Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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General Guidelines of Islamic Apologetics - Part 2
Dr. Hatem al-Haj continues to discuss some of the guidelines for engaging in apologetics. Listen to the first part of General Guidelines of Islamic Apologetics here.
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This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We're still talking about some guidelines that we should observe when we are involved in apologetics. And one of the guidelines is to have a balance, particularly when you talk about faith, particularly when you talk about God. You have to make sure that your involvement in apologetics does not hurt the overall purpose. Overall purpose is what? Certainty in faith. Certainty in faith. The highest purpose in da'wah is the connection between people and their Lord. To improve, to strengthen, to promote, to sweeten the connection between people and their Lord. Can we hurt this doing apologetics? Yes, you could. How? Basically there are two ways of acquiring faith. In some respect there are two ways, and I'll talk about the other ways as well. But in one respect there is natural faith and probabilistic faith. Probabilistic faith and natural faith. Probabilistic faith is when John Locke, who is a British empiricist, one of the British philosophers, said, proportion your assent to the evidence.
The Christian apologists started to build a list of evidences on every doctrine or every question they were defending. So would that hurt or help? That would help as long as you are careful that your eagerness to amount more and more evidence will not make you cite weak evidence that will basically bring the roof down on your head. Because when you are so eager to mention more evidences, at the end you will start to mention weak ones. And when you mention weak ones and people come from the top of the list, your strongest evidence, and they find the evidence sort of waning, waning, waning, and until it becomes very flimsy, maybe all they will remember is the weak ones at the end, and that will divert them from the truth, not convince them of the truth. So this is something to keep in mind. Also, when you mention 200 proofs, that would make people think that it is a very difficult proposition. You needed to mention 200 proofs because the proposition, the initial proposition, was hard to conceive of. So you did need to mention 200 proofs.
It's like this woman who said when they told her Imam al-Razi has basically 1,000 answers to doubts and misconceptions, and she said, I don't need them. He only has 1,000 answers because he had 1,000 doubts. I don't have any, so I don't need any of the answers. That is called what? Natural faith. That is what the Scottish realists speak of, and that is what contemporary people like Alvin Plantinga, for instance, promote. To them, Alvin Plantinga, to them, if you don't believe in God, you have a problem in your belief-making mechanisms. You have an error somewhere in your software, a problem in your belief-making mechanisms. It is the natural thing that we talked about before. The scholars of Islam talked about the interior sense and talked about also through inductive reasoning and through your interior sense. It is the ilm al-dharuri, the irresistible knowledge that you feel inside you. It is the God gene, in Dean Hamer's terminology. It's the God gene. It's the hard wiring. When you do this, because as an apologist, you do want to mention intellectual, that's what you're doing,
but keep in mind, don't overdo it, don't mention weak evidence, and at the same time remind people of this irresistible drive inside them that tells them about the existence and perfection of God. That this is not it. Whatever I would mention now, teleological argument, cosmological argument, ontological argument, whatever I would mention now, is not it. Don't forget that there is something inside you that is pointing to God. We will show them our signs in the horizons and in themselves. So don't forget about this when you're doing your apologetics. Then, steer the discussion back to the essentials. It is important because people need to always drift away from the essentials, and people have many concerns about many things and sort of many occupations or preoccupations, and that you want to steer the discussion back, particularly when you're doing apologetics one-on-one. Learn about the person and root cause, and we did talk about this earlier, because it is important that you customize your discourse for the purpose of the audience, for the interest of the audience. You're not doing this for your own interest or your own victory, it is for the interest of the audience. So, what are the guidelines? And I put this as the last guideline, not because it is the least important, but I wanted to conclude that section by this guideline. Half of knowledge is, I do not know.
