If you feel frustrated because you have learned a lot about Islam and either everyone in your life already knows what you know, or some of them don't want to hear it any more, but you're bursting to share what you've learned, Here's a possibility for you: Educate people on Yahoo Answers.
Yahoo Answers is a web site where people ask questions, then other people answer the questions, and then the person who asked the question chooses the best answer, and that answer goes at the top, right under the question. Each question-with-an-answer is its own searchable web page.
Yahoo Answers is a web site where people ask questions, then other people answer the questions, and then the person who asked the question chooses the best answer, and that answer goes at the top, right under the question. Each question-with-an-answer is its own searchable web page.
Since these questions tend to be the same questions people ask when they're searching on Google or Bing, often the Yahoo Answers show up close to the top of the search results. This means when you answer a question, if the question shows up high on search results, your answer could be read by thousands of people. At the very least, it will be read by several people. And each of those people have some interest in the issue or they wouldn't be reading it. So you will have a chance to reach these people with your answer.
What an opportunity to educate people about Islam. And it's fun!
If you're interested in trying it, first sign up for an anonymous Yahoo email address. You can keep it as anonymous as you like.
When you're signed up, go to Yahoo Answers. Then go browse topics. I usually choose "politics." Look for questions people have asked. You'll see a huge list of questions that were asked recently, some only moments before. When you find a good one — a question you want to answer — give it your best shot. Provide lots of links for further information. Just paste the URLs right into your message (once you post your answers, Yahoo automatically turns the URLs into clickable links).
You can also ask questions, wait for people to answer, and then vote for the best answer.
Each time you answer a question, you earn two points. Each time someone chooses your answer as the best one, you earn ten points. When you've earned 250 points, you can start giving thumbs up and thumbs down on other peoples' answers.
As you find good online sources of information, keep a collection of these somewhere and use them. Quote those sources to provide a good answer quickly if you like.
Do it for entertainment. Do it for fun. Put a quick link to Yahoo Answers in your bookmarks toolbar, and just check it once in a while, whenever you're looking to take a break and do something different. There are new questions showing up constantly. Some of them are stupid. But some of them you will want to answer.
Not only are you potentially influencing and educating curious people, but answering questions like this will help you hone the way you articulate yourself in face-to-face conversations. And one of the best ways to learn something really well is to teach it to others.
Try not to argue or be argumentative or make personal attacks in your answers. Conduct yourself with class. You are representing the "kind of people" with your point of view. Make a good impression. Represent us well. Give good information and good links.
Help educate people about the terrifying brilliance of Islam. It is the single most important thing you can do to stop Islam's relentless encroachment. And one good place to do it is at Yahoo Answers. Go forth and fight for freedom!
What keeps Yahoo Answers from being like Digg? One of the problems with Digg is that there's a dedicated army of Muslims and their leftist allies prepared to pounce and squash anything they don't like by using its voting mechanism. Can Yahoo's voting mechanism be similarly abused?
ReplyDeleteI recently had a "debate" on Dissecting Leftism about Islam and its values in which I simply quit and let my opponent have the last comment because I got tired of correcting the endless stream of lies, half-truths, distortions, and subtle ad-hominem proffered by a Muslim poster and his apparently non-Muslim tag-team partner, neither of which, to my knowledge, had ever posted there before and so must have done so specifically to shut me up. Like a special-ops team, I'd say. When I say things like "a good Muslim must follow Muhammad's example", and he responds with "how dare you say what a good Muslim must do" and "Muslim values are in the Bible", you soon realize there's no point in continuing, especially when the other blog posters won't defend (or attack thankfully) you and it takes many more words to correct him than it takes him to put out yet another well-written bit of taqiyya.
Randian, that kind of experience is frustrating for sure. Yahoo Answers is different because the person who asks the questions gets to choose the answer. One person. It's not an argument, it is one question and a bunch of possible answers.
ReplyDeleteBetter than Digg, I think.
Thank you for this suggestion. I think I'll follow it up. I have all kinds of links to scary canonical hadiths, and I've worked on presenting them clearly, concisely, and factually.
ReplyDeleterandian,
ReplyDeleteThat is frustrating. One partial solution is to quote canonical hadiths, together with links. Let Islam itself make your arguments.
