Praise be to God, the Hizbut Tahrir talk presented a host of excellent points. Good work, Hizbut Tahrir, and all thanks are for the Lord of mankind. No credit is really due except to Him. Do not think you are good, for only He is good.

There are too many good points to mention. I also hope to bring to light new information in the hope of a chance for us to know and serve Allah further.

The Queen swore to govern by the Bible when she was crowned and enthroned. She swore to uphold Bible creed and Bible ethics. Bible creed allows for non-Christians to live in the Christian nation, so that is why we are housed here and we have to praise and thank our Lord for all good that has come from living here.

However, the erroneous Christian creed is not what God ordered. They were ordered to recognise the Comforter, called the Paraclete, (it is Muhammad) and testify to him, and we know this was foretold in their scriptures (see John 14, Qur'an ch. 61).

Yet, the Christian leaders mislead their people with wrong tafsirs they have inherited. Many of them would be muslims if their priests and ministers said: "Here's that comforter that Jesus told us about. We testify!".

Well, praise God, specifically for Christians there is an element to interfaith relations which has been much neglected and I think we should have more study of it done by muslim scholars and more knowledge of it ourselves as we live among Christians.

The point is mubahala, the prayer challenge (Qur'an 3:61). I will borrow a Christian model for a moment to discuss this, although in sha allah their model is not far off what the Qur'an says on the same subject: In his response to 'A Common Word' (see www.acommonword.com), the Archbishop of Canterbury gives a framework for interfaith dialogue as follows:

4 levels: 1. day to day crossing of paths; 2. interfaith actions (e.g., feeding the poor together); 3. religious (theological) dialogue; 4. interaction of religious experience. I have borrowed their model. Even if the model is wrong, (and I would appreciate a Hizbut Tahrir model be posted in its place for muslims to understand the subject, my point refers to their point 4: interfaith religious experience.

I think we have a lot of interfaith rules and regulations in ch. 3,4,5 of the Quran. Anyway, this one, level 4 of the Christian model, I call it witnessing to God, or 'shahadaing' or being siddiqeen in our terms. According to chapter 3 of the noble Quran, the book of God, the criterion of right and wrong, when the da'wah (the call) to an intelligent Christian, probably a leader of some kind, especially a religious leader, is complete and clearly understood, and also clearly rejected, then the muslim da'i is told to invite the opponent to the prayer challenge. I believe he should do this, or perhaps must do this, but I am not willing to go that far as to say must because I fear God, and I urge muslims to investigate the law of it and publish guidelines and research about it.

God knows better than me about this. He is the one to govern the earth and all the interfaith actions on the earth, whether spiritual or worldly meetings. All things are in his hands, and He will retell us what we did. Not one good deed, as big or small as a mustard seed, will be missed, nor one bad deed.

The HT speaker mentioned that to not convey the truth, to water down the message, is a disservice to both the muslim and the addressee, then if that is so, what about the neglect of calling God as witness and decider? Wouldn't it be greater? Of course, if the Christian backs off and grants the muslims governance, there is no need. Even if he backs off but does not grant governance, it may be that Allah would move him out of the way for us because he backed off rather than witness to his own truth.

One may argue that the merciful nation need not curse anyone, we can back off too. However, I think God is asking us to bring the truth to bear in this way if we have done a full, real, islamic, honest da'wah, no sects, no ideologies, no false witness or false sources. God is the who knows best. God is the owner of the heavens and the earth.

Additional note: this is not the only form of category 4 religious action (interaction of religious experience) that I see. Jihad is another one (fighting for what you believe is surely witnessing to your religion). There are two others in surah al-imran that I have seen which I think we should work on. If hosh posh interfaith dialogue is kufr, then these are alternatives we can use.

1. ali imran, ayat 184 (taqwa). It says taqwa will be the deciding factor in all affairs. Even in jihad, taqwa is important, to secure a smooth post-war following and post war installation of islam, and of course to secure the acceptance by God. If you wage jihad with transgression and unruliness, the new subjects will be harder to win to islam and harder to govern, and the jihad will have more flaws in God's sight.

This, i.e, taqwa, seems to usually occur between the muslim and God, not between the muslim and the other person. However, sometimes it does involve the muslim and the other, and the one with the most taqwa is the right one. Allah seems to often bring these situations to test us. It can occur in dawah, neighbouring, caring for refugees and the sick, marital relations, food selection, banking, and any place actually. The taqwa test is there all the time. God is all-seeing.

The HT talk also addressed the importance of maintaining the purity of the message, alhamdulillah; praise be to God. We are not to compromise, we are not to say we are equal, we are not to aim at 'understanding' alone, not to focus on commonalities to the exclusion of differences, and so forth; I agree that this ikhlas is very important. I think we need to work on our dawah in this area and not only the ikhlas but also the ikram, the second stage dawah, and get to know all the ground around nazhir (warning), bashir (good news), invitation, and our public relations, and our knowledge of islam, so we can answer questions correctly.

Many da'ees are using fiqh as religion, or man-made aqidahs, but these things are not appropriate for the non-muslim who lives under a non-muslim state.

Another level of interfaith witnessing (religious experience) is patience. Allah says in the last line of surah ali-imran, Glorified is He and Supreme in Highness: asbiruu wa saabiruu wa raabituu ... lallakum tuflihuun. Be patient, and persevere, and take precaution, ... so you can have success. Then there's halim, which the speaker mentioned, alhamdulillah. Praise be to God.

