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Here are a collection of questions and challenges often posed to Muslims along with what we hope are good responses:
Why Should I Investigate Islam?
Because if you fail to do so you could be sinning by deliberately keeping yourself ignorant. It’s a big sin in Islam. Even if other religions regard it as a virtue they are wrong and God will take you to account for not making proper use of the mind He gave you.
Why haven’t you done so yet?
Could it be that you have only ever got your information about Islam from the sensationalist media? Well maybe it’s time to take your information from somewhere else.
Could it be that you simply can’t be bothered to look into religion? Well maybe you are just generalising your negative impressions of religion without any good justification. All religions are not the same.
If you have any interest in the future of this planet you should find out about Islam. Islam is not only the fastest growing religion in the world but is now also the second largest religion in Europe and in the USA. Islam is the only serious alternative to the current amoral ideologies dominating the current world ‘order’ and it is to those who know about it the strongest moral force on Earth.
I suppose I believe in God but I don’t see any need to have a religion.
God provides us with the purpose of our existence and if we seek to do good it is the same as seeking to do the will of God. Your belief in God only has value in so far as you live your life according to His purpose for you.
How then do we know what is the will of God? That is where religion comes in. Allah has revealed His will through prophets. To find out what this is you need to study the revelation.
In Islam the core source of that revelation is the Qur’an - I recommend you read it.
You may be asking this question based on your understandings of what a religion is which are drawn from experiences of Christianity and other religions but don’t necessarily apply to Islam. So here are a couple of points which may help to correct such misunderstandings:
The very word “Islam” means submission to the will of God. Fulfilling your purpose in life given to you by God requires that you accept do exactly this. No other religion has such a clear and simple name which comes from the fact that:
Islam Is The Only Truly Universal Religion
What do think about Muslim terrorists?
If terrorism means bringing terror to a population, it is unislamic. It is unislamic because it brings about an extreme fear of people. To have such an intention has nothing to do with Islam. In Islam Muslims seek to instil in people a fear of God’s anger only and NOT of people.
There are some who hate that people should fear God’s anger only. They set themselves up as enemies of God and the Muslims. They may try to force people to fear something else. By doing so they are themselves at least mild terrorists. If they do so then Muslims have a duty to oppose this force - with force if necessary and if it will be effective and decisive. In this way only those who are themselves ‘terrorist’ have cause to fear the use of force by Muslims.
It is the complete incompatibility of only fearing God with fear of people which is referred to in verse 2:256 of the Qur’an:
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out Clear from Error: whoever Rejects Evil and Believes In Allah hath grasped The Most trustworthy Handhold that never breaks.
The ignorant or the liars may stand up proclaiming that there is such a thing as an Islamic terrorist. There isn’t.
The Muslims don’t want you to fear them. They only hope that you will learn to devote your life to seeking Allah’s pleasure and fearing His displeasure.
Can you give an example of a clear act of terrorism?
What do you say about the World Trade Center attack?
What about the verses in the Qur’an about killing the infidels?
What has been happening in Algeria?
I am not an evil person. Would I be condemned to hell simply because I am not religious?
Throughout the history of humanity God has given guidance to peoples through prophets.
The sin of disbelief is when you shut out the possibility that Islam is genuine divine guidance to humanity even when provided with arguments & evidence that would convince any reasonable person. i.e. when your doubts keeping you from accepting Islam become unreasonable; when (as the Arabic word for a disbeliever literally means) you cover up what you know to be the truth.
This web site aims to provide you with such arguments and evidence. It is just a few clicks away…
OK then, convince me - why should I accept Islam?
I hate you self-righteous religious nuts!- Give me a break!
Righteousness comes only from good deeds.
Since only God knows what is in the hearts of human beings, only He can judge who is most righteous. I cannot judge you & you cannot judge me. There is no self righteousness in one who doesn’t judge them self as better than another.
What is Islam’s view of homosexuality?
There is no doubt that in Islam homosexuality is considered ’sinful’. Homosexuality as far as Islam is concerned is a profound mistake ( as are all sins if they are not intending to do wrong).
Humans are not homosexuals by nature. People become homosexuals because of their environments. Particularly critical is the environment during puberty. Suggestions, ideas & strange dreams are symptoms of confused attempts to understand new and blunt sexual desires and are rashly interpreted as defining someone as being one sexuality or another. If these conclusions are accompanied by actual homosexual acts they are even more strongly reinforced.
Human instincts can be subjected to acts of will. Sexuality is a choice of identity which follows choices of action which follow from choices of what to have sexual fantasies about. Human beings are especially able to control their thoughts, entertaining some and dismissing others.
