looks like you’re in the NYC NJ area. They’ve got Faizane Madinah in Brooklyn as well as Bronx as well as Baltimore if you’re close to DC. https://www.dawateislamiusa.org/centers The good thing about DI is that they don’t suffer from peer politics and they’re well connected to other Sunni shuyukh and orgs too. I would suggest forming a bond with them, not for the debate, but for a lifelong commitment to learning and helping Sunniyat and letting them be your first step in a long journey while I might disagree with our dear shaykh Abu Hasan (I’m not a shaykh, I’m a common guy) on how we see the world in this case or similar cases (I see it as Muslims in general and Sunnis in particular being in survival mode with no choice, not a display of strength), please do take his good counsel and see this as an opportunity and inspiration to embark on lifelong learning, there’s no two opinions on it. You’d be a big loser if you just saw this as a one off case of getting rid of a roadblock! In fact if you do that, there’d be no difference between you and those wahabis - their aim is ALWAYS only to put the opponent down, not to sincerely gain knowledge or propagate it or help deen. Be very careful.
i still don't agree. this is not your job. you are not burdened with this. you can always say - i am not a scholar, i am not going to debate. --- i am against the culture where people refuse to say 'no'. --- you can say that you are not a scholar and you are not qualified to debate and end it there itself. if you are not a pilot, and someone asked you to fly a plane - would you do it? you would be a fool if you tried to do it. and if you said: 'no i cannot' you wouldn't be considered an ignorant or a coward. you would be considered a sensible person. i have debated deos/wahabis/salafis online and offline - it is futile. especially, topics such as istighatha and tawassul. --- my sincere advice is back off. abdicate. there is no harm in it. you are just a kid - your abdicating a debate doesn't mean it is a defeat of ahl al-sunnah. wa billahi't tawfiq.
You may have to respond to him depending on his level of jahalat. You can start by asking what his belief is concerning istighatha, and write it down. So for instance, if he says seeking help from gayrullah is shirk, then I would say you should have an easy time defeating him for it's easy to expose him on that statement alone using evidence from the agreed upon sources. If he's the type who objects to calling upon unseen creations of Allah for help and deems that shirk, then ask him where he gets that definition of shirk from the agreed sources. When he fails you have already won the debate and you should announce it, but you should also cite all the ahadith and other narrations proving istighatha, including the writings of their own "shuyukh" allowing ( or at least not calling it shirk) asking help from unseen angels and jinns. The key is to not allow the wahabi to deviate from his original statement and keep exposing him on his innovated creed.
im based in america, the only sunni scholar near me is shaykh shadee el masry but i don't know him or his students well. Im just gathering evidence from different websites, got a few scans aswell. not the best way to go about it but i doubt my opponent will do any better, i just want to defend the truth.
i agree with you, very ajeeb how this woman is making two kids argue but for me i have to defend muslims from being takfired when there is no one else. i would leave it to the ulama but we have no ulama or pakkah sunnis in the school. maybe a handful of sunnis, rest are deobandis and wahabi. they are all ignorants aswell, american "islamic schools" are known for being atrocious, its no comparison compared to madrasa. its public school with quran, arabic, and islamic history class. they have been spewing their nonsense for a long time (making retarded statements about sufis and doing gustakhi of rasoolAllah ﷺ and sahabah sometimes), and i remained patient, cause i know they are ignorant but because they are making a debate, and giving me a chance to defend ahlus sunnah, i feel like i have to, and i want to do so in a good manner.
i don't agree. we should teach children the value of backing off when one is not ready. discretion is the better part of valour. if at all, the kid should take this as an inspiration to read and learn. on the ground, winning a debate means nothing. especially religious debates.
bhai, i agree with you in principle but we're not living in Islamic empires anymore or in an age of justice every single day we're being deliberately set up for more and more destruction, in both life and property, as well as faith - and given lose-lose options from two evil ones it's becoming a case of 'do or die' or 'marta kya na karta' just see this one, going by the information presented in this thread - backing off or avoiding is set up as a "fair point" scored against Sunniyat, and it's not just for the sake of the teacher's ego or the systemic bullying of a Sunni young man and hurting his self esteem, it's also propagating wahabiism as the right maslak, making Sunnis look wrong and so on. on other fronts, we can blast social media as much as we want, and talk about holding it back from kids - but the fact is that our kids are bombarded daily with attacks on Islam, our Prophet 3alaihis salam, and deen and kids are raising these "objections" daily - same applies internally too with attacks on Sunniyat daily from wahabis, shias etc. if an analogy with physical combat can be given, right now it's a case similar to the Quds case, if someone's cornered (generally speaking, not just in context of thread) and being attacked by machine guns and being bombed by fighter jets, and all he can do is throw stones, then that's what it is! Allah knows best.
kids should not get involved in debates. non-scholars, even if they are adults - or old folk - should not debate. in fact, even scholars, who have not practiced debating or are not skilled in debate should not debate. === debate is a special skill - and one acquires after years of study, reading arguments from both sides, and knowing one's own positions very well, an ability to identify the weakness of your opponent's argument, among other skills. i don't claim to be a great debater, but i can claim to have some experience in this field - even if it is merely about the number of years i've been dabbling in this field. as a practice, i carry plenty of deobandis/qadiani/wahabi books, our books in refutation and other works of hadith, the entire corpus of alahazrat's works (on ridawi.org) fiqh, hundreds of books on aqidah/kalam and a lot more on my phone - ready to debate any time. even then, if i can avoid a debate, i always will. wa billahi't tawfiq.
