A desecration

One would have assumed that after 11 years of deployment in Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO troops would have known better than to burn copies of the Qur'an. But the assumption has been proved wrong. In mid-February copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic texts were burned—inadvertently, U.S. officials say—at a U.S. military base north of Kabul. More than 30 people, including four U.S. soldiers, have been killed in the protests that erupted after the incident.

American Christians would be understandably outraged if they learned of Muslims burning the Bible. Muslims have an even greater reverence for their holy book. Omid Safi, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina, notes that Muslims look at the Qur'an the way Christians look at Jesus. "In an Islamic universe . . . the word becomes not a person, but a book," he says. "For a Muslim to see the Qur'an burnt . . . it would look and feel like someone burning Jesus, or a crucifix."

Christians should at least understand and respect the way Muslims look at the Qur'an. Most Muslims have a higher regard for the Bible than most Christians have for the Qur'an. It is unlikely that a Muslim would ever burn a Bible.