Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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General Guidelines of Islamic Apologetics - Part 1
Dr. Hatem al-Haj discusses some of the guidelines for engaging in apologetics.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We will now start the general guidelines. And we're talking about Islamic apologetics. And we talked about the definition, the importance, some of the concerns and limitations of apologetics. And we'll talk now about some of the guidelines. And then we'll talk about building certainty and the superiority of building certainty over fighting doubts. And we'll talk about doubts in general. And at the end, inshallah, we will talk about particular applications. When it comes to certain questions that need to be answered with regard to existence of God, problem of evil, slavery, jihad, the role of women, things of that nature. General guidelines when it comes to apologetics. And apologetics is basically not limited to writing papers. It could be also a dialogue that you have with a co-worker. You would have to be cognizant of those guidelines. Even when you have a simple chat with a friend or a family member who may not be Muslim or who may be Muslim but needs help. And needs basically rational argument and support of whatever that you are presenting to him. We said before that for Muslims we do need to remind ourselves and our brothers and sisters all the time of the importance and rationality of submission to God. The importance, not only the importance, but the rationality of submission to God.
But like I said, sometimes people need to be convinced of a particular position and providing rational arguments could help them be convinced of that particular position or that particular practice or doctrine. Sometimes it helps them with their certainty in general. And sometimes when people have real doubts, it can save them also. So I said pray and listen. First thing, your intention and your attitude in doing apologetics is extremely important. Extremely important. You need to understand and to be very certain of your vulnerability, your own vulnerability. Some of the people who do apologetics, they can be themselves subjected to doubts. It is not like you're going to act like you're immune, like you have no vulnerability. You are vulnerable and without complete reliance on Allah and without much dua and without much dependence on Allah and brokenness, the feeling of brokenness before Allah. If you do not support me, if you do not give me tawfiq, if you do not give me tasdeeb, tawfiq, support me, guide me, I will not be able to do it. No matter how intelligent you are. So prayer is extremely important.
That feeling of inqisar before Allah or brokenness, that feeling of tawakkol or dependence, that feeling of vulnerability, your own faqr, your own haja, your own need, and your own weakness is very, very important. Then when it comes to your attitude, particularly in discussions, you need to listen enough. Many times we do not give a chance to people to vent out or to basically share their concerns. If you give them a chance to share their concerns, maybe you could discover the root cause. Because the initial root cause or the zahir root cause, the apparent root cause, may in fact not be the root cause. So if you listen enough, you will be in a better position to discover the root cause of their doubts or the root cause of their crises, if they are going through crises. Then humbleness, and I said humbleness. Humbleness is basically mutual humbleness. Both the presenter and the listener, the presenter and the listener, the presenter and the audience need to be reminded of humbleness. If we allow ego to come in the middle between us in any discussion, whether it is apologetics or any discussion, that ego, whether it's your ego or my ego, will be detrimental to the whole discourse.
The discussion will be futile if we allowed any ego to come in the middle. So humbleness is important. But humbleness is not only limited to the ego, but it is limited to also our conception of what the mind is capable of. Reminders now of what the mind is capable of are important, that we are reminded what the mind is capable of. The limitations of the mind, so that we can humble ourselves, would be extremely important. You know, some people have, when we are having this discussion, some people may feel that science provides answers for everything, but is that really true? You know, you find a philosopher like David Hume, for instance, who challenges that you cannot even prove the relationship between cause and effect. You know, fire, burning, fire being the cause of the burn, you can't even prove the relationship between cause and effect. These are merely repetitive impressions that are vivacious enough to produce belief. That's all you could say about this. And this is basically something that people would consider to be an empirical finding. The empirical finding that the fire burns, you see the fire burning, but beyond seeing the fire burning, establishing that cause-effect relationship, he challenges,
certainly based on my theological orientation, I believe in secondary causality, and I believe that Allah gave this certain potency to certain elements. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala installed certain laws that are consistent in the universe, so that we can deal with it, and gave potency to certain elements to produce certain effects. But what I am trying to say is that you have a philosopher like this, and he is not alone. Many people would support his argument, the challenge that it is not possible to scientifically prove the relationship between cause and effect in something as obvious as the fire burning, because all that you are seeing is a coincidence. That coincidence is repeated enough, and it is vivacious enough to produce belief, not knowledge. Just belief, not knowledge. And most of what people think is scientific, is basically what they are told, not something that they examined with their own empirical senses. You have not examined, you have not seen electricity. Most of the laws that you know about electricity, you accepted them on the basis of what? Reports. You heard, you read that this is how it works, and you believed it.