So, you will do a lot more harm to speak of something that you are not well-versed in, than to stay silent and say, I will ask and come back to you. That is always a safe way out of a difficult situation. I will ask and I'll come back to you, because you are not expected to be the master of all sciences. This was a study that was done to map doubts within the Muslim community, and they felt that doubts are clustered around three nodes. One of them is moral and social concerns, the other one is philanthropic and scientific concerns, and the third, being religious does not make one happy, not feeling welcomed by your community, death of a loved one. This would be under personal trauma. So, one node is moral and social concerns, the other one is philanthropic and scientific concerns, and the third one is personal trauma. So, moral and social concerns would be a role of women, for instance, some of our sisters that have an issue with some of the rules or rulings, bad things people do in the name of religion, intolerance some religious people show or exhibit. Under philanthropic, that's not philanthropic, maybe they, no, yeah, philosophical, yeah, I know where philanthropic came from, okay. So, under philosophical and scientific concerns would be uncertainty over the existence of God, problem of evil, debate over evolution versus creation, certain beliefs or practices don't make sense,
and under personal trauma, being religious does not make one happy, not feeling welcomed by the community, death of a loved one, and so on and so forth. So, when doing apologetics, it is very important that you identify the root cause, you identify the source of the crisis, because that, particularly when you want to customize the delivery to different audiences. Most of the time, if people have a personal trauma, they will not, the study may be skewed because, most of the time, even if the study showed that moral objections or something of that nature would be, like people, how people behave and how Muslims behave, maybe that is the greatest grievance some people have against the religious community, which makes them have grievances against their religion itself. It's a misplaced grievance because your grievances against the religious community should not mean grievances against the religion. Anyway, but many times it's also personal trauma that is being disguised by other concerns, but people will always shy away from saying, you know, I don't like it because I'm just not welcome enough. Building certainty will always trump fighting doubts. So you want to focus on building certainty and certainty, acquisition of faith, acquisition of certainty, happens through association, persuasion and actualization. As we say for children in general, it's mainly association, right? You are who you are because that's your people. Your people are Muslim, your people are this. So it's association.
But for many people, they continue actually, their biggest drive to stay in a religion is association. For many people, it's not only children. And that's sad, but that's the reality. And as we mentioned before, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala spoke of this concept in Surat al-Ankabut. He said, "...Persuasion, that is, you know, so apologists, they focus mainly on persuasion, you know, how to put like a systematic argument in defense of any doctrine. Actualization is your experience of faith that we will talk about now. It is when your faith is actualized, when you taste it, when belief savors the taste of the promises, when you savor the taste of belief, and your belief savors the taste of God's promises, and you find that sweetness, that comfort, that certainty, that strength inside you. That is when you own your faith, that is when you have ownership of your faith. And that is faith that is unshakable. Like, you just, you know, even at the intellectual level, you could still shake it. But at this level, experiential faith, faith that has been actualized, faith that has been tasted, you can't shake that one. So if our interest is basically building certainty, and our interest is improving people's connection with their Lord,
then yes, our focus, because of the job that we have basically took on, is persuasion, but that should not blind us from the very important, you know, the two other important factors, particularly actualization of faith. Then, in this case, you do want to produce output also that will invite people to the actualization of faith, soften their hearts, that will tell them of how to go about actualizing your faith. We were talking about it in the Jum'ah yesterday, when a man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him about how hardened his heart has become, or complained to him about how hard his heart has become, and the Prophet ﷺ said, اَنْ اَرَدْتَ اَنْ يَلِينَ قَلْبُك فَأَطْعَمِ الْمِسْكِينَ وَامْسَحَ لَرَأْسِ الْيَتِيمِ So, if you want your heart to be softened, feed the poor and caress the head of the orphan. Feed the poor and caress the head of the orphan. Your heart will be softened, you'll be more deserving of certainty, your connection with Allah will be sweeter, you will be more deserving of the spiritual imports, the wa'r-e-da'at, that will increase your certainty. So, spiritual labor is required for your faith to be actualized, and we have to stress this fact. Association, maybe you can't do much about it, except that you produce output also, to provide encouragement to the people in charge in different Muslim communities,
