Verily, all praise is for Allah,
we praise Him and we seek His help
I bear witness that there is no god to be worshiped but
Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah
After establishing a study in which
25,000 participants took part,
the Arab Barometer concluded that there was an increase in the
Arabs who considered themselves irreligious from 8% to 13%
This is bearing in mind the differences
between Irreligiosity and Atheism
In Britain, the country where I was born and raised, the
majority of the people consider themselves as irreligious
In 2001, 80% of the population of Britain considered themselves
Christians. However, in 2011, this number decreased to become 59%
Nearly 20% of the population
shifted their view about religion
The question which should be asked
is "why this is happening?"
The West have its own history as there was a
conflict between scientific discovery and the Church
In the period of Enlightenment, people focussed on political
philosophies instead of religion or the teachings of Christianity
For example, the United States as well as France established their constitutions
on Secularism and on Liberalism instead of the teachings of Christianity
Our main questions is: why this is happening
in the Middle East and in the Muslim world?
Im going to present to you, in sha Allah, three
prominent points related to this cancerous phenomena
The first point is the post-colonial legacy
It is well known that the West hold a military
and a cultural domination over the world
In reality, many Muslims suffer
from an inferiority complex
Allah, glorified is He, warned us from this human quality by saying
"Our Lord, make us not [objects of] torment for the disbelievers"
Some of the interpreters said that this aya (verse) denotes that many
people will link the political and military success with a certain ideology
Many people link the western technological
advancement with the success of the western ideology
However, it is unnecessary to remind you that
there is no link between these two questions
The second point is the lack of trust towards
the political and the religious figures
This was indicated by the Arab
Barometer in several researches
The lack of trust towards religious figures can
lead to the lack of trust towards Islam itself
Many people dislike certain politico-islamic groups
As a result, they end up by hating Islam itself
The third point, the emergence of Liberalism
and the love of this worldly life
What did you say? I said, the emergence of
Liberalism and the love of this worldly life
The prophet peace be upon him warned us that we will be
divided into different categories at the end of time
He was asked about the reasons behind this plight and he
answered by saying "love for the dunya and hatred for death.”
In fact, Liberalism seems tempting for those who love this worldly life as it tells you
that the human being is free to do whatever he wants as long as he doesn't harm others
According to me, these are the three prominent causes
for the rise of irreligiosity during this period
What are the possible solutions?
First, as Muslims, we believe in the innate human nature
Several scientific studies demonstrated that the human
being is born with a tendency to believe in Allah
In 2011, Justin Barrett from Oxford University stated in one of
his courses that the human being is born with an innate faith
However, this innate human nature could be distorted
and damaged by unatural causes such as Liberalism
Here, we have to dismantle this ideological
cover which damage the pure human nature
Im going to mention three key points that could
dismantle this ideological "outer shell"
First, the reasonable arguments
Allah, glorified is He, said "Or were they created by
nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]?"
Al-Ghazzali stated in one of his books that
everything which have a beginning should have a cause
The world has a beginning. Therefore, the world has a cause!
There cannot have been an infinite regress of causes
or this world would have never existed then!
We can ask an atheist: is this world contingent
or not? i.e is it dependent or not dependent?
If he tells you "the world is not contingent", you could answer him by saying that
everything that has limited variables is dependent and the world has limited variables
Let's repeat
Everything that has limited variables is contingent
or dependent on others for its existence
The universe has limited variables. Therefore,
the universe is contingent! (dependent)
We cannot say that there is a correlation since time immemorial in
contingency as we cannot say that there is a chain of causations
Therefore, we can easily and logically prove that we need
something that has no beginning, a creator who was not created
Everything depends on Him and He does not depend on any, this
is what Allah named "assamad" (the Eternal Refuge) in the Quran
Allah, glorified is He, does not depend on anything but everything
depends on him, and does not lack anything but everything needs Him
Which means that the eternity of Allah could be logically proved
So the first point was the logical arguments,
and we easily mentioned them in 3-5 minutes
Second thing is that you should ask this atheist: what are the
philosophical consequences of being a materialist atheist?