However, if this free will is not recognised it is easy to get into a cycle of thinking which starts from accepting a hypothesis about yourself as true rather than as a possible choice (even if the options are sometimes difficult).
For example: “I am lazy ” could be supposed true by someone. When the person who thinks this lies around in bed in the morning he observes this inaction as evidence of the statement “I am lazy.” As he repeatedly chooses to do so the evidence mounts and the idea becomes fixed in his identity.
It may even have physical manifestations and change his physiology and psychology. This process can easily occur for any idea good or bad about the self which is based largely on evidence resulting from ones own action.
The idea may be “I am ‘gay’” or “I am content” or “I love eating lots of food”. The truth is - you are what you choose to be ; you do what you choose to do ; you think what you choose to think.
There may be long time delays between the causing choices and the effects but anyone can change themselves. There are reformed ex-drug addicts, reformed ex-compulsive gamblers and ex-homosexuals. In all these sins prevention is 1000 times better than cure and much easier.
It has been suggested that homosexuality is genetically inherited and that those who have this ‘predisposition’ are victims of it not sinners of any sort.
However, there are other things which are probably genetically influenced to give predispositions to for example gambling or alcoholism .It could also be argued (and has been) that it is programmed into men’s genetics for them to be unfaithful to their partner.
All these things don’t make it the right thing to do, nor does it prevent these things from being regarded as sinful. Drinking alcohol will still be regarded as sinful in Islam even if you have a predisposition to be an alcoholic.
The trick as every post alcoholic will tell you is never touch another drop after you quit - it is a long slippery slope - your life is better without it.
Once a certain desire is connected to your identity strongly and you get in some way hooked on it, it will always be easy to return to it - you are unable to forget the satisfaction. The difficult task is remembering the bad side of the desire, such as hangovers, lost money, self loathing or a simply sense of loss because of what you missed out on.
But if you are to change for the better, you must remember this and the past desires you bound up with your identity can become disconnected from what you choose to become.
See also:
Why do you think that just because certain beliefs are right for you then they must be right for me too?
The perception in the Christian (or rather Post-Christian) world is that beliefs are matters which people accept without evidence or reason; an act of faith is to do something without reason or evidence to justify it.
What then makes anyone’s religious beliefs right for them? Well according to this understanding of ‘belief’, nothing or nearly nothing except perhaps that person’s own feelings about those beliefs.
With such an understanding of belief it of course seems like nothing more than a taste they have developed similar to liking tea rather than coffee.
Your statement amounts to saying I have no problem with anyone’s preference for Burger King over MacDonalds as long as they accept that just because they prefer the taste of a Whopper meal over a Bic Mac meal, that doesn’t necessarily mean Whopper meals are right for me.
This understanding of belief is quite alien to Islam. To understand why please read the section “OK then - Convince me!”
Faith is irrational and little better than superstition! I want to keep well clear of such things..
Superstition is the result of finding unreasonable causes and effects where none exist. Usually this
Belief in the almighty God doesn’t allow room to believe in superstitions. It is the ultimate dismissal of all superstition. Without this monotheistic belief then there may be any number of strange paranormal causes & effects which we don’t know about yet.
It could well be argued that monotheism is what made people look for God’s laws of nature instead of holding on to superstitions. This is indeed why we refer to ‘Laws of Nature’ - the law-maker and governor is God.
Superstition is where people attribute explanations for events which are based on flimsy evidence and flawed reasoning, if indeed reasoning occurs at all. Islam demands rigorous use of our mental faculties not their suspension.
Thinking of faith as being like superstition is quite alien to Islam. To understand why please read the section: “OK then - Convince me!”
Why are women oppressed in Islamic countries?
There is little point in discussing how well or badly so called ‘Islamic countries’ are living up to the teachings of Islam, or why. First it is necessary to clear up misunderstandings of what those teachings are.
Women are equal to men in the sight of God but they have in some respects different roles in life to men because of their different natures.
They differ psychologically, physiologically, and biologically from men. This makes them more suitable than men for certain responsibilities and less suitable than men for others.
Islam recognises these differences.
Oppression of women is the result of removing their rights. Islam gives men & women rights that are different in some aspects to those they have in the western world.
The principle difference in the way these rights came about is also important. In the West rights became part of the law only after women had been through great political struggles and also partly due to the necessity of women working in factories during wars.
It is possible that this will be reversed in the future. In Islam, rights were given ‘out of the blue’ by God through revelation. They cannot be reversed by anyone’s decision.
Most Muslims recognise the purity and validity of the Qur’anic laws even if they are not following them, but it may be necessary to struggle for a return to them from time to time. It is quite commonly agreed that all things in life which are worthwhile require some struggle.
