Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
12 / 13
FAQs with Islamic Apologetics - Part 1
Using apologetics discourse, Dr. Hatem al-Haj addresses some of the frequently asked questions within Islam.
Related
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. So, questions about the existence of God, problem of evil, faith and science, jihad, slavery, women's role, penal code in Islam, and we will not talk about reconciling religious and national allegiances, because this would be a different sort of discussion. But existence of God, and we talked about the naturalist and the evidentialist approach, and Ibn Taymiyyah says the establishment and recognition of the Creator is a fundamental instinct in human nature. We talked about the fundamental instinct in human nature. Even though some people have done something to corrupt their nature, such that they need an argument to achieve knowledge of God. This is the opinion of the majority of people, as well as the skilled debaters, that knowledge of God is sometimes achieved effortlessly, this is the irresistible knowledge, the natural irresistible knowledge, and other times by argument. For some people, they need to be convinced.
But we should never ignore that natural element, because we want to be intellectual. And you should never sit down, being the intellectual that you are, you should never sit down and talk about the issue as if it is subject to defense in the court. You know, this is your position, this is my position, it's hypothesis versus hypothesis, a proposition versus a proposition. I build up my argument, you build up your argument, and at the end of the day, it is argument versus argument. No, you want to make the person feel that, do you truly disbelieve in God? Do you truly not believe in God? You want to make it look abnormal, you know, not natural. You know, do you really think that there is no God? Do you really think that there is no maker for this universe? So you do want to keep this in mind, it is not just an intellectual back and forth, you know, no. You have to remind the person for their own interest, their own well-being, that your proposition is quite abnormal. So, nature and the natural belief, the primordial covenant. The natural belief or the primordial covenant, some people call it hardwiring, some people call it, you know, the God gene. Some people call it, you know, natural belief. We believe that this is what remains of the primordial covenant.
Arabic The children of Adam, when they were still in the loins, he extracted them from the loins of their ancestors and he took the covenant from them. The covenant was taken when we were in the spiritual realm before we had physical existence, it is pre-fetal life, it is pre-Adamic existence of these spirits. And Allah SWT took the covenant from them. We don't remember it, but we do have the remains of it. That is the fitrah, the original disposition. You know, that's what makes everybody, that is what people talk about when they talk about the God gene or the hardwiring or the sort of the necessary knowledge of God. Or the recognition of God through your hissal batin or your interior sense. And all of this, you want to stimulate this, you want to trigger this. And you want to tell people there is some work that you need to do to be deserving of this and to stimulate it and trigger it. That crust, remove it. You know, personal biases, personal ego, arrogance, the delusion of intellectual superiority, cultural biases as well, self-interest, ulterior motives.
Remove all of this and try to purify your heart. And you don't have to commit to a religion first, but try to purify your heart to be deserving of guidance. Try to purify your heart when you're trying to talk to somebody, because that is an important element. And you do need to rehabilitate your fitrah, you do need to earn back your original disposition. Try to purify your heart. If you don't believe in any religion, you know, visit sick people, you know, give charity to the homeless. You want to encourage them to do this work, you know, to do this labor so that they become deserving of the guidance of God, of God's guidance. Soften their hearts, rehabilitate their fitrah, remove the crust and become deserving. It sounds awkward to talk to people who are not Muslim about visiting the sick, helping the needy and feeding the poor, but this is the way you rehabilitate your fitrah and you expose yourself to the, you know, to the mercy of God. His guidance is the greatest of His favors, isn't it? So how do we become deserving? And then the evidentialist belief was, you know, talk about cosmological argument, talk about the first cause. You do need to talk about these things. And, you know, the first cause is something that some of the Muslim scholars refrain from using the word first cause, but basically, basically, we're saying, we are saying that this world around us was created, it had a beginning. And I think whether you would use the argument of change, the accident and the substance and the change, you know, in the accident and the subsistence. So, you know, we keep in mind, some people say, you know, like an athari like me, can you use the argument of change?
