About The Book
Other religions are cultural preferences, but not Islam. Islam is objectively true and you can prove it. Based on the seminal online course designed and taught by instructor Hamza Karamali, this textbook provides students with detailed, evidence-based knowledge of all the core tenets of Muslim belief. It tackles the central questions facing young Muslims, including how we know that God exists, how to respond to the arguments of modern atheism, and the meaning of suffering in the world. By working through this textbook, students are empowered to use logical reasoning, science, and revelation to nurture sincere faith that is supported by proof. Why Islam is True is the first course in Basira's Modern Curriculum series.
About Basira Education
Our mission is to develop intelligent and conservative Muslims whose grounding in the Muslim scholarly and spiritual traditions enables them to critically integrate modern science and culture into their religious worldview.
Our goal is to help conservative Muslims preserve their religious worldview and pass it on to their children by providing a religious curriculum that is thoroughly grounded in the traditional Islamic sciences while explicitly engaging the difficult questions raised by the physical sciences and the humanities in the curricula of modern schools and colleges.
Religious curricula that are taught at home or in the mosque are disconnected from the curricula that children and young adults are taught in schools and colleges. This creates a conflict in the minds and souls of religious students.
The conflict lies in two areas: (1) in the physical sciences, which train students to analyze the universe through the lens of materialism, and (2) in the humanities, which acculturate them into a non-religious worldview that moralizes autonomy and suspects authority and tradition, particularly when it is religious.
This conflict sows confusion into the minds of religious students. Strong relationships with healthy religious families and communities can overpower the confusion and the religious students can grow into religious adults who are successful in their families, communities, and careers.
But when these relationships are absent, or when they turn sour, or when they are overpowered by other non-religious relationships, then the seed of confusion grows into religious doubt, and students’ religious confidence in public settings begins to wither. Eventually, their faith can shrink, their religious practice in private settings can wane, and they may lose interest in their religious identities.
Atheism is spreading rapidly among all religious communities, and Muslims are no exception. It is spreading even in the Muslim heartlands, where some have estimated rates of atheism as high as 5%. The justifications of formerly-Muslim atheists always return to one of the two areas of conflict—the materialism of the physical sciences or the moralized autonomy of the humanities.
Author(s): Hamza Karamali
Edition: 1
Publisher: Basira Education
Year: 2023
Language: English
Commentary: A great Ash'ari Manuel of Modern Islamic Theology
Pages: 154
Tags: Islam, Theology, Ash'arism
**Chapter One: Islam Is True**
What It Means for Islam to Be True
The Definition of Islam
**Chapter Two: Who Is God?**
The Difference Between a God and the God
What the Quran Tells Us About God
Fact 1: God Exists Necessarily
Fact 2: God Is Beginningless
Fact 3: God Is Endless
Fact 4: God Is lndependent
Fact 5: God Is Transcendent
Fact 6: God Is One
Fact 7: God Is Alive
Fact 8: God Has Knowledge
Fact 9: God Has Volition
Fact 10: God Is Powerful
Fact 11: God Speaks
Fact 12: God Hears
Fact 13: God Sees
**Chapter Three: God Exists**
What is the Proof that God Exists?
Fact One: The Universe Exists Contingently
Fact Two: Everything that Exists Contingently Needs a Necessary Being to Make It Exist
The Argument from Contingency Is a Quranic Proof
**Chapter Four: Science and God**
Your Smartphone Is Contingent
Pavlov's Dogs
This Is Why Science Is Possible
What Are Laws of Nature?
Reconditioning Ourselves Through the Remembrance of God
**Chapter Five: The Big Bang and the Kalam Cosmological Argument**
How Old Is Your Computer?
The Big Bang
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
Everything That Began to Exist Must Have Been Made to Exist by Something Else
The Thing that Made the Universe Exist Could Not Itself Have Begun to Exist
The Universe Depends on Someone Who Did Not Begin to Exist
**Chapter Six: Materialism Is False**
The Universe Is Not Everything that Exists
Many Theists Fall into Materialism
God Is Not a Physical Object
These Four Privative Attributes Are Entailed by God's Necessary Existence
**Chapter Seven: God's Agency and the Argument from Design**
The Meaning of Life and Agency
Agency Versus Causation
God Is a Volitional Agent
Variety Is Evidence For God's Agency
Design Is Evidence For God's Agency
The Argument from Design Is Not an Islamic Argument
**Chapter Eight: The Oneness of God**
The Blue Mosque and Mi'mar Sinan
The Chaos of Polytheism
The Quranic Argument for the Oneness of God
**Chapter Nine: Loaded Questions About God**
Journalists Ask Loaded Questions
Loaded Questions About God
Can God Create a Rock He Can't Lift?
Can God Destroy Himself?
**Chapter Ten: The Problem of Evil**
We Feel the Pain of Suffering
Separating Preferences from Facts
Why Does God Create Suffering?
The Wisdom of Suffering
**Chapter Eleven: The Purpose of Life**
God Made Everything with A Purpose
God Sent Us Messengers
The Historical Claims of Other Religions Are Unverifiable
The Central Historical Claims of Islam Are Mass-Transmitted
**Chapter Twelve: Miracles**
God Made the Universe Intelligible
Cause-and-Effect Relationships Are Contingent
The Interruption of A Cause-and-Effect Relationship Is Called A Miracle
Just Because An Event Is Amazing, Doesn't Mean That It's Miraculous
**Chapter Thirteen: Kinds of Miracles**
Miracles On Their Own Don't Prove Anything
Prophetic Miracles
Other Kinds Of Miracles
**Chapter Fourteen: The Miracle of the Quran**
How to Prove "Muhammad is God's Messenger" (God bless him and give him peace)
Eloquence: The Linguistic Miracle of the Quran
Knowledge of the Future: The Predictive Miracle of the Quran
Advanced Knowledge: The Scientific Miracle of the Quran
Knowledge of the Past: The Historical Miracle of the Quran
**Chapter Fifteen: The Quran Was Taught By God**
The Prophet Did Not Author the Quran Himself
The Prophet's Teacher Was Taught By the Angel Jibril
**Chapter Sixteen: Other Prophetic Miracles**
1. Water Gushed Forth from Between His Fingers
2. The Moon Split in Two
3. Inanimate Objects Praised God As He Held Them
4. A Tree Stump Groaned When He Stopped Standing On It
5. He Fed Masses of People with Small Amounts of Food
6. He Healed the Sick
7. Idols Toppled When He Pointed At Them
**Chapter Seventeen: The Prophet (God bless him and give him peace) Was Not An Impostor**
**Chapter Eighteen: Preparing for Life After Death**
Life After Death Makes Life Meaningful
We Have Five Lives
Our Moral Responsibility
Good and Bad Deeds
**Chapter Nineteen: Evolution**
Common Ancestors
Three Kinds of Evidence S
cientific Evidence for Common Ancestry
Rational Evidence for Contingency
Revelatory Evidence for the Miraculous Exception of Human Beings
There is No Conflict Between Science and Religious Faith
**Appendix: Key Terms**