This belief itself, it is not your own empirical findings, it is not your own deductive reasoning, it is not your own rationalist, innatist reasoning, analytic reasoning, a priori reasoning, not. It is not either your synthetic, empirical, a posteriori reasoning. No. You opened, you were studying in college, you read this, and many of the things that you read will change. Many of the things that you believed in will change. You know, didn't Einstein come and change people's sort of conception about time, or theory of relativity, and so on? And major physicists in the past, they did not have such beliefs, you know, and things changed for them. And what is fact now was theory, you know, earlier, and was falsehood earlier. And it became theory, and then it became fact, and who knows if it may actually change? Back to being a theory, back to being false, you know. So things change all the time. So you want to humble yourself, you want to understand that this a priori knowledge that you have, there is just very limited, it has very limited scope, because a priori knowledge would be guaranteed as certain knowledge if there is what? Human concurrence, tawatur. Human concurrence or tawatur. If there is human concurrence or tawatur, such as certain things like the law of non-contradiction and things of that nature, you know, limited things,
you know, the whole is being larger or bigger than the part, and just very limited concepts, that is by human concurrence innate. It is built into our intellects, and we should not fight over these things. Beyond this, the most rational of all people, like philosophers, for instance, disagree, and I'm not saying that philosophers are most rational, but the people who are perceived as the most rational of all people, and the most intellectual of all people, they disagree over all things, even things that humanity would agree on. Even things that, you know, the rest of humanity would agree on, you find them disagreeing over them. So where is that certain knowledge that you feel is in conflict with the revelation? Where is, what is the source of this knowledge? Is it science? Is it your own sort of thoughts? How much of your thoughts are social constructs? How much of your thoughts are biases, personal biases, cultural biases, products of the dominant culture that you grew up in? All of these are important parts of the discussions. Let us figure out first, where is your discomfort coming from? Where is your objection coming from? And what are the bases of your objection? You feel that it is a problem, like a conflict between science and faith? You do need to resolve this conflict for them, and you will be able to resolve it.
It will not be a problem, but also you need to be, to humble yourself, and you need to understand what is certain when it comes to science, and what is speculative, what is conclusive, definitive, and what is conjectural or speculative, you know, in the realm of theories, not in the realm of facts. This sort of invitation to humbleness is extremely important. This invitation to humbleness is extremely important in the beginning, particularly when it comes to metaphysics, when it comes to the unseen. Because when it comes to the world of the seen, you have the ability to generalize from particulars, you have the ability to use sort of deductive reasoning and to generalize and infer from particulars about other particulars, and so on. When it comes to the world of the seen, you have also the ability to empirically examine them through your senses, through your external senses. But when it comes to the world of the unseen, it is beyond your ability to examine. And therefore, you know, the question, the Kantian question is always an important question to ask ourselves, and to also remind the people of, after, you know, the philosophers have been debating about metaphysics since the time of Aristotle, or even before, certainly before Aristotle, because, but Aristotelian metaphysics became very popular. There's also Platonic metaphysics, Aristotelian metaphysics, even pre-Socratic philosophers talked about metaphysics. But from the time of Socrates and then Plato and Aristotle, philosophers or metaphysics has become a major component of philosophy,
you know, the philosophy of metaphysics, the world of the unseen, al-ghayb. And then for millennia, they've been debating about metaphysics, and Kant just wanted to come and say, and arguably he was the most important philosopher in the last, you know, 200 years, and some people say there was nothing between him and Aristotle. There was nobody, you know, of his importance from the time of Aristotle. And Kant asked this question, what is the mind capable of, in his critique of pure reason, what is the mind really capable of doing metaphysics, rational metaphysics? He actually thought that rational metaphysics is irrational, because how do you make assumptions about the unseen, al-ghayb, when you cannot empirically examine it? You cannot empirically examine it. Do we have enough a priori knowledge to make assumptions about the unseen? No. You know, Kant was somewhere in the middle between the continental rationalists and the British empiricists. So he did believe in the potency that we have, the potency, you know, the intellectual potency, it's just a potency. He did not necessarily believe in the blank slate or tabula rasa that the British empiricists used to preach, which is an Avicennan concept, by the way, an Ebnesena concept. But at the same time, he also did not, he was not all the way a British empiricist. He did believe that the intellect has this potency. So he was somewhere in the middle between the continental rationalists and rationalists who believed in the innate abilities and believed in deductive reasoning and so on,
and the British empiricists who believed in synthetic and empirical sort of route to knowledge or route to knowledge. But he came and he summoned all of them. You are a rationalist, you are an empiricist. How are you guys doing metaphysics? You know, on what basis? Do we really have enough a priori knowledge to do metaphysics? Do we need really, can we really empirically examine the al-ghayb or the unseen? So he said in the introduction to his critique of pure reason, I have therefore to deny knowledge to make room for faith. I have therefore to deny knowledge to make room. And what he means by denying knowledge, what he means by denying knowledge is that he had to deny what they perceive to be knowledge, which is what they perceive to be certain knowledge, the product of sort of a certain deductive reasoning. You know, all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal. If the premise one, premise two are certain, the conclusion must be certain. This is called deductive reasoning. This is called categorical syllogism. All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal. So this is called deductive reasoning. You have, you know, if the premise one is certain, premise two is certain, the conclusion will be certain. So we, you know, we have our own take on these issues because we believe, you know, as Muslim scholars believe that faith can be discovered through inductive reasoning.
