Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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Are generic answers to doubts enough?
Sometimes a generic answer to a religious doubt just doesn’t cut it. Islamic apologetics needs to take into consideration who the audience is and what the dominant discourse is, in order to provide the most persuasive arguments, language, and analogies.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We do need to invest in Islamic apologetics, in basically crafting proper answers to all the questions that are out there. Any question that may cross someone's mind, we need to basically craft proper answers. Those answers are not basically generic answers that will be catered to all audiences. It doesn't work this way, because, you know, teenagers, professors of philosophy, people of different backgrounds, they will not basically all relate to one answer. And we will come back and talk about the power of the Qur'an, and how the Qur'an was able to address all of those intellectual backgrounds and cultural backgrounds with one message that everybody was able to relate to. But within our capacity as human beings, we will need basically to modify the answer to suit the audience. Modify the answer to suit the audience. So apologetics is important, it is important as a science, it is important as a discipline, because losing faith is not uncommon, because it adds to people's certainty in their faith when they have a rational explanation, or a rationalist explanation, whichever one you want to use,
when they have a rational explanation of the doctrines and practices of the Islamic beliefs, Islamic creed, and Islamic practices, it adds to their certainty, it gives them comfort. So not only that losing faith is not uncommon, but also it gives more certainty and more comfort to Muslims who are not basically on the edge, they are Muslims, you know, but it adds to their certainty, it adds to their comfort when you talk to them about the benefits of the Sunnah lifestyle, for instance, the medical benefits of the Sunnah lifestyle, or anything else, you provide the rational explanation, you talk to the people about the wisdom of legislation, or the wisdom of our beliefs, our belief system. So time and place variables, the need to basically modify, the need for adaptive arguments, the need to modify the arguments. Is this an established concept in Islam? Yes, it is an established concept in Islam. Al-Bukhari reported from Ali, radiAllahu anhu, that he said, حَدِّثُ النَّاسَ بِمَا يَعْرِفُونَ وَدَعُوا مَا يُنكِرُونَ أَتُحِبُّونَ أَن يُكَذَّبَ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ Speak to people in a manner they understand, and do not speak to them in a manner they reject, they find objectionable. Would you like them to disbelieve Allah and His Messenger?
Would you like, if you speak to them in a manner they cannot comprehend, in a manner that is not appropriate, that does not take in consideration their categories of understanding, their different categories of understanding, you may push them into disbelieving Allah and His Messenger. So, once again, حَدِّثُ النَّاسَ بِمَا يَعْرِفُونَ وَدَعُوا مَا يُنكِرُونَ أَتُحِبُّونَ أَن يُكَذَّبَ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ Speak to people in a manner they comprehend, don't speak to them in a manner that is objectionable. Would you like them to disbelieve Allah and His Messenger? And Abdullah ibn Mas'ud said, مَا أَنتَ مُحَدِّثُ قَوْمًا بِحَدِيثٍ لَا تَبْلُغُهُ عُقُولُهُمْ إِلَّا كَانَ لِبَعْضِهِمْ فِتْنًا You will not address the people, a people, with a speech they cannot comprehend, except that it will be a trial, a cause for misguidance for some of them. Ibn Hajar, رحمه الله, reports from Ash-Shatibi, رحمه الله, that he said, it is one of two possibilities, they may either completely ignore the message, he said that would be the better of the two possibilities, that they would completely just not get anything from it, they would ignore it and move away, move on.
The worst possibility is that they misunderstand it or it leads them into some fitna, trial in their deen, or misguidance.
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