Mohammed Hijab – The Art of Debating- An introduction
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The importance of discussing debates in a unconventional way is emphasized in IslamNet's upcoming online class, including the need for a strategy. The speakers stress the importance of being flexible and not interrupting others, and provide examples of how it is important in various fields, including art, science, and political. They also discuss the use of rhoms in various situations, including misled and forgetting to use words, and provide class information on donating.
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How are you guys doing and welcome to
the third and final session of the trinity
but more specifically actually this is going to
be an interactive session where we're going to
be doing some debates and interesting things together.
I want to start this session in a
you can call it unconventional manner by talking
about debates in general.
Debates in general, not talking about whether we
should be doing or not.
I think we've passed that stage.
Of course debates can be sometimes detrimental.
For example if you're doing them with your
wife, if you're doing them with people that
you shouldn't be doing them with.
But sometimes debates can be useful which is
why for example from our perspective we mention
the Qur'an and debate with them in
a way that is better.
But I really wanted to just think about
debates in a different kind of way because
debates, there's an aspect of debates which is
I would say empirical and more like a
science and there's an aspect of debates which
is more like an art.
Okay and everyone here if you want to
get into this and we have a world
-class debater in the audience as well we've
got Sabor Ahmed who's been involved in no
less than 200-300 informal debates and multiple
professional and formal debates.
So he's going to be in the room
too and I'm looking for your contributions in
this matter.
But debates, I don't know if you'd agree
with this Sabor but I think there's an
aspect of it which is more scientific or
more like a science and more an aspect
of it which is more like an art.
Which brings me to, I'm going to call
this the general template, the general template and
there's two things I want to cover before
we get started.
The general template which is what I'm going
to tell you three things that you should
be thinking about before you get into any
debate and number two, rhetoric which is in
many ways you could argue in some instances
even more important than the arguments that one
can make and I'll define that for you
and I'll tell you why that's important and
then we'll go into some of the sparring
rounds if you like.
You can test out using this template and
using what we talked about and also using
session one and two, the arguments that we've
already gone through in terms of the trinity
as the topic of discussion.
So in terms of the general template the
way I like to think about it okay
and I behind the scenes a bit like
Sabor, a bit like many other people when
people are doing high-profile debates this is
the template I give them when we're doing
the training with them.
Number one is that there are three things
that you need to have before you go
into a debate.
Number one is the arguments okay, number one
are arguments and depending on the format of
the debate you want to have more arguments
or you want to have less arguments.
I mean the general rule is less is
more and this is what Sabor always used
to advise me when I used to go
into debates is less is more.
It's better to make two or three good
arguments that the audience can remember than to
make six or seven arguments that the audience
will not remember.
Sometimes we have we think that the more
arguments we make the more clever we all
sound whatever but sticking to two or three
arguments can be good and connected to the
arguments that you make is the counter arguments
all the objections that you're going to be
handling because don't think that you're going to
a debate and the other person the interlocutor
is not going to have their own arguments
so you have this first subsection which you
can call it arguments and underneath it you
have arguments your own offensive if you like
arguments and then you have counter arguments or
objection handling so these are the two aspects
there's no other thing okay so the first
thing was arguments the second thing is strategy
okay now a strategy is an overarching way
where in which someone achieves a particular objective
all right I know Sabor has so much
information about his read all of these guys
you know the strategists and they become very
obsessive about the matter and military strategists and
this and that you know but it's a
lot the same thing applies and most military
strategists say there's a difference in number two
and three which is tactics there's a difference
between strategies and tactics and we'll talk about
the difference in the context of the base
and also in general but a strategy is
that you have a plan to get to
your destination now let me give an example
of the strategy for example football 11-a
-side football for example a counter-attack strategy
we were just talking about like for example
we were watching morocco in the world cup
and how they were responding they kind of
understood where the how to deal with the
the bigger teams like you know like portugal
and spain and so on so they would
whenever they get the ball they would counter
so you can call this and many fighters
we're talking about fighting before this because the