And inductive reasoning could be certain. Inductive reasoning is basically to make abstractions or generalizations from particulars. All of the sort of the glory that you're surrounded by, the majesty, the glory, the greatness of the creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala points to the greatness of the creator, the maker, because they have to have a maker and they point to the... So the fact that you are surrounded by millions of proofs to point to one direction, even if it is through inductive reasoning, the corroboration of all of this, the concurrence of all of this will lead to a certain conclusion. Muslim scholars also not only believe that you can recognize God through reasoning, but they believe that through the senses you can recognize God. Because they add to the external senses of vision, hearing, you know, smell, taste, touch. They add an interior sense that you can recognize God. For instance, they say that you feel your hunger, you feel your anger, you feel love, you feel fear, right? And you're certain that you're hungry, you're certain that you're angry, but are you... where are you getting this from? Where is it coming from? From your external senses? Al-hassu al-zahir? No. You don't see your hunger, you don't smell your hunger, you just feel your hunger. Where is it coming from? From al-hassu al-batin, the interior sense. So the Muslim scholars would say that not only that through inductive reasoning or through reasoning that we can know about God,
but also through our senses, our empirical senses, but not the external ones, the internal ones, the interior ones. So, but Muslim scholars will agree with Kant that when it comes to metaphysics beyond the recognition of God, beyond the recognition of the existence of God and the greatness of God, existence of God and the greatness of God, and maybe the recognition also of resurrection. You know, like if you are wise enough you will think that there must be justice, and if justice is not established on earth, then it must be established in the hereafter. The magnificence, the majesty of this universe, the beauty, the glory of this universe, one thing is missing. Justice. It is not established in life, then, you know, because that beauty and that majesty, that, you know, there has to be also justice to complete the perfection of this existence, and if this is not realized on earth or in this life, it must be realized. So the Muslim scholars would agree that this is part of the unseen that can be realized without the help of revelation. But beyond the existence and perfection of God, beyond the resurrection, we have no access to the unseen except through truthful reports, through revelation. And that is what the Muslim scholars, particularly scripturalists or traditionalists or atharees, have been always saying, that when it comes to the unseen we just have to limit ourselves to the revelation
because, you know, the mind is incapable of reaching the proper conclusions about the unseen beyond the existence and greatness of God and maybe the concept of resurrection. But when it comes to the, you know, hellfire, paradise, the angels, you know, even the attributes of God beyond just the simple belief in his perfection, but the individual attributes of God and so on, the mind has no access to this. Empirical senses have no access to this. So they would agree that, yes, in the area of metaphysics we are extremely limited. So when it comes to metaphysics and when it comes to the word of the unseen, why is it that the Sahaba never had a problem with that? When the Prophet ﷺ told them that when the deceased gets buried and the angels sit him up in his grave, and then they sit him up in his grave, why didn't the Sahaba say, wait a second, you know, sit him up in his grave? How do they sit him up in his grave? The Sahaba were much smarter than this, much wiser than this. I mean, the difficulty would, you know, it's not like something that was discovered by modern science that you can't, that the difficulty of perceiving how someone would sit up in their grave after they die, the Sahaba did not question the Prophet ﷺ because they understood that, you know, this is not, it may not be just as simple as we are thinking, and the Prophet ﷺ is talking to them also, and he, the Prophet ﷺ knows that obviously when someone gets buried in their grave,
the sitting up is not like our sitting up. It is not like our sitting up. So the Sahaba never asked the Prophet how, you know, so when the Prophet ﷺ says to them that the son prostrates, you know, every time at sunset the son goes and prostrates before God, he is the, you know, it is the same Prophet who told them that الشمس والقمر آياتاً من آيات الله they are two of the signs of Allah. He is the one who told them, you know, وَجَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَأً وَالقَمْرَ نُورًا He is the one who told them, no, surah Yunus, وَجَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَأً وَالقَمْرَ نُورًا So he is the one who told them that the sun is a lamp. He is the one who told them, وَكُلُّن فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ وَكُلُّن فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ وَكُلُّن فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ They rotate, they orbit each one in their own horizon. Each one of them orbits in its own horizon. وَكُلُّن فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ وَكُلُّن فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ He told them all of this. He told them that they orbit their own horizons. He told them that the sun is a lamp, but then he told them that the sun prostrates. And they never asked him, How could a lamp that is floating in its horizon prostrate before God? Did the Sahaba ever ask that question? No. They just accepted it. And they did not have any difficulty. It is not like they had, sort of, that, what makes people also, like, taken aback by a report like this, is that they would imagine that the sun would prostrate, but the sun, like, they are too superficial, I guess.
