Do we really need scientific miracle for Dawah?

[Seeking Allah's Mercy]

Asalamo`Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Baarakaatuh,

I was reading a thread " Do we really need scientific miracle for Dawah?" on Multaqa and came across these interesting posts. I though I should share them.

Here is my humble input as a PHYSICIST:

I must admit that I almost always feel uncomfortable when people talk about scientific miracles for many reasons.

First, since positivism (the belief that there is no salvation outside Science) is really widespread among people, science thus became a kind of taghut: Believing that scientists (the clerics of the Science-God), by the will of their God, can save the planet, find a replacement for oil, heal the economy or whatever is as much irrational, naive and Shirk as believing in old days' idols made of stones.
If one agrees on that, it becomes clear that it makes no sense to give daawa by basically saying to people "Our religion, the religion of pure monotheism, is right because your God, which is not ours, says so"!

Then, Science has been taken hostage by atheists since two centuries ago, when they excluded from its defintion the search for the root cause and the ultimate end. By this mean, any linkage between that "science" and God or the here-after is by essence un-scientific unless Science is redefined. Using that science in daawa can, at best, make one recognize that Islam is right but he'll still miss the belief in God and the here-after!
That in short is to say that Science lays on an arbitrary philosophy which needs to be looked closely in regards of islamic creed and conception of Dunya.

Finally, even Scientists think that science notebooks are boring, so why one would present the word of Allah, the miracle of miracles, the finest beauty as a science notebook?!!!

To be honest, there is actually one example, that I "figured" out alone before reading anything about it, that amazed me: The iron example, which in brief is that the iron element is the only element (excepting one other very rare, very instable element) that can't be obtained freely (ie, the total process will need an input energy, a huge one) by fusion/fission while ALL the other elements can. At the time, I couldn't help myself but to think (and not to explain!) to the verse about iron being descended down! I mean, even if you're not a muslim, it's an amazing fact since it's totally unexpected!


So, as a physicist once again, I do not pay much attention to scientific miracles and I think that there is a big problem on how people see science and how it is carried out to them. We thus need to resolve those problems not to feed them, and Allah knows best.

Wa alaykum assalam akhi al-Boriquee,

to make things short, as I said before, people tend to have à lot of hope and trust in Science while that hope and trust have nothing to do with science but it's mainly irrational. Scientific miracles seems like an attempt to feed that belief, like one who seeks the approval of a drug addict by giving him more drug while he should help him to quite!

That belief from people falls in what is called "Positivism" which is an out-dated ideology that no serious thinker still hold but is very rooted in the common people mind. It states that with enough time and research, science will ultimately get ALL the answers we're looking for, that science holds the highest form of truth, that people with that advacement will get better more and more, in regards of their intelligence, their behaviour and their "morality" and thus people who should be in charge should be the more knowledgable (ie, the one who got the highest diplomas and the more prestigious distinctions), etc.

I'm no religious scholar nor a philosopher but the latter raises many clearly conflictual issues in regard of Islam and Aqida, like: Only Allah has ALL the answers and human beings will ultimately get JUST few of them, the highest truth is the truth of the revelation, the best human being died 1422 years ago (peace be upon him) and no scientific and cultural achievement can produce a better one, piety and morality is an important criterium for many high ranking positions and those don't have anything to do with academic education, etc.
There is even a Positivism religion and a Positivism church (which are hilarious by the way), so going from Positivism to religion isn't an imaginary thing.

All this talk may seem theoritical, but here is one striking example that every one had probably experienced: almost every kafir and unfortunaltely many muslims have the deep conviction that as you go back in the past, people get more and more retarded. Muslims who think so have usually a hard time accepting what past scholars have said or even reject it completely claiming in a way or another that "we're in 2011, man!" Let alone convincing them that some issues are sealed for ever.

So, does saying to this kind of people that some kafir uncovered amazing things about our religion, things that past scholars couldn't even dream of uncovering, makes their case any better?

That is for positivism, epistemology will come later inshallah.

 

[Rustandi]

Wa'alaykumussalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakaaatuh.

