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Apostate Prophet V Daniel Haqiqatjou some brief points.

So it was an interesting debate/discussion between the two and there’s a number of points we can learn from it.

Overall DH did well. He came across confident, self assured, substantive and having various references and evidences to back up his points. In contrast AP looked out of his depth, shallow and just giving opinions from the top of his head without any real substance or understanding.

Although DH I felt could have hammered home some points I think even to many non Muslim audiences they’d have realised how ill equipped their champion ex Muslim was.

So what are some of the key factors that many duat can learn from this debate. And by no means was it perfect. And I’ll try and briefly give my own angles on things.

FIRSTLY DH was able to set the frame of the discussion. Many times we see Muslims following the implicit assumptions of the opponent. Eg you’ll find an atheist saying we don’t need divine guidance for morality as we all know rape is wrong as an example. The Muslim simply accepts this as a matter of fact and doesn’t seek to challenge the opponent on how that person came to this conclusion.

This is really really important. You have to challenge and put them in the position to defend their propositions and don’t allow them to sneak in hidden assumptions. If you do you’ll end up arguing on these hidden assumptions and thus be put on the back foot trying to justify Islam within these hidden premises.

At the beginning you see DH do this when the expansion and imposition of Islam is raised by AP. What tends to happen is muslim duat become defensive and try and frame the expansion of Islam as a response to aggressive empires in that time.

Therefore the hidden assumptions we adopt from the opponent is that expansion and imposition of Islam is inherently bad.

DH explained that liberal secular capitalism imposes laws and values on other nations.

So is the problem the imposition of a set of values or is the problem with imposing Islam as opposed to imposing liberalism? Therefore undermining the criticism AP had. And we saw him struggle on his point.

Further we shouldn’t just respond in a defensive manner. Always being put in the position of defending our views

SECONDLY knowledge of history politics and western ideology is incredibly important.

I’ve mentioned this to brothers I speak to. That if you don’t frame the current problems in the Muslim world within the larger historical and political context of colonialism and post colonialism then many non Muslims will see the Muslim world as being the result of Islam as opposed to western hegemony.

Here I think DH could have been even more direct with these points. And given AP a lesson in colonial history, the effect in the non western world and the continued subjugation today.

AP tried to deflect criticism of the west by saying this was in the past and the west, since the 20th century, do not seek to impose their values. What utter nonsense. Does he not know there were two world wars the occupation of Muslim lands post ww1 including Palestine, or that the claim of fighting the nazis was to destroy fascism in Europe? Or that the Cold War was a war fought to see which brand of secularism would be imposed on the world.

Or that arguments used to invade Iraq and Afghanistan were premised on bringing freedom and democracy and halt the rise of the caliphate. (This was explicitly stated by a British general in his justification for invading Afghanistan).

We can also show how the west imposes it’s hegemony at the detriment of the Muslim and third world through the support of pliant dictators. And when these dictators have passed their sell by dates are removed through direct actions like with saddam hussain.

The point I’m highlighting is that a good knowledge of history, international politics and ideology of the west allows us to undermine the very arguments these types of people come up with.

This also undermines the narrative that the west is so good and civilised while the rest of the world is so utterly barbaric.

No the west has progressed based on centuries of domination and exploitation of the non western world. Here the quote from Samuel Huntington comes to mind “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

There’s so many examples we can use to demonstrate this point till the conclusion is simply inevitable that the west is only in its “progressed” position due to their dominance and exploitation of other nations.

THIRDLY Get your opponent to identify the premise of his argument. Again like I said in my first point. Don’t allow them to make matter-of-fact statements. Ask them to explain why they hold what they hold.

Once you and the opponent agree on the premise of his argument. Then you can lead your opponents to contradictory conclusions using his premise. Thereby making the premise subjective, contradictory and relative to how he feels.