They are too limited in their, sort of, imagination, in their تخيل. They imagine the sun prostrates, but the sun does not have arms and legs to prostrate. And how would the sun prostrate? What if the sun prostrates where, you know, how does that happen? It's just, like, well, obviously, the one who said that it is floating in an orbit, in its own orbit, the one who said it is a lamp, is not telling you it has arms and legs and it prostrates, like we prostrate. So, just, you know, like, be a little wiser, you know, just, like, expand your imagination a little bit, expand your intellect a little bit, and be a little smarter about it. So, the world of the unseen. We believe that the Revelation shows the perfect and the most suitable expressions to describe to us a world that we can never apprehend by our intellects. Revelation used the most, the best expressions to tell us of a world that we can never apprehend by our intellects because it is beyond our categories of understanding. When something is beyond your categories of understanding, then the Revelation will have to use certain words that are suitable to make you capture the gist of it, not the ultimate essence of the reality of the unseen, because that type of ta'weel, that type of the ultimate essence, the ultimate reality, the ultimate modality, the kayf,
is all beyond us, impossible for us to apprehend. So, we just believe in the description that comes to us through the Revelation, and then we, you know, should be smarter about it. General guidelines. Also, another general guideline is to invoke the power of Qur'anic arguments. Invoke the power of Qur'anic arguments. And the Qur'an, like I said, so those of you who attended the conference, the New Jersey Dial Conference, we talked about how different Muslims, they came up with different sort of propositions about a perceived conflict between reason and Revelation, or between the language of philosophy and the language of Revelation, and how some people like Ibn Rushd, a great scholar, who has a great place in my heart, he spoke of what has been translated later by European philosophers as a two-fold truth, but he did speak of basically two layers of truth. He said that the truth never conflicts the truth, truth of philosophy never conflicts the truth of the Revelation, but he had like too much confidence in philosophy on one side, and also, certainly he was very respectful of the Revelation, he was one of the great scholars, but some other philosophers, Muslim philosophers, may have not been as respectful of the Revelation. Farabi, for instance, he said that the language of the Revelation is rhetorical,
it's just a rhetorical discourse versus the demonstrative discourse of philosophy. It's a rhetorical discourse, but the philosophical discourse is a demonstrative discourse, it's based on barahi, it's based on evidence, it's based on proofs, but the rhetorical discourse of the Revelation is based on similes, parables, examples, to make for the benefit of the philosophically unschooled intellects, for the benefit of the laity, the philosophically unschooled intellects. And then, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taymiyyah, used to like Ibn Rushd, used to respect Ibn Rushd a great deal, but he was very against that two-layered truth, and he said in favor of the scriptural truth, in favor of the scriptural truth, and that the language of the scripture is the perfect language, and it is, in fact, a perfect language, because God sent his messenger to An-Nasqaf, to the entirety of humanity. Would God then send him with a book for the philosophers, a book for the unschooled, a book for the Arabs, a book for the Romans, a book for the Persians, to basically adjust to the cultural differences and adjust to the different philosophical orientations? Absolutely not. It has to be one book, the uniformity, the integrity of the book, and the integrity of the message is dependent on it being one. But it is one that is perfect philosophically.
Keep in mind, whatever people think in terms of strength of argument, there are three different levels of arguments. There is rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical. The dialectical argument is about techniques. It is when two philosophers sit together and discuss a matter, it may go over the heads of most of the public. Two even professors of philosophy sitting together discussing a matter, it's about techniques. It's somewhere in the middle between rhetorical, they are above rhetorical, but it is short of philosophical, because the best philosophical argument is the simplest and most obvious, because truth is really simple to capture and to apprehend. And that does not mean that you don't use the demonstrative discourse and you don't use sophisticated argument for the interest of those people that would not otherwise understand, would not otherwise appreciate. But the power of the Qur'an is that it was able to basically put them all together in one. So rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical. Philosophically sound, dialectically not incorrect, not challengeable, cannot be falsified dialectically, and rhetorically suitable for the large audience altogether. An argument like, أَمْ خُلِقُوا مِنْ غَيْرِ شَيْئٍ أَمْ هُمُ الْخَالِقُونَ أَمْ خَلَقُوا السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ بَلْ لَا يُوقِنُونَ in Surah Toor, أَمْ عَنْدَهُمْ خَزَائِنُ رَبِّكَ أَمْ هُمُ الْمُسَيْتِرُونَ Have they been created by nothing? أَمْ هُمُ الْخَالِقُونَ
Or are they the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? No, they have no certainty. And then a switch of argument to, Or do they have the depositories of your Lord's provisions or your Lord's treasures? Or are they in control? It's a perfect argument because it goes from the easiest to the hardest. Or not the easiest, the hard to the hardest. أَمْ خُلِقُوا مِنْ غَيْرِ شَيْءٍ Have they been created by nothing? Can anyone claim that they have been created by nothing? Because philosophically, nothingness never begets existence. Nothingness leads to nothing but nothingness. You know, عَدَمْ never leads to anything but عَدَمْ. So, in this sense, this is sort of a perfect argument. Then, if you were not created by nothing, did you create yourself? That is even harder. How could you create yourself when you were nonexistent? Because creation is to bring from عَدَمْ to عَجُود. From nonexistence or nothingness into existence. If you were nonexistent, Or did you create the heavens and the earth which predate you, which are way before you? Then the scientists, they know that the earth came before us. It was created before us, so we did not create the earth. So this is the cosmological argument in simple terms that could be understood. So the philosophically inclined would be able to understand this. This is the cosmological argument. And the laity would be able to understand it. It is very simple. And then the switch here, Okay, you don't want this argument? Forget about this argument.