My new point regarding the HT conference is that you cannot say all Christians are in the fire.

Allah says that among the People of the Book, they are not all the same, there is a group that stands for the right. He also says there are those who prostrate in the night, and He, the most Truthful says, that some Christians will go to heaven and some Jews and anyone who believes in God and the last Day and does good deeds. From the history of islam christian relations we can see that there were times when large numbers of Christians entered islam. We should wonder why it isn't happening today like that.

I'm not saying a person can reject islam and still overcome the sin of rejection with a host of good deeds. By our knowledge, they cannot. Their disbelief of this message is enough to cancel all good deeds (except if God forgives). By our human knowledge, we believe He will not forgive them, but still we can't judge, so of course the final decision is with Him, the master of the day of judgement. God knows all things.

So, we must recognise that there are good doers and there are truth-seekers among the non-believers, and we have to avoid harming them in their spiritual path. Rejection of islam doesn't mean you are treated as non-human, even if God says you are lost like cattle. Lost like cattle means 'like cattle', it doesn't mean people are cattle.

We must strive against disbelief, and oppression, but not against human dignity. Don't tell me "that ayat only refers to the Christians and Jews of the time of the prophet". There are millions of Christians who have never even heard of Muhammad. I was born in Australia and until 2005 I had never heard of Islam.

Muhammad Abdullah of Griffith Brisbane also did a survey on this topic (awareness of islam among the Australian public), and found 20% of respondents had never heard of it. God knows best. Please produce more material on christian-islam relations and correct islamic wording and attitude towards non-muslims. If we are going to be the khilafa, we must know what dhimmi rights are, so we are not oppressors or ignorant rulers. Even that seems far off anyway, unless allah wills; and our da'wah could do with a lot more investigation, care, and proper implementation. To be honest, our islam could do with more care, thought, and implementation.

I think God's name is holy. If muslims land in Christian lands as students, refugees and businessmen, doesn't it show that we failed to be the best nation? I.e, islam is perfect, but we are not good at running it. If we had run islam correctly, we would not migrate to Christian lands. Taubah is good for this. Perhaps God will not give us khilafa without good taubah and readiness to be the khilafa. God already gave khilafa to Bani Israel. Islamic khilafa is a handover, not something new.

God said to David he would make him a khilafa. He did. David was a khilafa. David was a Jew, not a Christian. In some respects, Jews and Christians still are khilafas (wherever the message has not been heard). I don't think we can say that all Christians and Jews know about Muhammad and have heard the message of Submission.

Moving onto Muhammadian shari'a, moving off the mosaic law, is a natural transition in the history of the believers. Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds.

I believe the purpose of interfaith dialogue is to come up with some thing new that every one in the world agrees by taking all positive from all the religions and leaving the negatives. This notion of taking all that is good from all the religions and leaving that is bed contradicts Islam and its core fundamentals. We as Muslims are obliged to give Dawah to the none-Muslims considering that they are on the wrong path and by accepting Islam they will come out of darkness into light. We don’t do interfaith dialogue rather we invite none-Muslims to the deen of truth (Haq) which is absolutely different from IFD. When we see Ahmed Dedat, Hamza Idrees etc we clearly witness in their style that they are trying to expose the fallacies of all other religions and proving the truth of Islam with all their wisdom and beautiful preaching, as prescribed by Allah (swt).

The best dawah to the whole world is establishing an entity that practically represents that system and implements it. We have witnessed huge number of people reverting back to Islam by seeing its justice and fair play i.e. Indonesia and Malaysia.

Khilafah is the only practical dawah to the entire world, hence with our individual dawah to the none-Muslims we need to work for the re-establishment to khilafah state as well, which is the mother of all obligations.

Allah (swt) knows best!!!!

Wasalam

Assalamu alaykum Sr. Tasnia,

Jazakum Allah for your input.

There is an acceptable principle in Islamic scholarship which states that, 'la mashahata fi al-istilah', roughly that 'there is no dispute in terminology'. That is, what count in matter of convention are the meanings, not the words used.

Hence if two discussants define a term differently, this is not an issue in and of itself, as long as the difference in understood. Arguing the point of definition is not of benefit. The argument of one that the other's definition is too narrow will only be retorted by the argument of the other that the first person's definition is too broad, and since neither has any monopoly on defining terms, the discussion will get nowhere. Convention is convention after all.

So if we agree on the meaning that the Western Government-funded initiative of dialogue between Muslims and Christians/Jews/Hindus where the focus is on establishing common values and understandings is wrong, then the terms we use matter little. Certainly we need to be careful in not communicating the wrong message, which is why mentioning your definition is important.

You have given interfaith dialogue your own narrow definition, then subsequently shot it. Interfaith d. is a broad term covering many styles of dialogue with non-muslims, not just discussions on 'common values', this is just one type of dialogue. There are many other styles and methods, and they arent all watered down hosh poshy gatherings (if that's a word).

Imam Abu Hanifa debated with athiests. Ahmed Deedad debated all his life, delivering nothing but truth straight in the face of the non-muslims. Br Mustaq even mentioned the anecdote of him taking the Christian women to a hindu temple to show her precisely the differences, not common values. These examples also fall under 'interfaith dialogue', but not under your definition. So please take off those myopic glasses you wear, or argue against only those specific forms of interfaith d. which are 'hosh poshy, diluted, common values, waste of time, governmnet funded gatherings'.

Finally, children under five should be banned from lectures. Crying babies in a lecture theatre is a joke.