Sublime

Zarqawi’s lieutenants. I come to know them better than I know most of my friends—to understand what still haunts them about their childhood, how a particular string of numbers holds emotional significance for them, the different reasons each gets up every day to fight.

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter; 34 Except for thos

This is not a call to stop eating coconut oil, but it means you should use it in moderation (two to three tablespoons per day) and eat it with vegetables. You should never add extra lauric acid to your diet on purpose, even when it’s marketed as an MCT oil.

Let not the believers take those who deny the truth for their allies in preference to the believersc—anyone who does that will isolate himself completely from God—unless it be to protect yourselves against them in this way.a

And it was precisely this self-image that so greatly disturbed the Quraysh. For by proclaiming himself “the Messenger of God,” Muhammad was blatantly transgressing the traditional Arab process through which power was granted. This was not authority that had been given to Muhammad as “the first among equals.” Muhammad had no equals.