Are you in control now? Somebody has to be in control. And the dynamicity, the arrhythmicity, irregularity of universal phenomena is a witness to the controller being a willful agent, not a natural phenomenon. Is that true or not? The natural phenomenon, the cycles will be exactly the same. And keep in mind, they tell you that maybe it is long cycles of millions of years and the cycles are being repeated. But again, you are unable to explain to me the irregularity between one year and the other year. You are unable to explain this. The irregularity, arrhythmicity, in terms of the universal phenomena that surround us, whether it is weather or anything, just all the universal phenomena that surround us, you are unable to tell us. Human beings, if this is all naturally predetermined, then human beings would not have all of this willfulness and would not have all of this irregularity in their behaviors and so on. So these ayat are the perfect argument. You know the argument of composition and how important it is, the argument against multiple gods? What is the argument against multiple gods? If you want to be dialectically sophisticated, you will talk about the argument of composition or hypostasis. And you will disprove multiple gods by citing the argument of composition. Because a composed god, a god that is not purely simple, purely simple does not mean that he does not have attributes as the philosophers may like to think.
The abseity of god, the that of god, being qualified by attributes, that is not composition, that is not hypostasis, that is the fantasizing of the philosophers in their minds. Because you cannot say that a that that is qualified by attributes is composed of those attributes. Absolutely not. The that itself is described by those attributes. But composition in the sense of multiple gods, then there has to be a composer, right? If there is composition, there has to be a composer. So that is the argument against hypostasis or multiple gods. But many people will not get this argument. And sometimes also many people will not get the argument of, you know, change in the universe, that the universe being substance and accident, and the accidents are changing all the time. So it means that the substance is also changing, because those accidents subsist in this substance. And from this we will determine that the universe is not eternal, and the universe had a beginning. And then we will go on to basically prove the existence of god from the universe having a beginning. But we have seen how the Quranic argument was sufficient for all layers, rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical. أَمْ خُلِقُوا مِنَ غَيْرِ شَيْنَهُمْ هُمْ أَلْخَلِقُونَ أَمْ خَلَقُوا سَمَوَاتِ الْأَرْضِ بَلْ لَا يُقِنُونَ For the multiple gods, we have two verses, one in Surat Al-Isra and one in Surat Al-Anbiya.
And we will go over the problem of the multiple gods, the one in Surat Al-Anbiya. In Surat Al-Isra, قُلْ لَوْ كَانَ مَعَهُ آلِيَةٌ كَمَا يَقُولُونَ إِذَا لَبْتَغَوْا إِلَىٰ ذِي الْعَرْشِ سَبِيلَةٌ Allah SWT says, say, if there are truly gods besides Him as they ascribe, or they claim, إِذَا لَبْتَغَوْا إِلَىٰ ذِي الْعَرْشِ سَبِيلَةٌ they would have sought the pleasure of the Lord of the throne. What is this answering? It is answering the hypothesis of multiple unequal gods. If they are unequal, then the lesser gods would have been seeking the pleasure of the Lord of the throne. And if they are dependent on the Lord of the throne, seeking the pleasure of the Lord of the throne, could you describe them as gods? A god that is dependent on somebody else is not a god. So that destroys the argument of multiple gods of unequal power or unequal authority. And then the ayah in Surah Al-Anbiya, I'm sorry, لَوْ كَانَ فِيهِمَا أَلَيَهَةٌ إِلَىٰ اللَّهِ فَفَسَدَتَ فَسُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَرْشِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ لَوْ كَانَ فِيهِمَا أَلَيَهَةٌ إِلَىٰ اللَّهِ لَفَسَدَتَ Had there been gods besides Him, besides Allah, in the heavens and the earth, corruption would have prevailed. They would have been in complete ruin. Why? That is answering the, so glory be to Allah above what they ascribe. So, because that is talking about the possibility of multiple gods of equal power, equal jurisdiction, equal authority.
If you have multiple equal sovereigns controlling the same realm, can you imagine that? Can you imagine two pilots having complete control at the same time of the plane? Two captains having complete control, equal power, equal authority, equal sovereignty, at the same time. What is going to happen to that plane or that ship? You know, complete destruction. The same applies here. And if you in fact say, but what if they agree among themselves? Okay, we have two equal gods, but they agree among themselves. If they agree among themselves, there are two possibilities. They agree by necessity, or they agree by, so their agreement is necessary or possible. Their agreement is necessary or possible. If their agreement is necessary, they are one being. Because they have one will. One irada. They are one being, because the most distinctive thing of a being is what? The will. The irada. And if this irada is necessarily one, then they are one being. You can't have, they are not two being. But if their agreement is possible but not necessary, then the very possibility of disagreeing would rule out that as an option. That preposition would be an unacceptable preposition, because the possibility of disagreement, if their agreement is only possible, not necessary, the possibility of disagreeing would rule out that preposition of multiple gods of equal power.
So the Quran in two verses, two short verses, destroys the two prepositions, multiple gods of unequal power, multiple gods of equal power. So this is rhetorically sound. This is dialectically sound. This is philosophically sound. And it does not have to be too sophisticated so that it is beyond the apprehension of the masses. It was actually very well sort of stated to be within the apprehension of the masses. We all are able to relate to this. But at a philosophical level, when it comes to the substance of the argument, it is a sound argument at a philosophical level. So please invoke the power of Quranic arguments because they are superior. The next question here is the question of latitude in dialectics. How much flexibility, how much latitude do we have in dialectics? How much latitude do we have in dialectics? How much flexibility do we have in apologetics? It's a big subject because the different positions, I talked about spectrum. I talked about orthodoxy being a circle. I talked about a spectrum of positions. There is not one position. Keep in mind, don't get hung up on an issue about which Muslim scholars disagreed. This is not the business of apologetics. This is the business of fiqh. Take it to the discipline of fiqh. Take it to the discipline of aqidah. Take it to the discipline of tasqiyah. Take it to other disciplines.