about how the mis'adjib should assume bigger roles than what they currently do, for the social networking and for establishing of community with moist bonds between its members, so on. In fact, in some churches, they break up any church that reaches more than 50 families. And I don't remember exactly which denomination now. Does anyone remember? I mentioned it before. They break up the church that reaches more than 50 families. And why? Because it doesn't become sort of cozy anymore. After the church becomes big enough to exceed 50 families, it's not cozy anymore. You don't have the bonds anymore. And I'm not saying that you need to do this, but I'm just saying that you need to be observant of this particular aspect. Types of input that we benefit from to build our faith, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual experiences. This is basically another way of presenting the previous slide. Emotional, intellectual, and spiritual experiences. These are the different types of input. Sources of input. The message itself, immersion in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, and the way of the first community, that immersion is extremely important. Corruptibility of fitrah that we talked about several times. How to rehabilitate the fitrah. Two things. Spiritual labor, to get those spiritual imports, those waridat, that will corroborate your faith, strengthen your faith, promote your faith, sweeten your faith,
and immersion in the book of Allah, the Sunnah of his Prophet, and the way of the first community. Sources of input. Allah says, وَلَمْ يَكْفِهِمْ أَنَّ أَنْزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ يُطْلِىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ إِنَّ فِى ذَلِكَ لَرَحْمَةً وَالذِّكْرَ لِقَوْمِي يُؤْمِنُونَ And, is it not sufficient for them that we reveal to you the book which is recited to them? Indeed, in that is a mercy and a reminder for a people who believe. The other source of input is basically the universal signs. Learn and reflect. Immerse in the Qur'an and Sunnah. Be thoughtful. Don't take things around you for granted. Be thoughtful. You know, you could be looking at, some atheists for instance, could be looking at the most beautiful scenery in front of their eyes, and they can't see beyond it. They can't see through it. Or, they could be looking at the most perfect equation, the cosmological constant, the weak nuclear forces, the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces, all of these fine tuning of the universe, and they don't see beyond it. That's it. But be thoughtful. Reflect. Allah SWT says, سَنُرِيهِمْ أَيَاتِنَا فِي الْأَفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِي بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٍ We will show them our signs in the horizons and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is over all things a witness?
أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِي بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٍ Because all the signposts will lead you to God, and once you are there, all the signposts are not needed anymore. Then, experience faith. وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهُ وَيُعَلِّمُكُمُ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سَبُّ لَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعُوا الْمُحْسِنِينَ The first is in Surah Al-Baqarah, the second is in Surah Al-Ankabut. And fear Allah, and Allah teaches you, and Allah is knowing of all things. That's in Surah Al-Baqarah. So, fear Allah, and Allah teaches you. You'll be deserving of guidance, you'll be deserving of knowledge when you fear Allah, when you have taqwa. You have taqwa, Allah gives you knowledge. Which knowledge? Beneficial knowledge. Because even if you don't have taqwa, Allah can give you knowledge. Information, not knowledge. Not ma'rifah, at least, recognition. Just information. وَالَّذِينَ جَلَّوْنَا فِي أَحْيَاكَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ اِلَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعُوا الْمُحْسِنِينَ For those who strive for us, we will surely guide them to our ways, and indeed Allah is with the doers of good. فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ This is a beautiful statement from Ibn Atṭā'ī r.a. Where he said, لَا تَتْرُكِ الذِّكْرَ لَعَذَمْ حُضُورِكَ مَعَ اللَّهِ فِيهِ لِأَنَّ غَفْلَةَكَ عَنْ وُجُودِ ذِّكْرِهَ أَشَدُّ مِنْ َغَفْلَتِكَ فِي وُجُودِ ذِكْرِه، فَآصَ أَنْ يَرْفَعَكَ منْ ذِكْرٍ مَعَ وُجُودِ غَفْلَةَ إِلَى رَدَ ذِكْرٍ مَعَ وُجُودِ يَقَضَةِ وَمِنْ ذِكْرٍ مَعَ وُجُودِ يَقَضَةِ، إِلَى رَدَّ ذِكْرٍ وَمِنْ ذِكْرٍ مَعَ وُجُودِ حَضُورٍ، إِلَى ذِكْرٍ مَعَ وُجُودِ غَيْبَةٍ عَمَّا سِوَى الْمَذْكُورِ وَمَا ذَٰرِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ بِعَزِيزٍ Do not abandon dhikr because you don't feel your presence you don't feel your presence with Allah. The point here is continue your striving continue your pursuit of the pleasure of Allah
