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Notes -
As an aside, there is a common misunderstanding in the Islamic world that the Christian Trinity refers to God, Jesus, and Mary, not the Holy Spirit.
I think this is an easy mistake to make given these verses. Serious scholars in Islam are ofc aware this is not the case. There is another misunderstanding that the Holy Spirit is the Angel Gabriel (he is also the entity that spoke the Koran to Mohammad, humans, even prophets, being unable to survive a direct communication from God).
The Koran is a surprisingly short book, about 7% the length of the Bible and shorter than many popular novels. It also repeats itself a great deal. More people should read it imo. It makes the behavior of extremist* Muslims much less confusing. The hardest part is the terrible formatting in most English translations. Gabriel switches from directly quoting Allah to Mohammad to speaking seemingly on his own without any clear indicators that the switch had occurred. Good translations will use various means to make this more clear.
*If someone believes the Koran is literally true, there is nothing extreme about groups like ISIS at all. They are following a a fairly literal interpretation of the Koran (in the tradition of the Hanbali fiqh Salafist movement, which is also the dominant tradition in Saudi Arabia)
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