Pointless Debates

Assalamu alaikum. Let me just say something quickly about this.

Allah says, to those who disbelieve, it's the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them. They will not believe. Allah set a seal over their hearts and over their hearing, over their eyes as a veil. Woe to them for the penalty that they bring upon themselves.

The only methodology that I've seen is trust the book. Okay. Granted, this is an edited excerpt, so I don't know the full context here. But this young brother used ayat of the Quran in a debate which are literally telling Muslims why debates like this are futile. If he had read, understood, and applied those ayat, he would not have participated in this debate to begin with.

Look, we are strongly warned in Islam against wasting our time, against engaging in futile activities. And I really don't understand why Muslims seem to have just gone debate crazy over the last few years. I mean, back in the day, if you have a fundamental disagreement with someone about any particular topic, the immediate impulse was not, hey. I have an idea. We fundamentally disagree.

Let's hyper focus on that disagreement and argue about it, and maybe we can draw a crowd, and then that crowd will be divided, just like us on that issue. What's the point of that? Back in the day, if you have a fundamental disagreement with someone about a particular topic, that was a conversation ender, not a conversation starter on that topic. It just means this is this is something we can't talk about because we fundamentally disagree. Because you're allowed to think whatever you wanna think, and I'm allowed to think whatever I wanna think.

And neither of us is negatively affected by each other's opinion. It's fine to disagree. And if the rationale here is that, you know, the Muslims are being negatively impacted by the views being propagated by atheists and so on. Look, I personally have never heard of any of these people until a Muslim debated them. You are literally increasing their exposure and the exposure of Muslims to their views.

That's not helping. If you are sincerely and genuinely concerned about helping Muslims strengthen their iman, then try to learn, understand, and apply your deen, and teach them. When Ibn Abbas debated with the Khawarij, it wasn't because the Khawarij were, negatively impacting the imam of the Muslims and he was trying to strengthen the imam of the other Muslims. He was sincerely trying to correct those people and many of them were corrected. That wasn't a futile pursuit.

They had serious flaws in their understanding of Islam, and even Abbas, explained to them what those flaws were. But if you're staging a debate and treating it basically like a boxing match where you're just trying to score points, Well, that's not educational. That's not correctional. That's just entertainment. And I mean, how does it even make sense to essentially, what you're doing is saying, hey, everyone.

Listen to this guy. He's saying terrible and stupid things. Why would you wanna draw my attention to that? The fewer people who hear those people, the better. You should be trying to, blockade the Muslims from those people, not invite them in.

Those people are predominantly just talking to each other. Why do you think you almost never see a scholar engaging in these types of debates? Only preachers and and YouTube personalities. Because scholars know and understand what Allah has said about these types of debates. It is the same for them whether you talk to them about Islam or not.

But it's not the same for you. You're wasting your time, and you are inflicting the Muslims with those people's rancorous views, which otherwise they would not be exposed to. I'm telling you, we don't need to answer these people. They're not in a position to interrogate our beliefs. And again, if their views have actually caused any Muslims to have doubts or questions about Islam in their minds, then what you should do is talk to them.

Talk to those Muslims about their concerns, about their doubts, about their questions, and make sure that you have sufficient knowledge to help them.