You're saying that God also, that God also, that basically you speak of ta'aqub al-hawadith, or the succession of events subsisting in God, the succession of actions. That is not change of any essence whatsoever. Look at us, how we change. You here, you decompose, decompose, you become dust, and then this dust becomes whatever it is, you know, plants. That is, is that change like instigating one action after another? No. Whether it is that you are, so you believe sort of in the athari view of this matter, that God instigates actions one after the other, or you don't. At the end of the day, we all believe that the essence of God does not change. God does not change. The attributes of God, the zaati attributes of God, the essential attributes of God are eternal. The sama' of God is eternal. The hearing of God is eternal. The sight of God is eternal. All of this is eternal. And when we talk about individual actions happening one after the other, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala kulli ya'min huwa fee sha'an, every day He engages a different matter because He's engaging in His temporal creations, and because He, you know, sammastawa ilas sama'a, so He creates something and then He creates another thing and He creates a third thing, and so on. This is not changing the essence whatsoever. But we change, and our change is change of the essence, change of the essence, not just, you know, actions.
He does not change. His attributes are eternal, but certain actions happen one after the other, and that does not mean any change in the essence. From the change, using the argument of change, you prove the beginning of this universe. Because, you know, if it changes, it is not eternal. If it changes, it is not eternal. The essence that changes, it is not eternal. The Big Bang Theory and the developments in physics have made it much easier for us to basically skip over the whole sort of deductive argument. They were trying, because empirically or scientifically, they did not have, they wanted to prove that this universe is not eternal. It is originated, it came to be at one point, so that they talk about the, you know, creator, the necessity of a creator for this universe. Nowadays, the Big Bang Theory and the developments in physics made this much easier for us. You can actually start from this universe at the beginning. Most of the people nowadays, because of a scientific bias that is in our favor, most of the people nowadays believe that the universe did have a beginning. And then you take it from there and you build on it. So this is something that we have now, that we can build on. They did not have it then, so they wanted to have a deductive proof, and they wanted to use the argument of change, which is a valid argument, and so on, to get to that point. And then, so everything in the universe is caused. The cause, the first cause, must be an uncaused cause.
Why? Because if the first cause is not an uncaused cause, then he is also caused. There has to be another cause. And we will keep on doing this for infinite regression. We will keep on going back infinitely. If you keep on going back infinitely, that rules out any existence now. Any existence now. Because infinite regression means nothing now exists. Like, for me to have this iPhone, for instance, here, someone must have given it to me, someone must have given it, and then we keep on going back, going back, going back, infinitely, infinitely, it will never reach me. Right? Because we're going back infinitely to start somewhere and move forward. If we will never stop to start and move forward, we keep on going back infinitely, and infinite regression precludes any existence at any time. Or we have dawr. Infinite regression is called tasalsod. Or we have dawr. Dawr is when you have two causes, one will not exist before the other brings them to existence. So that is called the dawr, which is a circle. So you get into a vicious circle here. One will not exist until the one comes to existence, and then you will not have any existence. Because there is existence, we will preclude dawr, we will preclude tasalsod, which is infinite regression, and we will say that the first cause is an uncaused cause.
And we will say we have examined this universe, and we have known through examination of this universe that it is caused, that it is originated, that it had a beginning, but you've never examined the first cause to judge him as caused, originated, or having a beginning. And there is no other explanation for existence except that. There is no other explanation for existence. The thing that you have to make clear is that this proposition is a wild proposition. You're saying that we came from nothing, that we exist here now, and we came from nothing. That is a wild proposition. And make it look wild. And then the teleological argument, and the anthropic principle at the center of the teleological argument, the teleological argument is basically looking at the telus. Everything around us is fine-tuned to a great level of perfection that is just majestic, glorious, unbelievable. Neil Manson had a book called The Teleological Argument, The God and the Zion, where he talks about the scientific backing of the teleological argument. Neil Manson, teleological argument, God and the Zion. So he talks about different things, the weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, and strong electromagnetic force. He's talking about carbon production by the stars. He talks about the cosmological constant. He talks about gravity. He talks about the fine-tuning, the fine-tuning, you know, the amazing, amazing fine-tuning.