nearness to Allah SWT but don't make the sweetness your goal make His pleasure your goal and then the sweetness will come because if you make the sweetness of faith your goal you are looking for the sweetness you are not looking for His pleasure the whole thing is wrong you are not gonna get the sweetness because you are looking for it if you are looking for His pleasure you will get the sweetness of faith if you are looking for the sweetness of faith you are not devoted to Him and to His pleasure how do you get the sweetness of faith if you are not devoted to Him and to His pleasure so don't abandon dhikr because you don't feel your presence with Allah because your forgetfulness of His remembrance is worse than your forgetfulness in His remembrance perhaps He will elevate your dhikr from heedlessness to alertness and from alertness to being in the divine presence and from the presence to absence from all other than the remembered to have the basically you know the fana ash-shahood which is the vanishment of perception except the mashhood the Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala and then He said and that's not difficult for Allah so persevere is what we want to remind people persevere is what we want to remind people and actually before I get to it there was a statement by Marcus Aurelius I skipped that statement where he said he was an emperor and a philosopher at the same time which is something uncommon but he said waste no more time arguing what a good man should be, be one waste no more time arguing
what a good man should be, be one and this is extremely important because you know that is what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying fear Allah and Allah will teach you you will have to do the right thing to be taught more you know but if you learn and your learning takes you nowhere then that knowledge is against you it is not for you that is not knowledge that will get you any closer that is knowledge that will push you farther away from Allah Ibn Taymiyyah said to Ibn al-Qayyim if you don't find the sweetness of faith after your action but that is not because you are looking for the sweetness of faith using the sweetness of faith as a sign he said if you don't find the sweetness of faith suspect your action because the Lord is grateful and if you are doing it for him he will reward you and the reward you know will be immediate the immediate reward in this life for good work that is for the sake of Allah is that sweetness of faith and that certainty in your heart and that comfort in your heart so suspect your action if you don't have it but you have it like you know because also you have to be realistic about that sweetness of faith we are not Abu Bakr and we are not Omar we will not get that much of it so we have enough that keeps us stable in our spirituality and keeps us stable in in our psyche also or psychology resisting doubts first the first thing when we talk about resisting doubts
is whether these are doubts that are blameworthy are these doubts that are blameworthy or these are just thoughts that are crossing your mind they're causing you distress but these are not doubts you're not doubting God you're having thoughts cross your mind that's where the Prophet ﷺ was approached by some of the Sahaba who said to them we find thoughts inside us that we would wish that we would vanish before we speak of them and the Prophet ﷺ said أَوَجَدْتُمُ ذَكَى صَرِحُ الْإِيمَانِ have you found that that is a clear proof on faith clear proof on faith why? that distress that resentment of the thoughts that you have inside is a clear proof on your faith so first thing figure out if these are true doubts or just thoughts crossing your mind but don't allow them to settle if they are settling in your mind push them away find the proper answers don't seek doubts to dispel them because that is like someone a frail person exposing themselves to 100 germs basically to fight all the germs off and to increase their mana their immunity that doesn't happen this way you know you don't just expose yourselves to 100 germs to increase your immunity don't look for doubts to dispel them when they arrive address them and address them urgently because if you let them fester in your mind they'll cause damage internal damage that you may not be able to recoup from don't allow them to settle
