Minute with a Muslim #222 – The Truth About Debating

Many scholars cautioned against getting involved in debate from hmm, and no, we to a lot of if you go on to the literature, you'll find time after time again, many scholars warn against getting into debate. Now we could

qualify that by saying not all types of debate, right? Even Eliza just says in the Quran, right? respond to them with that which is better, right? If you're happen to be in an engagement, but Allah subhanaw taala also encourages us to distinguish between somebody who's arguing in good faith, or let's say having a conversation or a dialogue in order to seek the truth. And whoever is just showboating, performing, right? Most people who get involved in a debate, they don't want to change their opinion. They don't want to seek the truth. That's why a lot of people say, you know, if you can't tell me what you would need to see to change your mind, then the conversation is useless. Why

would I even have a conversation with you, you don't even want to change your mind. And the thing that the scholars have alerted us to, which is really also important from for our perspective, and our practice is that debate, a lot of times, it's just an exercise of the ego, because the bait is combative, right? And anything that's combative is hard for the ego, it strengthens the ego, it makes it extremely hard to want to accept the truth. If it's something you haven't already set, right, you get involved in debate, it becomes more about winning, you want to win, you might bend the truth a little bit here, you might not mentioned something that you're aware of that contradicts

your point there. You might do all these sorts of things, you might rip rep misrepresent the statement of your opponent, right, we have in debate opponents. And so these are tricks of the shaytaan. And they're very, very hard on the neffs. This is something that is if we're looking at the skills that you're developing, is this developing your skill to accept the truth? Or is this actually eroding and deteriorating your ability to accept the truth when it comes to you? Probably doing the latter. And that's not to say that there aren't times and places that are appropriate for debate and certain people who are trained, but most people who are getting involved in debate in the

comment section are not the right people. You shouldn't be you know, it doesn't have to be your fight. You don't have to make it your fight. You think that you're doing something for the OMA, how do you know the shaytaan is not dragging you down? How do you know that the shaytaan listen to everybody knows what is the shaytaan? Do if he can't get you to sin, Elliot, you to waste your time, because he would rather have you chewing somebody out in the comment section than reading a book or listening to a lecture or doing extra prayers. And again, there's a time and place where a statement, a clarification. A dialog is useful. But we're talking about the general thrust here.

Which extreme are we falling on? are we falling as an Oma? Especially the OMA that's online? are we falling on to the extreme where we're passing up opportunities to clarify the truth and debate and whatever? And we're all just busy with other stuff? Or are we falling on the extreme where we're throwing ourselves into every single debate and making things right making this our full time job? We're definitely falling into the latter extreme. So if you're not a specialist, if you're not somebody who has studied, your time is probably better spent elsewhere.