Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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Can you cross an ocean without getting wet?
Sh. Dr. Hatem Al-Haj describes the importance of creating a safety valve that protects your own conception of the message of Islam while presenting it to others.
This clip is from Sh. Dr. Hatem al-Haj’s seminar on Islamic apologetics.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. You do need to establish a two-step system. A two-step system. The first step is to establish our creed and our law irrespective of apologetics. Keep in mind that the Kalam, you know, was mainly about apologetics. It is not as much about Aqeedah as it is about apologetics. Because the Aqeedah, we do need like some guardrails, a few guardrails to protect us from deviation. But most of the Aqeedah that will foster Iman and will promote the connection between us and Allah is not even provided in the conventional Aqeedah discourse by the different schools, even mine. It is provided in the Tazkiyah or Tasawwuf discourse that will give us that connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and promote our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But the two-step system is where we establish our beliefs and practices, creed and law, irrespective of the dominant sort of cultural trends or the dominant philosophical discourse, using the hermeneutical self-sufficiency of the revelation itself. The revelation should be self-sufficient. The role of the intellect is not, no one is trying to undermine the role of the intellect, absolutely.
But that is intellect that is not influenced by the dominant cultural trends or the dominant philosophical discourse. That is al-aql al-sarih, the pure intellect. Critique of pure reason, the pure intellect. Al-aql al-sarih. And once you have established this, you try as much as you can to have a safety valve that will allow you to take the message and present it in a way, in a manner that will suit the different audiences. But at the same time, you're trying to prevent this sort of adaptability or the different adjustments that you will make in your presentation from coming back and affecting your own conception of the message itself. So that safety valve should be unidirectional. It allows the message to come out from here. Now you present it in different ways, but then your different presentations should not go back and affect, because when you're presenting the message to different audiences, you will need some adaptation, some modification. And if you are presenting the message to an audience that is of a particular philosophical orientation or background, and this is what you're doing day in and day out, would it not be possible that this will affect your very conception of the message itself? Because you're so engrossed, you're so immersed into that discourse
that is foreign to the Islamic discourse or Islamic paradigm. It is very possible. And no matter how educated you are and how committed you are to the revelation and to the message, it is very possible that your very perception of the message and what it means will be affected by your involvement in that foreign discourse all the time. And that happened to many of our great scholars, and that is a concern that we have to be cognizant of and we have to be very careful about. Does that mean that we will stop engaging different discourses and different audiences? No, it does not. It just means that you have to be very careful. Even if you are very careful, will you be able to cross that ocean without getting wet? No, you will not. Likely, you will not. Can this harm be tolerated for the greater benefit of presenting Islam to different audiences? I would say yes. Minor harm can be tolerated for a greater benefit.
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