yes and the opponent too is a guy his age (going by the op). clearly the teacher is a mean person trying his/her best to set this boy up for what he/she thinks will be a humiliation for him. if the teacher was a real teacher, even if he/she was convinced of wahabiism as being the right path, he/she would try to teach and convince maturidiman. The other thing here is let's face it - both wahabis and shias (including closet ones and tafzilis) groom their kids in their manhaj than Sunnis do to their kids in Sunniyat, this spreads across ethnicities, not just tanatan desi Barelwis. the teacher in question seems quite confident of wahabiism's grooming of their kids. aside - a lot of teachers are just meanies who damn care for future generations or helping kids and so on, they're teachers only coz thats the only job they could get. I remember the hindu teachers in my school calling other hindu teachers for having "mithai" the day Babri masjid fell, and this was in the middle east!! I'm not a proponent of teaching kids to respect non-Sunni or non-Muslim teachers of schools, in any way shape or form, just by virtue of being a teacher. @Maturidiman make sure the Sunni judge is someone you and other Sunnis accept as a Sunni. If yes, who declared it haram? Give evidence from Quran, hadith or sayings of salaf that it is haram to cite da3eef hadith!
I mean, this is good advice from AQ but... Is there an option just not to hold the debate? You're just some guy in a school, why did the teacher even arrange this? It's not running from a debate if you're just not qualified to have one because you're some kid. Otherwise look up the debate asrar rashid had on the topic as some of the conditions are the same I think. Just give the same arguments, print them off as a transcript or something
focus on strong naqli dalail 3aqli dalail should be strong & corroborated by good naql consult with someone astute like Shaykh Asrar Rashid (or an Arab Sunni shaykh) who knows how to deal with various types of people and can connect with the youth, rather than a run of the mill daqianoosi khateeb/peer saab who masks verbiage as 3aqli dalail and wows desi crowds but can't recite Fatiha properly! such mawlanas do more harm to Sunni youth than good, and the rest of us are left scratching our heads why our youth get possessed by wahabis! get in touch with him or his students right away. (i'm assuming you're based in uk) --- you should have one major demand - the opponent's contention and yours should be given in WRITING prior to the debate and both contentions should always be displayed on a slide header or something. coupled with NO DEVIATION from topic istighatha and tawassul MEAN istighatha and tawassul no meandering into 3ilmul ghayb of Prophet 3alaihis salam, or if the narrations on his 3alaihis salam not having a shadow are sahih, etc. no foraying into Mawlid no discussion on halalness or haramness of awrad of Sufis, like Hizbul Bahr no objections to the Burdah (other than the verse invoking tawassul and istighatha) no smart comments at karaamaat of awliyaa etc. i can tell you from experience, if you don't hold tight to the topic at hand, the wahabi opponent (and teachers included) will be flying from tree to tree like sparrows. also hold tight to the guidelines set forth based on the methodology discussed in posts # 3 & 4. for example, salaf MEANS salaf the second the opponent or the teacher brings in a statement of khalaf, regardless if it goes to your advantage or not - sound the buzzer, and reprimand them harshly!
ask her whose rule is it that we use only sahih or hasan hadith? did the salaf draw this boundary? Is it haram to use any hadith other than sahih or hasan? why did the imams of hadith waste their times compiling non-sahih and non-hasan?
they have no idea about this website, and the school is arab wahabi run. she didn't give even any conditions of the debate, she thinks im dumb and i believe she is just trying to embarrass me, she said she wont be taking sides but i doubt that. regarding bringing in both sides, thats what she said. "salafi side and sufi side" i don't know who sufi will witness the debate or if she even knows anyone who actually believes istighatha is mustahab. however the actual Islamic studies teacher believes istighatha is permissible however im pretty sure they don't know cause if they did, Allah knows if he would still be working there. in terms of salaf, she said first 300 years after prophet ﷺ passing these questions are good, and i will email her these questions. edit: she also mentioned sahih hadith and at the very least hasan, my bad it slipped my mind
same question applies to verses of Quran as well as the sayings of the salaf (not yet defined by the teacher)
do your school teachers and mates know about this site or know that you visit here? is the school a desi wahabi or Arab wahabi run? both sides = wahabis and actual Ashari/Sufi? first question to the teacher - what's the Hijri year cut off for designating "salaf" status? the death year of the last sahabi radi Allahu 3anhu? what grades of hadith are permitted - sahih, hasan, da3if, sahih li ghayrihi? ask the teacher. what if hadith masters dispute the grading of a hadith? lets say Ali Al-Madini says sahih to a hadith, Yahya ibn Ma3in says da3eef - whose word will you take? whose word will the teachers take? whose word will the judges take? what are the usul of fiqh to be used - in other words: you or the opponent presents a hadith - how do we interpret the hadith and what hukm can you derive from it? who's word do we take for the hukm coming out of a hadith? your own? the teacher's? the opponent's? Imam Shafi3i's? Imam Malik's? etc. start with this. i'm sure other brothers can add much more. don't let the teacher get away!
for context i go to a wahabi school, they spew alot of nonsense and now one of the teachers wants to hold a debate between me and another kid (absolute ignorant) which will last 2 hours on tawassul and istighatha. the only sources i can use are quran sunnah and salaf, (i guess shes scared ill bring the hundrends of ulama that permitted it). so i would like sources from there. I will use some arguments from ja al haq and al amnu wal ula however i want quotes from salaf which they will have no choice but to accept any advice pertaining to debating? its more of a "school" debate, but they're making it some big thing, inviting ulama from both sides to watch, like we are scholars debating i have 3 days to prepare. i would like to bring print outs of scans of the pages, as i believe my opponent will be underprepared. is there any good website were specifically on this topic evidences with scans are presented? JazakAllah khair