And not only that it is fine-tuned for just the purpose of the existence of the universe, but also the anthropic principle. Everything is fine-tuned for our existence, human being, you know. And to be suitable for our flourishment, there must be a telus. There must be a final cause. There must be a final cause. There must be a telus. There must be a purpose. And that is all not, basically, that is not nature. That is a willful agent. The argument of irregularity is also another argument that we use. Are you in control? Am homo musaeterun? And there is no, you know, there is this arithmicity in the universe around us. April 20th this year was very unlike April 20th last year. You know, no forecast is ever 100% right. But the idea here is, the idea here, it's not only that, it is the fact that all of those changes don't have clear explanation. There is a willful agent in control, you know, the changes between one year and the other. The, you know, unpredictability of the course of nature, it means that it is not an unwillful process. There is a willful agent who is in control. The problem of evil, and I may not spend this much time on the problem of evil,
but I will suggest to you to read Sheikh Mohammed Shinawi's paper on the problem of evil. It is on the Yaqeen website. It is called, Human Suffering, something about human suffering. But you could just simply put the problem of evil and Yaqeen and you will see the paper. Existence of God, it is also on Yaqeen, Justin, you know, wrote a paper on Yaqeen, on the existence of God, and it is also helpful. The case for God's existence in the Quran and Sunnah, and it invokes the Quranic power, the power of the Quran. And so, the problem of evil. So, the problem of evil, there are many ways to look at the problem of evil, but one of the things that we have to basically address is the fact that your contention against the presence of evil is that you wanted a life that is not a test, that is not a phase of existence, that is it. And I completely sympathize with you that if this is it, it is unfair. But I am telling you that this is a phase, a test, this is my sort of, like, this is my proposition here.
Your proposition is it is unfair, therefore God does not exist. I am telling you these issues are philosophically separate from each other. The existence of God and your grievances against what God does to you are philosophically separate from each other. And that is something Anthony Flew discovered later in life, you know, that his rejection of God on the basis of the problem of evil at age 15 was philosophically incoherent, because they are philosophically separate issues. And I want to tell you that you made the assumption that this is it, and you went backwards and said that it is not. It is unfair, God does not exist. But we are here, we exist, God exists, it is based on a completely different philosophical argument, let alone the scriptures and everything. But your assumption is based on this being it, which is a wrong assumption. This is a phase, and if justice is not realized in this phase, it is realized in the next phase. And that's what matters. So eventually, eventually, the whole train is going to a good place, where justice will be completely realized. There are many fights on the train now during the journey, that train is heading towards a good destination where justice will be realized in perfection, you know, with perfection, complete perfection. But the wisdom behind suffering, and certainly how it would not be a test without suffering,
there will not be chivalry without cowardice, there will not be patience and fortitude and perseverance without distress and hardship, there will not, all of this potential, human potential of grandeur, or human potential of greatness, human potential of kindness, greatness, human perfection, as much as we can have perfection, cannot be realized without, you know, suffering and without tests in this world. Because this is a test, and Allah told us, اللَّذِي خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ وَالْحَيَاةَ لِيَبْلُوكَمْ He who created life and death to test you, He told us that He's testing us. And at the end of the day, the issue of Qadr, you may not be able to wrap your head completely around it, but at the end of the day, be practical about it. You are here, you're being tested, so focus on your test. Don't be distracted by the very fairness or otherwise of the test. It is certainly fair, because it comes from the majestic, the great who created this, you know, great universe and majestic universe around you. But you are being tested, so focus on the test. You are obviously a willful agent that can attend to answering the questions on the test. You are a willful agent, and I always use this, like, you know, litmus paper sort of proof on our willfulness.