Eg we should maximise the benefit for the majority of people. Ok if that’s what you believe then would it be ok for the state to impose laws that would curtail certain people’s rights so long as this leads to maximisation of this benefit? If yes then what if the govt enforces a sterilisation programme for those with genetic disorders from the greater good? What about harvesting the organs of a healthy individual to cure five patients needing various organs. Isn’t this maximisation of benefit for the greatest number?

When you poke holes and demonstrate contradictions in the premise of their argument that’s when you’ll see them unable to hold their ground.

Allah swt on a number of occasions uses this approach to undermine the disbelievers. Eg they’d assign daughters to Allah but would bury their own daughters alive because it was something shameful, even though they believed Allah swt was a supreme being having daughters!

TAKE AWAY THEIR PREMISE YOU TAKE AWAY THEIR ARGUMENT.

FOURTHLY speak with confidence. AP in all his vids and even in this discussion with DH doesn’t have any really arguments. He hasn’t developed a moral criteria that’s consistent with a philosophical view he holds onto and that he can actually prove.

His arguments are just appeals to the popular received opinions. “Islam believes in cutting the hand of the thief. Oh how terrible this is”. “Islam punishes the apostate oh look at that”.

These aren’t arguments. These are simply rhetorical statements appealing to the biases of his audience.

In that way if you feel uncomfortable or hesitate in answering these questions it implies you implicitly recognise these are difficult issues to square. Ie you are demonstrating to your audience an implicit acceptance to the moral basis of your opponent.

I had a similar situation when I debated an arrogant atheist once. Although the debate was about proof of God he brought up the age of Aisha (ra). He thought aha I gotcha on this. I said yes that’s what the narrations state. What’s your problem.

I said it in such a relaxed matter of fact way that he couldn’t respond. And I kid you not but he just walked out of the debate in front of the audience.

Remember these opponents don’t have any real foundations to their arguments particularly morality. They just adopt and play to the general trends and fashions that exist in society. Ie the received opinions.

So don’t let them play this game be clear and confident and explain that you (the opponent) only see this as an issue because you’ve adopted liberal secular beliefs as a lens by which you view these issues rather than being objective about them.

FIFTH point have your arguments and examples rehearsed. Most contentions are just a few and they boil down to a few core ideas. Criticisms against hudud, Islam’s position of homosexuality or jihad can be grouped as simply an assumption that their morality which develops from a metaphysical belief in liberalism (which has no foundation), is the basis by which we can judge Islamic law.

You address their premise you address these contentions pretty easily. And you can offer alternative views within the paradigm of Islam.

SIXTH, there’s two aspects where DH could have taken AP to town firstly was on the issue of happiness. Remember how does he define happiness? Can we prove this definition? And can this definition be consistently applied? Furthermore why are western societies suffering from increasing levels of unhappiness. We have numerous examples and statistics on this from the endemic unhappiness that exists in Japan, neglect of the elderly, the high usage of anti depressants the unprecedented levels of suicide etc.

The second issue DH could have really hammered AP on was progress of the west.

In essence AP was saying the west is a superior civilisation because of its technological advancement. Well as we said above that hasn’t necesssrily led to happiness. But not only this look at the greatest threat to human existence on planet earth? No it’s not coronavirus, rather many scientists state it’s the environmental damage in large part caused by technology together with the self centred ideology of capitalism and the problem of overproduction and lack of balance.

So while ap may laud the west, the very same system is now causing unprecedented global damage on a scale never before seen.

How can that be progress if it’s leading to the potential destruction of humanity according to many scientists?

These are just some thoughts and points.

But the MAIN MAIN take home message is this. When responding to these anti Muslim propagandists don’t be defensive.

This isn’t about simply responding to their accusations. But rather putting the microscope onto their beliefs that lead them to judge Islam negatively.

In doing so you’ll see how the house of cards that they develop their views on simply crumble. And then Muslims are like, what is that really what he’s saying. He’s so vacuous, shallow and ultimately have no arguments.