You brought a very interesting topic to discuss sister - and beneficial insya Allah - one that's been bugging my mind for quite a while. I searched the thread and found it, then read some of it. For now my favorite post is this one (haven't read all of posts yet) .

asalamu alaikum warahmatullah

No. All of these issues are mere back burner issues or "subsidiary" matters. Dawah to Islam should not be made primarily on these factors which is what these individuals have done. Rather, the dawatul-Islam is a call to three aspects
1. Tawheed (to isolate Allah in our worship from all else)
2. Nubuwah (or Risaalah-the complete way of life and embodiment of prophethood like morals, behavior, beliefs, fiqh, shariah)
3. Aakhirah (focus on the after life and the sciences connected with it like tazkiyyah)

It is on these three aspects that draws the people of kufr to Islam. The sincere person is he who is drawn to Islam on these three aspects. The one who has a lack of sincerity in their hearts do not focus on these three subjects to understand Islam, rather they focus on those insignificant materials like those mentioned above. Hence the resulting effects of this type of dawah is that it brings no reform to the lives of those who accept Islam under this dawah, rather they are under the mental perception that Islam should bend its rules and submit to their desires. However, those who receive the Islamic message from the above three aspects of dawah, then they are nurtured upon a correct methodology and have a clearer understanding and focus of what is Islam, which is ultimately that they are to submit to it and that they as well recognize that Islam requires a submission from their hearts that is not superficial.

In terms of giving dawah, it is not completely prohibited for any of us to utilize some of these informational aspects to draw someone to Islam, however the main and primary focus of a da'ee in Islam is that they call the people to one of those three aspects above. Likewise, another methodology that the callers to Islam need to learn is that when having a discussion with a non-muslim, whenever the non-muslim focuses on these insignificant matters, then the da'ee needs to reformat or restructure the discussion so that the resulting discussion ends up being tied back to anyone of the three aspects of Islam mentioned above. This is because there is no way of life, no way of thinking that can refute any aspect of Islam pertaining to those above three subjects. The Islamic aqeedah system is perfect, invicible and there is no way where a kaafir can win a discussion against one of the three subjects above.

Likewise, if the caller mistakenly gives dawah to those scientific issues or "womens rights" issues or "economics in Islam" or any of those fiqhi subsidiary matters, then what tends to happen is the following

1. if you convince the person about a particular subject that Islam has the correct solution, the end result is that you convinced him of that single issue, BUT NOT OF ISLAM. This essentially means he remains a kaafir. However, with tawheed, risaalah, and aakhira, then their submission to Islam is much more probable

2. if you convince them about the correctness of Islam in a particular fiqh issue, then later on in their muslim life, they learn that it such an issue is not as they have been told, then it will be a cause of grief for them whereby sometimes they may apostate. This tends to happen because the person who gave them dawah did not give them the fundamentals of Islam which are the above three subjects, thus their submission to Islam was merely superficial.

3. giving dawah to these types of subjects rather than the three fundamental subjects entails that the quality of the one who enters into Islam through these subsidiary subjects is unlike the quality of someone who becomes a Muslim based on internalizing the truth of one or more of the three fundamentals of Islam mentioned above. This is not an absolute blanket statement, rather I assert this claim on a general basis, sometimes there are exceptions

4. another problem in giving dawah to these less important issues is that when you give dawah to the kuffar on these subjects, the problem is that you are trying to make them understand the "truth of Islam" while they are still remaining upon the ideologies of kufr. However, when you give dawah to the kuffar on the aspects of tawheed, risaalah, and aakhirah, you by default bewilder the kaafir and give them a realization about life which will make them realize another paradigm, in this case the Islamic paradigm and our thought. This will be a likely cause for them to submit. when this happens, then they can understand those lesser important subjects in a much more better and accurate light, because they understand the subject on an Islamic level rather than them understanding the subject from the limited levels of kufr ideologies and their own personal ideological persuasions. Thus in essence, if you change their way of thinking, you essentially make it much more feasible for them to become Muslim.

Thus it is important for all Muslims and the callers to Islam to realize that
"you never get into a fiqh discussion with someone who has no emaan"

Our shariah is based on emaan. If they don;t have eman, then they will be simply INCAPABLE of understanding any aspect of our shariah in its true sense, thus giving dawah or arguing over fiqh issues of our shariah like the "penal system" in Islam is virtually useless UNTIL they have eman.

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may Allah grant Muslims victory over their enemies

asalamu alaikum

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