I will move this pointer to the right, inshallah. I will bring it back where it was, or, you know, close to where it was, I don't know. Inshallah. Willful agent, I'm accountable. Let us focus on the test. Answer the questions. Faith and science, is conflict conceivable between faith and science? And here we have to be very smart about this concept. Faith and science, is a conflict conceivable between faith and science? First of all, we have to sort facts from theories. We have to also differentiate between the conclusive indicants of faith and the speculative ones, and the conclusive indicants of science and the speculative ones. And we have to understand that the language of the revelation, we have to widen our horizons, our imagination. The Sahaba, as I said before, they did not question the son prostrating. They did not question the angel setting up the deceased, although they must have been aware that this does not happen exactly in the way that it happens in this dunya, you know, or that there is like some modality that is beyond their apprehension. And they did not really bother at all believing in this without comprehending the modality of it. But when it comes to certain things that we believe are part of our religion, some people
may have a crisis that is unwarranted because they had confusion between what is conclusive and what is speculative. So I'll give you some examples. You know, the phases of fetal development, the embryo, for instance, 40-40-40. There was a discussion about, you know, this. I will tell you when Hadith Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, where the Prophet ﷺ said, يُجْمَعُ أَحْدُكُمْ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّي أَرْبَعِينَ يَوْمَ ثُمَّ يَكُونُوا عَلَقَ مِثْرَ ذَلِكِ ثُمَّ يَكُونُوا مَتْغَضَرَ ثُمَّ يَأَتِنِ مَلِكِ ثُمَّ يُفَيُّ أُمَرْ بِأَرْبَعَ كَلِمَاتٍ So one of you will be brought together, formed, composed in the womb of his mother for 40 days, and then he becomes a alaqa, like a leech or a clot, for an equal period. He becomes like a piece of flesh. We translate it as a chewed piece of flesh because it's madgha, chewed piece of flesh. And then the angel will come and will breathe the soul into them. And then the traditional understanding was 40, 40, 40, 120, and that is when the angel comes and breathes. And then we have modern science telling us that the complete embryogenesis is finished by 56 days from conception, and that people would have a heart that is beating within the first 40 days. That does not look like a drop that will then result in... But was this the only hadith? This is the hadith that became dominant.
So here is the important distinction between the perception, our heritage, and the revelation. And here we say, although we don't like to repeat this so often because it can undermine the tradition, there is a difference between the turas, the heritage, and the revelation because at the end of the day the turas is a human product. And the revelation is a divine one. Now the scholars have taken this hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud and they reinterpreted a different report of hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud and reinterpret another hadith that is reported by a Muslim also from Huzayfa, another Sahabi, because Abdullah ibn Mas'ud is one of the greatest scholars of the Sahaba. So they took that hadith and counted on it and they had to reinterpret the hadith of Huzayfa that talks about everything being finished within the first 40 days. And in favor, they had to reinterpret hadith Huzayfa in favor of the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud. Even the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, it has a narration where it says, يجمع أحدكم في بطن أمي أربعين يوما ثم يكونوا علقة في ذلك مثل ذلك. So then you will be composed in the womb of your mother for 40 days and then you become a علقة, a clot or a leech في ذلك, in that, for an equal period of time. What is in that? In what? In the womb? No. The last thing that was mentioned is the 40 days. In the first 40 days, everything is done in the first 40 days. And that does not even mean that it will take the entire 40 days because all the formation,
it is only saying that you will be composed, everything will be composed, and it will take 40 days. And keep in mind that everything will take 40 days and all the three stages will be equal to each other. So the علقة and the مضغة. But it does not talk about any other stages. But if you examine the ayat in surah al-mu'minun where Allah says, وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ سُلَاوَاتٍ مُمْتِهِينَ ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُطْفَةً فِي قَرَارٍ مَكِيِّنٍ ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا نُطْفَةً عَلَقَةً فِي خَلَقْنَا عَلَقَةً مُضْغَةً عَيْظَامًا فِي كِسَوْنَا لَعِظَامًا لَحْمَةً ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرْ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَلَقِينَ So go back to surah al-mu'minun and see what Allah is saying. That He created, فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً That we created the مطفة, made it into a علقة. Made the علقة into a مضغة. You know, the piece of flesh. Then did we, ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرْ will come later. And ثُمَّ means after a while. But then, did Allah say the مضغة became then the new creation, which is basically the one that has the soul breathed into it? No, Allah did not say this. فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا Then we turned the مضغة into bones. فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَةَ لَحْمَةً Then we covered the bones with flesh. ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرْ And then we made it into a different creation. What did Ali and other Sahaba say? ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرْ Breathe the soul into him. We're having a huge gap between the مضغة and the breathing of the soul.