Because a materialist says that we
are just a composition of atoms
So what is the difference between cutting a
tree in half, or cutting a human being in half?
Atheist leaders admit that there is no difference between them both, Bertrand Russel says there's no objective difference. Even Richard Dawkins say it is all relative, this is relativity, relative ethics
Ethics are not proven!
Bertrand Russel said the same thing
And then, what are the consequences of the
philosophy of being a materialist atheist?
You can say that there is no difference between cutting
a tree onto two halves and cutting a human being
First, we illustrated the logical arguments. Second, the
negative ethical consequences emanating from being an atheist
Third, we need to deconstruct these philosophies or
ideologies, that are originally political, related to Atheism
I would like to tell you something, most of the misconceptions surrounding
Islam go back to two main ideologies: Liberalism and Feminism
Again, Liberalism and Feminism
I mentioned earlier that Liberalism states that you are
free as long as you are not hurting another person
Listen to me, I met a homosexual person I asked him: "what do you think about ethics?" He
said "you're free as long as you're not hurting anyone, this is my personal ethical rule"
I said "what do you say about incest?" Incest means members of a certain
family making sexual intercourse together for example - I apologize
He said: "this is unpleasant" I asked "why? Why is it
unpleasant?" He said "it is unpleasant because it is unatural"
The truth is, if your principle says "you are free as long as you aren't hurting anybody", you cannot draw a line between incest and homosexuality, as there is no difference.
It's just that one is legalised while the other is not
Western liberal secular countries, that sometimes adopt Feminism,
legitimized homosexuality yet they did not legalise incest
But why? The rule says you are free as long as you are not hurting anyone.
Practicing incest do not hurt anybody, why is it not legalised then?
The truth is, this main principle for Liberalism cannot be proven by anybody. Because this
exact same principle -with the admission of the forefathers of the ideology- is relative
There are different waves in Feminism:
the first, the second and the third
We could say that second wave Feminism is the most popular one
For instance, Simone de Beauvoir in her book "the second sex" argues that despite the fact that men and women have anatomic and biological differences, they have to be equally treated
and it should be an absolute equality
An important question: why is that?
Why? What is the philosophical proof?
If man is different from woman, why should they be treated equally?
Until today there has been no answer for that
Most of the misconceptions introduced in the
field of dawah are related to these ideologies
Misconceptions related to the laws of inheritance,
the bounds fixed by Allah, human rights...
They cannot prove their points as their principle is fundamentally corrupted
These topics are rarely evoked in islamic seminars or workshops
We might notice responses towards Al-M'utazila,
Al-Jahmya, Al-Qadarya or Al-Jabrya
However, these groups that I mentioned are not
even present in the arena of dawah nowadays!
We could not find someone deconstructing
these ideologies in a destructive manner
They have to deconstruct these
ideologies to start the building process
It surprises me that there are those who mention some
quranic verses to a person who do not even believe in God
How do you mention quranic verses or a Hadith to an
atheist? This is not a logical method to be honest!
The scholars of the Ummah -and I'm not one
of them- should take this responsibility
to teach people how to respond to these misconceptions. Many institutions in the Arab world have done this mission such as rawasekh, Sinaat Almohawer, Takween, and Dalayl.. etc
But this operation must be expanded, and we have to include
in Islamic programs a method of responding to these issues
Because there is a real failure in this matter
I wanted to pass a message to the scholars of the Ummah
Scholars of the Ummah: Turndown the deceit of the enemies of
Allah and yours * and block the fatal gaps in the Ummah's lines
Wait, wait, wait! What did I say?
I said
Block the fatal gaps in the Ummah's lines!
How can you not endanger yourselves in such a mission since you are the
defenders of this faith and its protectors from change and alternation?
Be aware that when Allah burdened you with revelation, He burdened
you with a heavy responsiblity and took a solemn covenant from you
"And if you turn away, He will replace you with another
people; then they will not be the likes of you."
And peace be upon you