When you're doing apologetics, you're acting on behalf of the ummah, not on behalf of your school. You're here acting on behalf of Muslims, not on behalf of your school. And certainly, you will have also your convictions. It is impossible that you separate yourself from your work or your work from yourself. But don't get hung up on issues about which Muslim scholars disagreed, particularly if this is a viable, strong disagreement. So latitude and dialectics. I'm actually saying latitude and dialectics. Anyway, it could be also latitude and dialectics, because we divide things to nazar, munazarah, and ta'aleem. We say that munazarah, which is debate, you have the greatest latitude in debate. You could use a lot of latitude in debate. Flexibility. Give yourself room. Not only because you're acting on behalf of the ummah, not only your school, but also because it is in your best interest to make an argument that the person would relate to. Because the guidance of the person is in your best interest. And you should be flexible enough, because the guidance of the person is in your best interest. And if that person actually became guided to Islam, and happened to uphold a position that is not orthodox, isn't it better that they actually became Muslim? They became Muslim and they're having a few issues with a few mistaken positions. That is much better than not being Muslim and not saying la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah.
This bitaqa, this card, where la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah is written, will outweigh all of the scrolls of bad deeds they came with. If they come with this card and it is intact, put it in the scale, everything flies off. So la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah is extremely important, and it is extremely important that we make an argument that will relate to people. Then we need to divide the different positions within the Islamic orthodoxy, well not Islamic orthodoxy, we need to divide the different positions within our heritage, Islamic heritage. And we need to see, where is that circle of orthodoxy? That circle of orthodoxy, like in fiqh for instance, where is the circle of orthodoxy? It will be the form of zahib, that will be the circle of orthodoxy. And the positions within the form of zahib, even if you believe that the position of one mazhab in a particular issue is weak, but that is the circle of orthodoxy. It is not your own perception of weak and strong, it is what the ummah had accepted as orthodoxy. Are there positions from outside of the mazhab that can be added to orthodoxy? Yes, but not many, but not many. The default is that we define orthodoxy by being a position that is within the form of zahib. But let us say there is a position from outside of the form of zahib, and it meets the criteria for orthodoxy. What would be the criteria for orthodoxy for a position from outside the form of zahib? It is founded, it is substantiated, it is justified by the Qur'an and the Sunnah.
There is precedent from the righteous predecessors, the first community, or the righteous predecessors. And the position is upheld by a mujtahid. That mujtahid may not necessarily be one of the four imams, but a mujtahid. And I will give you two positions of one mujtahid. One has not been integrated within Islamic orthodoxy, and one has. So Ibn Taymiyyah, who also has a huge place in my heart, he has two positions. One of them is the vanishment of the hellfire, that the hellfire vanishes. And he reports, he cites reports from different people, companions like Ibn Umar and Ibn Mas'ud, and tabi'een like al-Hassan and others, and Hamad. And he cites reports from Umar, that was reported by Abd ibn Humayd, with a good chain of narrators. So, by Allah, if the people of the hellfire spend as long, as many years as, Qatad ramlah alajj is not necessarily many years, many periods of time, as the number of the sand particles in the desert of alajj, there will come a day when they will come out of it.
So no one is saying that no one among the Sunni Muslims said that the disbelievers will go to paradise. No one ever said that. No one ever said that. The issue that has been debated before is the vanishment of the hellfire. Will the hellfire vanish and everybody inside it will vanish or not? And that is what Ibn al-Qayyim reported as a position, one of the positions of his salaf, and that is what was supported by Ibn al-Qayyim. So you have two great imams that are supporting a position, they may have some justification, because there are some reports that they may cite in support of their position, but that position has not been mainstreamed. It has not been mainstreamed because it has not enjoyed widespread acceptance among Sunni Muslim scholars. It has not enjoyed widespread acceptance among Sunni Muslim scholars. This position would then be incorporated in the sphere of orthodoxy or not? Not. Ibn Taymiyyah himself said that the three-fold divorce would count as one divorce. Three-fold divorce would count as one divorce. And he supported his position by citing a hadith and so on, in particular the hadith of Abdullah ibn Abbas that was reported by Muslims that three-fold divorce counted as one divorce during the time of the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr, and the beginning of the caliphate of Umar until Umar came to a point where he said, let us count it against them as three.