The hadith of Abdullah bin Mas'ud where everybody took to mean 120 days, and then we're having a huge gap between the مضغة, which will then become bones, and the bones that will be covered by flesh, and thereafter, then we will breathe the soul into him. So there is no reason for an embryologist to have a crisis. In fact, there is a reason for an embryologist to have certainty. Even if we don't twist the meanings of the ayat to make them conform to the scientific findings that we have nowadays or the scientific conventions of the day, there is still a good reason for an embryologist to be very comfortable with his deen and to be very comfortable with the revelation. The other issue also that sometimes arises is the six months being the cutoff between a viable birth or a viable newborn and a non-viable newborn. The six months, this was not something that the Prophet said. It was not something that the Qur'an said. This was deductive reasoning done by the Sahaba from two verses in the Qur'an. And then his pregnancy and weaning will take 30 months for the pregnancy and his weaning. And then another verse that says, his weaning, it will take two years of breastfeeding until he's weaned. And the Sahaba said 30 minus 24 is six months.
Six months is the shortest period of pregnancy. Smart on the part of the Sahaba for sure, but this is not Qur'an or Sunnah. Was there ijma' at the time of the Sahaba that it is the shortest period of pregnancy? No. The ijma' was that because they were questioning. Someone had a child after six months. They were questioning whether that was possible. And Ali radiallahu anhu said, look, it says here. So it is possible. Did they say less than this is impossible? And then they agreed by consensus that less than this is impossible? The Sahaba did not. Did the scholars afterwards say it is the cutoff, the shortest? Yes, they did. Did they report consensus on this? Yes, they did. Is there a consensus reported by the scholars later considered conclusive and definitive? No, it is not. It is not. It is considered dalil dhanni. It is a speculative proof. Because to say that it is established, it is really pushing it. And then sometimes, some of the scholars would mention things like Sufyan al-Thawri would give, would say like a day or two earlier could happen also. And some of the scholars would say that if he's born alive, his life is not haya mustaqirah. It's not a stable life. It's not a stable life. They recognize that he can be born alive or she can be born alive. But based on the medicine that they had, they can survive. Why? They said because of his smallness, small size, his incomplete sort of genesis or formation,
he cannot survive. But they recognize that he can be born. Now that we have people survive after five months, should that cause us crisis? No. But should that also cause us to reject the very sort of concept of the advances of medicine in basically rescuing premature infants? Should we be rigid to say the shortest period of pregnancy is six months? You guys go like figure out what's wrong with you. I don't care. No one can survive before six months. No, that would be rigid. That would be unwarranted. On the other side, it would not, should not cause us any crisis in our faith. Go back and look. Is there any conclusive evidence in the Quran and the Sunnah that they cannot be born alive before six months? No, there is not. So that's it. It is easy. But it also requires some degree of flexibility. So when it comes to jihad, we have the clarification, justification, and application. Should we talk about jihad or talk about some other issue? Because I think jihad has been just, everybody talked about jihad enough. But quickly, what I want to say about the concept of jihad, and we're just doing sampling here of the frequently asked questions, but we are not giving justice to any of them. We're just doing sampling to basically apply what we have been talking about. So when we talk about jihad, then we have to figure out first what is jihad and what is not jihad. And then we have to clarify what jihad is in Islam.
