Basic Lessons from Islamic Apologetics
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Why do we call it Islamic apologetics?
Sh. Dr. Hatem al-Haj describes the reason behind using the term “apologetics”. Islamic apologetics is about defending the doctrines of the faith in rational terms. When people hear the term "Islamic apologetics" they can understand that this is an academic discipline that requires research.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. If it is a loaded term, it carries connotations of which some are not welcome by Islam, or are not compatible with what we want to basically establish as Islamic apologetics. Why are you using the term? This will be a balance between the benefits and the harms of using this term, the pros and the cons, and we can disagree, and if you don't like it, don't use it. I'm not trying to convince you to use it, I'm just telling you why I'm using it. But if you don't like it, please don't use it. It's very easy, we don't have to basically have a major disagreement over terminology. But I'm telling you that I'm aware of the connotative power of words. I am using it because of different reasons. One, it is a simple term that you could use to express a concept, instead of having to basically, every time we want to talk about the concept, we have to say a long sentence or a paragraph to express the concept, or to denote the concept that this is the discipline that we are talking about. So instead of saying, because it is not limited to refutation of misconceptions, because we want to establish a science, we want to establish a systematic discourse in defense of our doctrines and practices, a systematic discourse in defense of our doctrines and practices.
So it is not merely about answering response to refutation of misconceptions or unanswered questions. No, it is not. It is more than this. So, since it is more than this, then we want basically to use a term that would refer to that larger concept that we intend to speak of, putting together a systematic discourse. It also affects the psyche, the psyche of the recipient and the psyche of the speaker. When the speaker uses the word apologetics, the speaker will humble themselves, because they have to recognize the difficulty of explaining doctrines and practices to different peoples at different times, within different contexts, different age groups, different philosophical backgrounds, different educational levels. So they have to understand that we are talking about a science here, and we are talking about a science that is not easy. We are not talking about an easy concept, we are talking about a difficult concept, and we are talking about a science that is not easy, that requires a lot of thoughtfulness to do it right. But at the same time, there may be some negative effect on the perception of the audience, because when you talk about apologetics, again, they can't separate this from apologizing, and then the audience may be negatively influenced in some way.
So it is mixed, but because we want to establish a science that basically addresses this issue, the issue of explaining our doctrines and practices in rational terms.
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