And then, that position is outside the four mazahib. But the widespread acceptance afterwards, this position is the law in Egypt, the law in Jordan, the law in Syria, the law in many Muslim countries. The widespread acceptance by Muslim scholars afterwards mainstreamed that position into orthodoxy. Mainstreamed that position into orthodoxy. Now, so for you as a practitioner on the ground, like any position that is within the four mazahib, now we're doing apologetics, which has basically the greatest room for flexibility, greatest latitude. Not research, which has less latitude, but more latitude than education. So there is ta'lim, there is nazar, there is munathara. Munathara, greatest latitude. Debate, greatest latitude. Could be very flexible about the positions that you will mention. Nazar is your own research, a little bit limited. Ta'lim is when you teach beginners, and you teach beginners basically the safest sort of stuff. You know, most mainstream safest stuff you teach to beginners. And then you have the nazar, which is your own research, and then you have the munathara, which is debate, which has the greatest latitude. Having said this, when you are talking about divorce, for instance, and there is this huge difficulty when it comes to divorce, the three divorces counting as three cause many people a lot of hardship. And that is why the mainstream acceptance of three divorces counting as one, not three, is widely accepted, that position is widely accepted, because three divorces, one utterance of three divorces,
ending a marriage, you know, like when there are seven kids involved, and just, that's it. And then she would have to get married to another person, and the other person has to divorce her before she goes back to the first husband. You know, a big issue. So when you are doing your apologetics, now this is your apologetics now, and you're talking, you do want to give, you do want to showcase, feature, you know, on the top, the position of the three divorces counting as one. Counting as one. Because not only that it is the sort of most rationally defensible position, but it has also been incorporated into orthodoxy. Now if, like I said, if it is one of the positions of the four mazahib, this is a no-brainer. For you as an apologist, it's a no-brainer. You take it, you use it. You use it. If it is not, then you ask yourself a question. Has it been mainstreamed into orthodoxy or not? If it has, take it, use it. Sort of feature it highly, you know, on your sort of your list when you talk about clarification of different positions. Justify it, put a lot of weight on justification of that position. Give it, like, prominence. Give it prominence. Then you will have a position like the vanishment of the hellfire. Now the vanishment of the hellfire has not been mainstreamed. But do you need it in your apologetics? You direly need it. There are so many people that cannot wrap their heads around
the eternity of the hellfire, the eternal punishment. There are so many people that will not be able to wrap their heads around a most merciful God creating people knowing that he will send the most of them for eternal torment. Now, should we forget that the mainstream orthodoxy talks about the eternity of the hellfire and neglect to justify the mainstream position? No, we should not neglect to justify it. But at the same time, you do also want to mention that position because that position is not completely unfounded. It's not like it was made up of thin air. There are reports, and there is a mujtahid, actually a couple of mujtahideen, and maybe others also. And also if you delve into the Sufi discourse, you can find others also who would corroborate that position. But at the end of the day, this is a position that has some justification, you know, and we direly need it because otherwise for so many people the eternity of the hellfire is beyond them. Open the door for them to come in. And maybe they will come to terms with the eternity of the hellfire later on, but open the door for them to come in. Don't shut the door in their face. This is a position that is not a made-up position. This is a real position here. Not within orthodoxy, but a real position by an orthodox scholar.
Because the fact that this position is not an orthodox position does not make the scholar unorthodox. This is a position by an orthodox scholar, but the position itself did not happen to be an orthodox position. Take that position. Now, let us push it a little bit farther than this, and say, you know, how old was Aisha when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam married her? No, consummated the marriage. You don't have to. Huh? Nine. So, did anyone say anything else? 13, 15, 17, 18, all have been mentioned, depending on historical sort of, like puzzle work, you know, like who was older and who was this, and are these orthodox positions? Aside from the nine. They're not. Are they upheld by a mujtahid imam? They're not. No mujtahid said anything other than nine. Are they founded on reports that we consider to be credible in this regard, or in this respect? No. Do they have any sort of basis? Yes, some basis.
Historical, historical. Narrations, historical narrations that are not verifiable, like hadith is verified, but historical narrations that could actually support that she was 15, for instance. Historical narrations that would support that she was 15. Should you mention this? I would say yes, and this would be a matter of disagreement, and I would accept it to be faulted, but I would say you should mention it, because there are also those people, I'm not talking about this side, because this side, they're all good Muslims, alhamdulillah, they're comfortable with them, but you know, the people that relate to that side, or even men, it's not only women, but there are those people who find difficulty, and they find difficulty because of personal and cultural bias, for sure, because 400 years ago, nobody was finding difficulties. This was not an issue. This was not an issue. Many things were issues. There were many criticisms of different Islamic positions, different things, even different behaviors by the Prophet, by non-Muslims, and so on, but this was not an issue, because culturally it was not basically alarming, it was not so different, but culturally nowadays, if you look at our culture and the change in our culture, from 1800s, where the