big fights coming on the 14th um that
there's a counter-attack strategy and many many
fighters i was just talking to roy johns
jr you know um one of the great
boxers of our time and carlos was there
filming it as well and he said that
you know he would just counter so much
so that some of his opponents because he
kept countering counter and countering they didn't want
to punch in the first place it debilitated
them so the art of countering is wait
for your opponent to make the argument first
you stay quiet you wait for them to
make the first move and then whatever from
whatever they've done and said then you respond
so you're waiting for them you kind of
know what they're going to do and based
on what they've said you're going to counter
them yeah never interrupt your enemy when they're
making a mistake yeah so this is uh
number two number three is tactics now tactics
are you know specific ways which you um
enact your strategy so for example i don't
like for example in a football context passing
in a particular manner crossing in a particular
manner that's not a strategy that's more of
a tact that's a tactical thing you know
or for example in a debate context um
body language using particular cues or particular insults
and we'll get to insults in a second
because you might think what the * is
he talking about this people that tell you
your ad hominem fallacy and stuff throw that
in the bin throw that thing in the
bin i mean ad hominem fallacies when you
attack the person sometimes you need to attack
the people and we'll talk about that especially
in the art of humiliation and this might
sound completely off-key but there is a
time where you need to humiliate somebody in
a debate and that's how you win it's
part of the strategy where you may say
well that's not my style i say respect
to you respect to you however if you
if you need to do it you might
be at work you might not even be
in a debate context somebody about humiliating your
co-workers actually humiliating you and the most
appropriate response is to humiliate them back and
this is in fact what happened in the
quran where noah said that if you try
and mock us we will mock you as
you mock us so mockery there is a
place for that in debate sometimes there is
a place arguable and some people will remove
it complete from the repertoire and i appreciate
that but as i say debating is more
like an art than it is a science
and what you want with it of course
of course so a good way of thinking
about it is a strategy is to for
example put your opponent in a dilemma where
they are going to make then you're not
giving them a problem to solve yes you're
basically telling them you see they're going to
be this way or that way so for
example yeah you cite a particular academic and
you say to them well you need to
prove that this academic that you were refuting
is actually wrong now if he doesn't attack
the academic you can say you're a coward
and if they do attack the academic you're
basically saying so you're taking on an academic
you're giving them a dilemma so that's the
strategy and the tactic within that is for
example use of certain words in a rhetorical
way so for example really you want to
attack that guy like really like so always
think of it from the perspective that tactics
are kind of dispensable but the strategy is
indispensable and the strategy has to begin off
with how you want the audience to feel
about that person because people don't remember what
you say they remember how you made them
feel and they remember how you made the
opponent look like that's what's most important this
is a phenomenal point because it's uh what
you're saying here that this should be almost
quoted that you know tactics are dispensable but
strategies are indispensable this is a very important
thing tactics are the most of the three
things that we spoke about malleable things and
arguments on the other hand and strategies they're
not that malleable you've got to have one
strategy of dealing with the situation otherwise you're
you're aimless here so this is the three
you've got to think about any debate you
go what are what are my arguments what
my counter objections number one number two what
is my uh what is my strategy and
number three is what are my tactics now
the second part of what i'm talking to
you about is rhetoric now rhetoric is such
an important thing and i'll tell you something
i mean it's so important it's one of
the ways that scholars of islam say that
islam proves itself and that is that the
quran itself is from god that how to
prove the quran is from god through the
rhetoric the balaga is for balaga in arabic
of the quran and therefore from our perspective
as muslims the most rhetorical book from a
linguistic perspective is in fact the quran but
somebody could argue that if the quran is
so rhetorical the verses of the quran that
sorry to say seem quite mundane in terms
of their information how can you how can
you allege that such verses are using rhetorical
devices for example that to the male is
double of what the female has or the
inheritance laws or this or that the other
this is mathematical things almost now by the
way i mean even those verses have a
rhyme scheme etc but before that the arab
rhetoricians they have a particular definition of rhetoric
which i think is quite interesting for our
purposes which is that rhetorical speech is speech
which is it is in line with the
situation which is happening at that current moment
so for example what is the most appropriate
use of language in a news forecast like
someone is telling you what it's going to