Like this:
FROM ONE OF THE CORE ISLAMIC TEXTS, A HADITH IN WHICH MUHAMMAD SAID THERE IS TO BE NO PUNISHMENT FOR MURDERING SOMEONE WHO INSULTS MUHAMMAD:
Here, from Sunan Abu-Dawud, a hadith collection considered canonical by mainstream Muslim scholars, is a hadith that shows Muhammad supporting the murder of a woman by her husband, merely because she used to speak to her husband insultingly about Muhammad:
Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 38, Number 4348:
Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:
A blind man had a slave-mother [a slave who bore children for him] who used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. He [the blindman] forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and abuse him. So he [the blindman] took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) was informed about it.
He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.
He sat before the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.
Thereupon the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood.
There are various examples in the core Islamic texts of Muhammad having those who insult Islam killed.
Randian, there are many horrific, canonical hadiths. One has to collect the horrific or appalling ones, give each one an accurate, unexaggerated headline, and make bold the parts of the hadith that are relevant to your point, so that readers don't have to read the whole hadith. It helps to know a little bit of html code so you can make links the way you want them, or make things bold or italicized. There are tons of free tutorials on html on the web, and it's not hard, though you need to be a little detail-oriented.
Then if you just quote the hadith or Qur'an, it's a little harder for people to argue. They can still do it, but it's harder.
I'll quote another in my next comment, since this comment will otherwise get too long to be accepted by the software at this site.
Randian, in the end, of course, the only thing we can do is keep increasing our knowledge, so that we eventually have quick answers ready to almost any objection.
Randian, another scary factoid:
ReplyDeleteIN THE EARLIEST MUSLIM BIOGRAPHY OF MUHAMMAD, pages 511-517 (758-766 in the Arabic) WE LEARN HOW IN KHAYBAR MUHAMMAD ORDERED THE TORTURE AND BEHEADING OF A MAN IN ORDER TO GET HOLD OF A TREASURE, AND HOW A FEW DAYS LATER MUHAMMAD TOOK INTO HIS PRIVATE TENT FOR CONSUMMATION OF "MARRIAGE" THE TORTURED MAN'S WIFE, WHOSE FATHER AND OTHER MALE RELATIVES MUHAMMAD HAD ALSO RECENTLY KILLED:
Kinana b. al-Rabi', who had the custody of the treasure of the B. al-Nadir, was brought to the apostle who asked him about it. He denied that he knew where it was. A Jew came (Tabari says "was brought") to the apostle and said that he had seen Kinana going round a certain ruin every morning early. When the apostle [Muhammad] said to Kinana, 'Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?' he said Yes. The apostle gave orders that the ruin was to be excavated and some of the treasure was found. When he asked him about the rest he refused to produce it, so the apostle [Muhammad] gave orders to al-Zubayr b. al-'Awwam, 'Torture him until you extract what he has,' so he kindled a fire with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead. Then the apostle delivered him to Muhammad b. Maslama and he struck off his head in revenge for his brother Mahmud. [-- page 515 (763-764 in the Arabic)]
...The apostle took captives...among whom was Safiya d. Huyayy b. Akhtab who had been the wife of Kinana b. al-Rabi’ b. Abu’l-Huqayq, and two cousins of hers. The apostle chose Safiya for himself. [-- page 511 (758 in the Arabic)]
When the apostle married Safiya in Khaybar or on the way, she having been beautified and combed, and got in a fit state for the apostle by Umm Sulaym d. Milhan mother of Anas b. Malik, the apostle passed the night with her in a tent of his. Abu Ayyub, Khalid b. Zayd brother of B. al-Najjar passed the night girt with his sword, guarding the apostle and going round the tent until in the morning the apostle saw him and asked him what he meant by his action. He replied, ‘I was afraid for you with this woman for you have killed her father, her husband, and her people, and till recently she was in unbelief, so I was afraid for you on her account.’ They allege that the apostle said ‘O God, preserve Abu Ayyub as he spent the night preserving me.’
[-- page 516-517 (766 in the Arabic)]
I use Yahoo Answers every day to get the truth about Islam across, rather than what we are told on television.
ReplyDeleteI use various websites for information and have made a list of them in my bookmarks under "Islam".
It is a very good way to help people understand that Islam is not just another version of religion like Christianity, mild and moderate.
I can reach 20 or 30 people at a time and more will read it later also.
I noticed that more and more people are now questioning Islam and many informed people are also answering.
I think it is a very good method of helping people understand the threat we are under and would heartily recommend it.