cutoff for consensual sex in California was 10 years, to 18 and 19 in some states now, over the course of 200 years, you can imagine how the culture differed, and in this case, you are a product of your culture. So naturally, even if you are Muslim, you will, for most of the people, except for the Abu Bakris, or the Bakris, who just never have second consideration, but for most of the people, they will say, well, wait a second, you know. But anyway, now, when you do this, when you mention this position, and it is an eccentric position, should you spend all your time, all your paper, or all your time, to justify this position? No, you should not spend any time to justify it, you just mention it. And you mention why they said it. Not assertively, and not in a way where you would be seen as condoning it, you're just mentioning that some people said such and such. Some people said such and such. Wadribuhun, you know, it's, you know, the famous verse in Surah An-Nisa, like 434, the 434 verse, everybody, that particular, did some people say that wadribuhun does not mean hit them, but it means abandon them? Some contemporary scholars
said that. Some contemporary scholars said that. Do they have some justification, not from the history now, but from the language? And others, yadribuhun in the land, meaning walk through the land, you know, travel through the land, seeking the favors of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, is that an orthodox position? Absolutely not. It is an eccentric position. Do you mention it? Yes, you do. Just keep it there. Going back to the age of Aisha, you know, I have an article on the age of Aisha, and it is pretty comprehensive, mentioning, you know, a defense, like a systematic defense, this is the issue from the biological side, physiological, cultural, legal, and so on, to defend, you know, the orthodox narration, or the orthodox position. But I do mention that some people said that she was actually not nigh. Leave a crack open, just to let some people come in, squeeze in. But when you do this, do not undermine the orthodox position. Defend the orthodox position, and mention the eccentric one. Mention the eccentric one for the benefit of those who would otherwise not, who would otherwise not go into, come
to terms with the orthodox position. More latitude in dialectics, in apologetics. Language, and maybe we'll take this before Asr, inshallah, we'll be at 3 o'clock, so we'll stop like a few minutes before Asr for people to make wudu, but language, okay, so language is important, because language is very important. We said before that language doesn't only have a denotational role, but it also has connotative power. Your language is very important, and your language should be carefully crafted, your language should not be offensive, your language should be carefully crafted, but your language also should not distort the content, should not distort the content. This belief should still be repulsive. It is not, like we do not water things down where this belief becomes a choice. It is a choice because we don't force anyone to believe, so ultimately it is a choice, but it is a bad choice, and if we are truly, if we truly care for humanity, then we do want to make it look like a bad choice. We do want to be upfront about it. We do want to be clear about it. If we are not simply embellishing our own deen, but we are saying to them, this is for all of us. It is not like you're trying to embellish your own deen because of an egotistic concern, you want to look good, and you want your beliefs to look good. No, you have concern for humanity,
and you want to share this with humanity. So, you know, you have to be careful about this also, that you don't water things down, and you don't skew the content, the message, by using language that would be described as politically correct, but it would be detrimental to the message itself. It is distorting the message itself. How assertive. You should not be outdone in civility of discourse, because civility of discourse is something that Islam established. Islam established. But do we have a unified discourse, or the discourse itself changes? Many people would cite or quote the ayah in Surat An-Nisa, قُلْ لَا تُسْأَلُونَ عَمَّا أَجْرَمْنَا وَلَا نُسْأَلُ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ صح? Right? سَبَع. سَبَع. I'm sorry, yeah. سَبَع. So many people, the similarity between سِيْد. So many people cite in Surat Sabaq, قُلْ لَا تُسْأَلُونَ عَمَّا أَجْرَمْنَا وَلَا نُسْأَلُ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ You'd forget Allah saying in Surat Hud, فَعَلَيْا أَجْرَمْي وَأَنَا بَرِيءٌ مِّمَّا تُجْرِمُونَ So they would cite in Surat Sabaq where Allah SWT is saying to the Prophet, Say, you will not be asked about the crimes we've committed, and we will not be asked about what you do. Not the crimes you've committed. You see how nice this is, courteous this is?
You will not be asked about our crimes, we will not be asked about your actions. Not your crimes, your actions. But in Surat Hud, Allah said, قُلْ لَا افْتَرَيْتُهُ فَعَلَيْا أَجْرَمْي وَأَنَا بَرِيءٌ مِّمَّا تُجْرِمُونَ Say, if I made it up, if I fabricated it, if I made it up, then upon me is the consequence of my crime. And upon you is the consequence of your crimes, not actions. So we have to be really honest also. You have to say that this is also in the Qur'an. So if you're saying that Allah SWT taught us courtesy in Surat Sabaq, So what about Surat Hud? It is also in the Qur'an. And the answer to this is, it depends on the circumstance, it depends on the audience. Because the Prophet SAW did not treat all the people equally. Because Islam believes in the equality of human beings, right? It does not believe in the equality of human behavior. So I'm not going to treat Suhair ibn Amr the same way I treat Abu Jahl. And I'm not going to treat Utbah and Shaybah ibn Rabi'ah the same way I treat Umayyah ibn Khalaf. Some people are, they're all disbelievers, but some are belligerent, and some are nice. Some are reasonable, some are unreasonable. Some, you know, are courteous, and some are not. How could you treat them all the same, just because you put them all in one category? You know, lumped all in one category, disbelievers. No, it's not going to be the same. Courteous, not courteous, even believers, courteous, discourteous, you know, belligerent, polite. These are all important considerations.
So when the Prophet or the Quran was speaking to different audiences at different times, different, you know, the language was different. The language is different. It was never obscene, but sometimes it was firmer, more assertive, stronger than others. And that is quite expected, and that is actually the essence of wisdom. To place everything where it belongs, you know, there is no generic prescription for all circumstances and all human interactions. Everything has its place. So assertiveness sometimes, lenience sometimes, rigidity sometimes, or, you know, strictness sometimes, flexibility sometimes, and so on. Inshallah we'll stop here, and when we come back we'll talk about the rest of the guidelines. Quran wa qara'ah wa astaghfirullah wa liya'a lakum subhana wa ta'ala wa niksha'Allah wa anstaghfirullah wa tabakool.
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