My reference, Birdie, was to Khandro's post on this thread dated 9.58 Sunday in which he accuses critics of ignoring the historical context of the so-called sword verses. My little rant was about the ambiguity of these verses: they can mean whatever you choose them to mean. Not that I'm complaining that the majority of Muslims choose to put the same scholarly gloss on such verses as Dr. Hathout: it shows that basic humanity can survive the most unfortunate start in life. Unfortunately the Koran memorized by believers contains neither scholarly gloss, helpful comment from Khandro, nor description of historical context.
I might enlarge on all this in a future thread by citing amongst other things the forward to the Penguin Classics translation of the Qur'an in which Tarif Khalidi describes the exegetical disciplines of Koranic scholarship. Among them he mentions: historical context, harmony of laws, linguistic obscurities(!), variant readings(!), grammar,, metaphor, rhetorical excellence (eh?) and (wait for it) divinely ordained inimitability. I might call it "Why is God a monoglot?", or possibly "Why can't God make himself understood - what school did he go to for Heaven's sake?".
My apologies to the doctor for putting words in his mouth. Having re-read Khandro's post I see that it was Khandro who defined the "duty" of a Muslim:
"It is the duty of Muslims to defend humanity from oppression and persecution and to establish justice. Muslims believe that God has placed us here on earth as his deputy or viceroy, and thus, it is our duty to enjoin the good and forbid the evil, to establish peace and justice in the land".