don't make them feel comfortable inside and don't allow the shaytan to basically to whisper into your mind major things you know because that means that the shaytan has become very comfortable inside and the shaytan feels that he can actually dare to do this with you they may be your way to certainty they may be your way to certainty and here's what Imam Tamir rahimahullah said about certainty for skeptics you know some people are skeptics by nature they are skeptical by nature that's just their nature is there a way for them to reach certainty and to have certainty and to enjoy faith like the rest of the people who are not skeptical by nature he says yes there is and he says and I'm not going to read the Arabic but he says one who bases their belief and love on many evidences that bring about certainty and reveal the invalidity of the passing misgivings they will not be like one whose basis of belief is inferior to that so he's saying proportionally your assent to the evidence basically but he's not saying proportionally your assent to the evidence but he's saying that belief that is based on more evidences is greater than belief that is based on less evidences so moreover the one who was granted some knowledge or exposure that compels them to believe is not like one who is exposed to misgivings and they willingly seek to remove them through contemplation and research no sane person would doubt that knowledge that is based on a multiplicity of strong evidences
as well as proofs on the invalidity of the counter misgivings and the proofs of the opponents is not like that which is based on one proof without knowing of the counter arguments so he's saying for the skeptics the evidentialist approach is prescribed for them they're just skeptics the evidentialist approach is prescribed for them so for the skeptics they have their own way to certainty as well the intellectually inclined because there are people who are spiritually inclined and there are people who are intellectually inclined and the intellectually inclined who are also skeptics there is a way for them you know there is hope for them as well at the end of the day and then so we said they may be your way to certainty so if you happen to be intellectually inclined and if you happen to be skeptical you know then work on certainty work on your certainty by basically basing it on more and more multiplicity of evidences and then allow them not to erode into yaqeen because there is no hurry there is no hurry where are you going? you want to be an atheist? why are you hurried? why are you in a rush? you know like if you die you know if atheism is actually true you don't lose anything you know so just like you know calm down there is no hurry and so don't allow doubts to erode into your yaqeen al yaqeen la azul bish shak certainty should not be negated by doubt you have come here through certainty and if you have not come here through certainty but you came here just because your parents were Muslims
then it would be worthwhile for any sane person any wise person to first invest in what you have don't leave the bird in your hand to catch ten birds in the sky just keep the bird in your hand so invest in what you have you know try to figure out a way to reach certainty and take your time because this is not an easy issue this is not particularly if you're surrounded by a culture that is not necessarily conducive to faith it will be difficult but if you were given something by your parents if you were given a gift by your parents or something by your parents they passed on something to you before you let go of it invest in figuring out if this is the truth or not and that would be sort of what wise people would do even if your parents were not the best image or representation of that truth because we have to separate between the religion and the religious community particularly when we're talking about individuals not the collective we're talking about individuals if they were not the best representation still they passed on this to you this undoubtedly has some merit to make 1.6 billion people believe in it invest in it before you make up your mind and then there is no hurry whatsoever when it comes to atheism there was this poet who said
the astrologer and the physician you know physicians had a bad reputation at that time so the astrologer and physician claimed that bodies will not be resurrected bodies will not be resurrected I said go away leave me alone if what you're saying is true I lose nothing we'll all turn into dust in fact you know based on Pascal's wager the greatest argument against Pascal's wager is that you lose the dunya but it has been well proven that you don't lose the dunya that religious people have it better here in this dunya before the hereafter statistically you know studies have proven this when it comes to mental health when it comes to physical health studies have proven this so that is another support for Pascal's wager so in sahak awlikum afalastu bi khasirin if you're right I lose nothing aw sahak awlif al-khasaru alaykum but if I am right you lose everything it is about eternity it is about eternity
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