There is considerable overlap of rights that now exist in the Western world and those which Muslim women have always had (at least in principle if not in practice). This link may give some examples:
Why do Muslim women have to cover their heads?
OK then. What are women’s rights in Islam?
Read a newspaper report ‘From behind the veil‘
Islam has no place in today’s world. It prescribes barbaric punishments and attitudes that belong to the middle ages!
Islam prescribes that it is the duty of the state to uphold the human rights of its inhabitants.
If people violate the rights of others, the victims of those violations have a right to take ‘an eye for an eye’, or ‘a tooth for a tooth’ or whatever compensation the transgressor is willing to give. However, it is more virtuous for the victim to forgive and forget, by such action God forgives and forgets some of the sins of the victim.
If the victims choose to claim their right, the state has a duty to enforce their claim. This is not barbaric it is justice.
Physical punishments can, therefore, be just. They can also be a better deterrent to crime & they are more equal towards the transgressors than fines (which the rich don’t feel as much as the poor) or imprisonment (which also punishes the taxpayers, the family & rarely reforms the criminal’s character).
You can think of the following situation: You see a man hit another man in the street and the other hits back. Is the second man committing a crime by retaliating?
Of course it may be better for him to do something else, but it is his right to respond with a similar measure against the aggressor.
Scientific facts have proven religious arguments and understandings of existence quite wrong!
There is no conflict between Islam and scientific fact.
In fact, apart from the historically interesting issue of the origins of the modern scientific approach being directly traceable to the Islamic world, there are descriptions in the Qur’an which confirm recent scientific findings to such a remarkable degree that it is considered by many to be one of the miraculous aspects of the Qur’an. For more information on what makes the Qur’an miraculous see:
which is part of the online book
How do you respond to what Christians say about Islam?
There is inevitably a fundamental difference between the way Muslims view Christianity and the way Christians view Islam.
Since Muhammad came after Christianity had become established the religion that came out of Muhammad’s mission viewed Christianity as in need of purifying because the teachings of Jesus had been distorted.
In contrast to this Christians are face with a choice. Either Islam is the true religion, Muhammad is a genuine prophet and the Christian should become a Muslim or Islam is a big lie and it must be fought in its entirety.
This difference in perspective means that Muslim criticism of Christianity is usually mild, concentrating on only those aspects of Christianity that it considers distortions of the teachings of Jesus, whereas Christian criticism of Islam tries to discredit any part of Islam that gives credibility to its message.
The situation is made more difficult for Trinitarian Christians because of the doctrine of salvation. For such people it is primarily the belief in the incarnation of God as a man that they believe guarantees their salvation.
Any doubt in this doctrine is tantamount to not really having this belief. and to ever entertain the possibility that Islam is the true religion is to entertain exactly this doubt.
This makes the choice much starker: considering the possibility that Islam is the true religion or fighting it.
Christian attacks on Islam date from the Crusades during which ‘Western culture’ found its first real sense of identity.
This identity was defined as being fundamentally hostile to Islam. Not Islam as it really is but a completely unapologetic pack of lies about Islam.
To mention such things may seem a bit strange because it is so far in the past. However, the level of ignorance about Islam continues to astonish and part of this ignorance is due to the persistence of this Christian reaction to Islam - to lie about it.
The type of lie has moved on of course because truth eventually prevails.
Although some Christians still use them, the charges that Muslims worship Al-Lut (a pre-Islamic pagan god for the moon), or that the use of the honorific title “we” in the Qur’an implies a plurality or trinity of God, or that Muslims are sexually promiscuous, or that Muhammad was the chief idol they worshipped are no longer even remotely tenable. The allegations made to try and discredit Islam these days focus on a number of things none of which stand up to any serious scrutiny.
I do not wish to imply that everyone who makes these allegations is a liar - this is certainly not the case.
Rather I suppose what typically happens is that some one is all too keen to find something vaguely discrediting and jumps to ignorant conclusions.
Either that or they deliberately hide something of what they know so as to present only half the picture. These allegations then get repeated without enough concern for investigating them properly at that stage.
I shall focus on a few categories of allegations to illustrate the point. The following links respond to allegations made on the “Answering Islam” website (see external links page).
There are internal contradictions in the Qur’an!
There are grammar mistakes in the Qur’an!
I feel obliged at this point to acknowledge the help of Abdel Haleem Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) London.
He has been very kind to help me in providing the answers to the points raised in the above links in particular the grammar points which I am not at all qualified to answer myself.
In response to the grammar points Professor Abdel Haleem suggests “The authors of this page should spend time learning Classical Arabic and Qur’anic stylistics (Asaaliib al-Bayaan) and they would perhaps not make such mistakes.”
TAKEN FROM THIS SITE…
