Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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Which team of apologists will best connect with people?
The dominant culture in the West is culturally liberal or to the left. Dr. Hatem al-Haj explains when composing a team to address Islamic apologetics, it is important to choose those who are within the circle of Islamic orthodoxy but are situated on the left of the spectrum of valid positions in order to best connect with those in the dominant culture and guide them to the message of Islam.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. When you compose a team to do apologetics, let us say you will start your think tank, you will start an institute, you will compose a team to do apologetics. When you compose a team, like within our context, because we, you know, different contexts vary, but within our context, we live in America, we live in the West, we live in the 21st century, so the dominant culture is it to the right or to the left of Islamic orthodoxy? The circle, the spectrum of Islamic orthodoxy. The dominant culture, is it to the right or to the left of Islamic orthodoxy? To the left. Naturally, when you compose a team, to avoid that overreaching, naturally when you compose a team, you will compose a team of people who are not to the left of Islamic orthodoxy, otherwise you will be out. You will compose a team of people who are on the left of Islamic, not to the left, on the left. On the left meaning they are still within the circle. But this is, we all know that people can still be within the circle, but some of them to the right of others and some of them to the left of others. This, if you apply this to certain positions, positions that will give more freedom to human choice, like mubah versus haram for instance, or mubah versus wajib. Wajib and haram are more restrictive, right? You have to do it, you must do it, you must refrain from it, more restrictive.
So when there is a controversy, is it mubah permissible or wajib mandatory? Is it even preferred, mustahab or wajib mandatory? Which position is more to the left, meaning giving more choice for human beings? The one that says mubah versus the one that says wajib, the one that says mubah versus the one that says haram. Okay, so with respect to particular positions, there will be positions to the right and positions to the left. If these positions are still within Islamic orthodoxy, they are supported by evidence, upheld by great mujtahids, and we will come back and talk about this in more detail when it comes to the different types of positions and different degrees of positions, what is within orthodoxy, what is outside of orthodoxy, what is excusable, what is inexcusable, and so on and so forth. But in general, you will compose a team of people who are on the left of the circle, still inside the circle, but on the left of the circle. If the circle has a middle point, the spectrum has a middle point, the people that you will choose for this job to reach out to are the people who are not on the left, to the left. Sometimes they are not just to the left, they are on the cliff. They are about to fall off. They are about to leave the religion. And you want to bring them back, and so if you're trying to bring them back, you will reach out to them with your left hand, not with your right hand.
So reach out to them with a team of teachers, scholars, apologists, and so on, that are somewhat on the left. So it is natural that you compose a team of people who are more inclined to be on the left of the circle, not on the right, but not to the left of the circle, not outside the circle, inside the circle.
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