بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيم

Salam and Hello to all,

In addition to the ongoing work that we are doing right now, we will start to give a series of commentaries on non-Muslim books and works. We plan for the format to be in the style of bulleted points, similar to what we have for the “Notes on Islamic Works” section.

The two most important issue that we hope for all to keep in mind is:

Firstly, these are books by non-Muslims that we are commenting on. Thus, there is bound to be some uncertainty about many of the terms used and the underlying assumptions being made by the different non-Muslim ideologies, and this uncertainty may be transported to our writings, especially the earlier ones. Also, there may be some authors who are simply difficult to understand despite our best efforts, and this may also cause some additional difficulties in formulating what the other side is saying, even before we consider what our response is going to be.

Secondly, we acknowledge that our commentaries are not of a professional standard, given that we are lay writers. Thus, our writings are only our introductory thoughts on the different non-Muslim works/books and the topics contained therein that come up. We do hope that Insha Allah, these first writings of ours will be explained upon and corrected with the help of Shaykhs, ‘Aalims, and Muftis who will discuss the issues in a much more correct manner as far as the Islamic point of view is concerned.

If it so happens that any of the remarks we provide are imprecise (from the point of view of presenting the Islamic viewpoint), to that they are to be discarded, we hope that at least the associated non-Muslim quote we have presented may be used as the basis for a future, proper scholarly commentary.

Some other issues that are of relevance are as follows: 

The basic arguments against any given non-Muslim religion actually center on very few points, perhaps no more than five or ten misrepresentations/misunderstandings about Allah the Exalted and/or the nature of reality and truth (the rest basically being ramifications of these few problems, however significant these problems may be). 

If any of the readers sees that either the longer refutations or the shorter ones are not understandable, they may leave a comment in the appropriate page and we will see how to revise the refutation. Likewise, if someone finds someone in the original book that we did not discuss at all, but which they consider to be important, then we can go through it if it is within our capabilities. 

There is also the issue that in some cases, the non-Muslim might say that the translation or research as presented in the original books we consider for critical commentary are not up to that particular non-Muslim’s mark, and that the truth is in fact something else. If that is how any non-Muslim consider the issue, then we may be presented with the works they consider to be foundational, and we may consider commenting on these “new foundational works” at some point in the future.