be what the weather is going to be
like in the next couple of days no
let's say for example just normal weather like
you know 17 degrees whatever if someone were
to start speaking in a very persuasive manner
in this context and started flaring their arms
and say oh the weather is going to
be 17 degrees celsius would it make sense
and it would to the end user kind
of seem a little bit off-putting you
wouldn't want to see that person again or
you would assume that that person doesn't know
how to react or doesn't know how to
use words in a particular situation so when
you consider that true rhetoric is when you
use certain words appropriately in a specific situation
then let's go back to the you know
the inheritance verses or any other verses that
speak about things which are seemingly mundane which
are actually guidance for us etc but those
are rhetorical from that angle not necessarily from
the angle that they're using lots of emotive
language or persuasive devices Cicero had a very
very interesting you know understanding of rhetoric and
Cicero basically emphasized the role of emotion and
just exactly what Sabor mentioned that the people
don't remember what you say but they remember
what how you made them feel so Cicero
is talking about if you want to be
rhetorical you have to engage emotionally with the
audience and that's in fact what Aristotle said
as well and he called that pathos pathos
is your ability to engage emotionally with the
end user and you will find that this
is all over the Quran and this is
where the real study of the Quran one
day inshallah we'll go through this together and
we'll talk about how the Quran uses rhetorical
devices for example how many rhetorical questions are
in the Quran the calamity and what is
the calamity and what will make you know
what the calamity is can you see three
questions and it's all building suspense when I
used to teach English I used to teach
English and I used to teach kids actually
rhetorical devices in English that was one of
the things I used to teach them basic
things I mean you've got to have some
of them up your sleeve emotive language rule
of three alliteration assonance sibilance it's so easy
to do all you've got to do is
get two words with the same letter for
example or mention three adjectives in it because
you want to sound rhythmic you know sometimes
it's good to use big words and sometimes
it's not good to use big words sometimes
it's good to use sometimes I intentionally use
big words as a means of using the
audience why do you want to pontificate in
a sesquibedalian way you know whatever what's he
saying is he even speaking English yeah you
know what I mean so you can throw
that in it's like salt in the food
but as my dad would tell me that
if you put too much of it you
know the food becomes ruined so you can
do whatever you like in terms of rhetoric
there are lots of things you can do
there but the main point is to engage
the end user in some rhetorical way it's
a bit like music actually very similar music
the reason why people listen to it is
because they're using chords they're using instruments and
they're using voice and lyrics in combination in
concert with one another to engage with a
person emotionally in many ways music is one
of the best expressions of rhetoric humankind has
ever known even though obviously I'm not talking
about how I'm just telling you like the
idea is why they got five billion views
on on youtube for a music video six
six billion how many people on the earth
anyway how could that even be the case
even the children are listening to this babies
I don't know how that happened by the
way you got some tracks that got six
billion views but the point I'm making is
because the combination of chords that are being
used they're doing something to a human being
but but what's more impressive is without any
chords the Quran for instance just uses words
and the combination of words is having such
and such effects on human beings that's really
where the miracle of the Quran is by
the way okay so what we're going to
do in the next um you know 20
to 30 minutes is we'll have the we'll
have the class divided into one two three
one two four five six seven eight nine
yeah and Ali's going to come so it's
going to be ten so five and five
and so we'll have four on this for
now and then four versus five and then
when Ali comes in with five versus five
and we have um I'll give you five
or ten minutes just to prepare with the
person next to you your arguments your strategies
and your tactics and we're going to have
one-on-ones christian versus a muslim are
they christian versus muslim and then we're going
to switch so everyone's going to get a
chance and I'm going to time this one
so everyone's going to have two minutes I'm
thinking 90 seconds to two minutes maybe 90
seconds even to make a point yeah and
then that person's going to make a counter
argument and then we're going to switch over
and I'm going to give this the left
group the initiative meaning you're going to make
the first argument you're going to start and
you're going to have the counter and you're
going to go back and forth twice and
then we're going to switch over and do
the same thing again using the arguments that
we've already spoken about in the first and
the second session so I'll give you guys
a good five ten minutes to prepare for
the arguments and then I say I'm going
to give you guys the initiative right christians
and then you guys uh will respond in
kind and um and then we'll switch over
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