No Doubt: 10 Strategies To Deal With Your & Other People's Doubts

This section presents an overview of the course including the objectives, prerequisites and intended learning outcomes.

Before embarking upon dealing with doubts, one needs to understand the “lens” by which they perceive reality.  This section introduces students to the concept of Worldviews and how they shape our opinions and thoughts.

What makes up a Worldview? We study the components of a Worldview such as ontology (what exists?), epistemology (how do I know what I know?), teleology (what is the purpose?) and more.

After a thorough understanding of the concept of worldviews and its components, we compare the Islamic worldview with the Modern worldview.

In this section we analyse the basis of worldviews.  We observe that all worldviews have unprovable starting points or assumptions which go by a variety of names such as “first principles”, “basic beliefs”, “axioms” and so on.

The Islamic worldview's first principle is called the Fitrah.  A working definition of the word ‘Fitrah’ is “Original Normative Disposition”.  This section places a spotlight on the term “Original” in our working definition and highlights the primordial nature of the human being.

The heart goes through fitan (trials, tribulations, etc.) In this section we look at two of the main ones: Shahawāt (desires) & Shubuhāt (destructive doubts).

We begin a deep study of the 10 strategies to deal with doubts.  Some strategies will need to be implemented before the doubt enters the heart, some strategies will need to be employed afterward and some can be used before or after.  This overview will present the proper timing and implementation of these strategies.

Awareness of the dangers of doubts and their destructive nature is the one of the first steps in dealing with doubts.

Is it really a destructive doubt or a valid question?  This section outlines how to make the distinction between waswasa’s (whisperings), valid questions and destructive doubts.

The effects of the environment upon the heart are discussed in this section.

We look at experiments from social psychology that elucidate the human willingness to conform in certain social situations.

The Qur’an and Sunnah preceded social psychology experiments and offer deep insights to human behaviour especially regarding social conformity.  This section looks at some of those insights.

General advice on how to help others who find themselves in an environment not conducive to certainty about Islam.

In this section we break down the Arabic word for “doubts” (Shubuhāt) to gain an understanding of their frail nature.

Light is used as a powerful metaphor in the Qur’an to signify clarity.  In this section we study this metaphor to gain a deeper understanding of the weak nature of doubts.

Studying Islam is unlike studying other subjects.  In this section we analyze some of those differences and understand why studying Islam specifically is effective in dealing with doubts.

In the previous section, we compared studying Islam with just merely studying.  This section expounds upon the most important prerequisite to studying Islam: Spirituality.

Our first case study will investigate the claim that women inherit less than men.

Our second case study will investigate the claim that Islam facilitates child abuse.

An introduction to Critical Thinking and its importance in dealing with destructive doubts.

A look at good and bad arguments and our need to be able to identify them.

In this section, we use critical thinking to deconstruct and analyze the question, “If the universe needs a creator, then who created God?”

“Islam requires blind obedience to God and is therefore, backward.” In this section, we analyze this notion and apply what we have learned about critical thinking to investigate the assumptions upon which this statement is based.

Sometimes doubts arise because we may have questions that we cannot answer.  However, just because we cannot answer the question does not mean an answer does not exist.  In this section, we look at our epistemic limitations and study how those limitations can be overcome by way of knowledge from specialists.

Every human experiences some form of trauma.  In this section we define the term ‘Trauma’.

In this section we look at how trauma is linked to doubts by way of the meaning we attach to the trauma.

If indeed the meaning we attach to trauma facilities doubts, then what could be alternate meanings to our trauma that negate doubts?

Competing meanings to our trauma are based upon our worldview. We revisit worldviews to understand the Islamic worldview in relation to suffering.

What is the connection between doubts and spirituality? In this section we explore the ontology of the human soul and how doubts affect us.

Having elucidated on how doubts affect us spiritually, we now look at specific spiritual diseases that facilitate destructive doubts.

In this section, we move on to the solution to spiritual diseases and expound upon means to purify the heart.

Con't of the previous lesson.

All of the efforts in dealing with doubts would be ineffective if not for the will of Allah.  Dua plays a powerful part in dealing with doubts, and is the most important and effective strategy among the 10 strategies presented in the course.  In this section we study specific duas related to the heart and have a brief discussion on the causes of duas being answered.