Israel Jews forcibly converted non-Jewish semitics in what is now southern Israel (one of the last Kings of Israel, Herod the Great, was descended from one of these tribes).
Between 1095–1291 Christians went on the Crusades.
Now Islam is going through the same phase.
It makes sense that Islam, the youngest of the three Western faiths, is going through their "extremist" phase now.
About a thousand years in, both Judaism and Christianity experienced these bouts with extremism, before "calming down."
The Islamic calender states that we're in the 1420's, so the timing's about right for Islam to experience its bout with extremism. In time extremist Islam will be sidelined.
