An insightful historical account illustrating Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī’s linguistic preparation and methodical engagement with Christian polemics, highlighting the importance of knowledge, languages, and intellectual readiness in defending Islām.
In the year 1969 CE, an Iraqi student studying in the United States wrote to the Moroccan scholar Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī (d. 1407 AH / 1987 CE), seeking guidance on how to respond to Christians who were challenging Islām.
Al-Hilālī recounts: “In a letter to me, my former student Ismāʿīl al-Drūbī, who had been studying engineering at a university in the United States for the past four years, complained that Christians had organised protests against him, debated him on religious matters, and intimidated him to the point that he no longer knew how to respond.”
In response, Shaykh al-Hilālī wrote a detailed letter entitled Evidence from the Gospel That Jesus Is a Servant of Allah and Has No Right to Be Worshipped. In it, he cited specific chapter and verse numbers from the Gospel, enabling the student to extract the relevant passages himself in English. This allowed him to defend Islām using their own scriptures, after first understanding al-Hilālī’s explanations, which were written in Arabic.
Al-Hilālī explains: “He spent time studying the letter until he fully comprehended it, after which he engaged them in discussion. When he debated them thereafter, he left them without argument or reply, and they were utterly defeated, as he later informed me.”
Several decades prior to this incident, Shaykh al-Hilālī had already come to realise the necessity of acquiring foreign languages, acknowledging that complete understanding would be unattainable without proficiency in them. Consequently, he began memorising English vocabulary from language manuals.
In 1930 CE, he approached an American Christian pastor and requested English lessons in exchange for payment. The pastor agreed to provide three lessons per week free of charge. Shaykh al-Hilālī made it clear that he had never read the Gospels and that his intention in learning English was to study them directly in their English translation.
The pastor subsequently ordered an English edition of the Bible from London and presented it to al-Hilālī. Within a month, al-Hilālī had begun identifying passages which, in his assessment, supported the Islamic position over the Christian one. He meticulously documented these sections and penned analytical and argumentative notes, preparing himself to respond to the pastor and others who shared similar beliefs.
Reference
Al-Hilālī, Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir (d. 1407 AH / 1987 CE). Al-Ḥaqīqah al-Mubāshirah fī al-Radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā. Casablanca: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, n.d., pp. [relevant pages].
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