And we don't need to be sort of stuck on the terminology here and this debate over offensive versus defensive. We will have to basically change the discourse, change the discourse, and talk about just war. First, we have to say that jihad is not limited to war. And this is what jihad is about. And we have to talk about jihad in nafs, and we have to, you know, it is resistance of evil. It starts here, starts inside. That's the first evil that you want to resist, the evil of your nafs. And then resistance of evil in general as a concept. Is military resistance of evil part of it, war part of it? Yes. We can't say no, right? Then we have to talk about just war, the theory of just war in Islam. When we say the theory of just war of Islam, are we using language that is basically culturally appropriate? Yes, because here in the West, it's all about just war. Since, you know, St. Augustine and his theory of just war, that is basically the language that is being used. What is just war? And if you truly examine the motivation for war in Islam and the sort of the justification for war in Islam, it perfectly meets the definition of just war for any wise, you know, for the majority, let's say, not any, because someone may say I am wise, but for the majority of wise individuals, it would meet the criteria of just war.
And separate here between, here we're not defending every war Muslims were involved in. No. But the closer it gets to the Prophet ﷺ and his Sahaba, you do need to provide explanation because it is getting very close to the Prophet ﷺ, the conveyor of the message. Are we saying that everything that the Sahaba did was correct? Are we claiming that any one of the Sahaba was infallible? No. But again, at the same time, to say that the collective was wrong is also a little bit hard. The collective, you know, the generation of the Sahaba, that something as big as like, you know, al-Qadisiyyah, for instance, that this was wrong, this battle between the Sahaba during the time of Umar and the Persians, then you need to provide explanation. And we have enough explanations. You know, and I have like an article about this online. It is called Reflections on Terrorism. It is on Muslim matters, Reflections on Terrorism. But you know, we have plenty of explanation here. There are many. There have been many incidents of Persian and Roman aggression against the Muslims prior to any conflict, military conflict, between Muslims and the Persians and Romans. There have been many incidents of Roman and Persian aggression. But keep in mind, there is this concept of preemptive war, and there is also the concept of fighting for humanity and human rights, fighting against terror. The Surah Al-Nisaa.
Why don't you fight for the cause of Allah, and the oppressed among men and women and children. And the oppressed among men and women and children. So it is not only that we basically care for our self-interest, but we also care for the oppressed among men and women and children. And we believe that being able to choose to worship God should be a human right. Should be a human right. And God should not be indifferent to that. God would want to use, you know, all over the Bible. God is using, you know, and that is the explanation. They are saying that the Israelites were God's tools, just like famines, just like plague, just like this or that. So the destruction of cities, the burning of cities, the killing of infants, that is in the Bible, they had a way to explain it. We don't have any of this in the Quran. We don't have any of this in the Quran, and we're having difficulty explaining it. No, we should not. For it is being, it is basically being made difficult for us to explain it. No, it is not difficult to explain. Everything is easy to explain. We don't have killing of infants. We don't have burning of cities. We don't have all of this. We have the criteria of just war, not only in motivation, but also in conduct. But also in conduct. But that is a very long discussion. But don't conclude this discussion without talking about application. Without talking about application.
What does, you know, when Ibn Taymiyyah says that you can't use a catapult except in defense of war, you can't use it, you can only use a catapult in times of necessity, you know, for protection, for preservation, you know, of Muslim life, for reciprocation. But you can't start by using a catapult. Why? Because he says because of the indiscriminate harm that will ensue to women and children and the elders and so on. If we cannot use a catapult, can you imagine, you know, all of this enormous destruction that happens with modern war? Are we talking about the same thing? Are we talking about like troops, like thousands of people, sparring out in the, you know, desert or, you know, in the middle of nowhere until one group wins over the other and then basically the authority moves from one dynasty to another, from one ruling elite to another, from a tyrannical ruling elite to just a just ruling elite? Is this like war nowadays? Are we talking about the same thing? The only thing in common between them is the name. So discussion of nominalism would be a different discussion. We'll stop here. Astaghfirullah alaykum, Subhanakallah wa alhamdulillah, wa shabbal Allah wa alaykum wa rahmatullah
wa salamu alaikum.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
