Christian Apologetics for Muslims

VirtueOnline, an Anglican blog, has a very good post on Fr. Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest, who is having very good results with his own TV show aimed at Muslims in Arabic lands. In fact, Fr. Zakaria is having so much success that he has drawn a lot of Isamic hatred and disdain.

While many of us Christian Apologists don't have access to satelitte TV or are fluent in Arabic, we can adopt the third leg of Fr. Zakaria's system -- irrefutable polemics.

A third reason for Botros's success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme -- from the pressing to the esoteric -- often expressed as a question (e.g., "Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?" "Are women inferior to men in Islam?" "Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?" "Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?"). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes -- always careful to give sources and reference numbers -- from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet -- the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present -- the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros's presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open -- and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on "al-dalil we al-burhan," -- "evidence and proof," one of his frequent refrains -- not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence -- which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers.

Note that Fr. Zakaria is not attacking Muslims for worshippind a false "moon" God or for disbelieving in the triune nature of God. Anyone seeking to engage Muslims and Islamic clerics in Christian apologetics would do well to read this article and to study Fr. Zakaria's methods and arguements. The article includes a link to Fr. Zakaria's website.

UPDATE

Fr. Zakaria has a website in English. Under his Books link, Fr. Zakaria provides the text of his arguments in both Word and PDF formats. Recommend fellow Christian apologists bookmark Fr. Zakaria's site.

Source: Islam's "Public Enemy #1"