Apostate Prophet

So when it comes to taqiyyah, he is not entirely wrong.

Most Muslims, if you ask them, are you practicing taqiyya or are you doing taqiyya, most Muslims will say, I don't know what you mean, I don't know what you're talking about.

Many of them will say that, you know, I don't actually know what taqiyya is and I'm definitely not doing taqiyya.

It's because taqiyya is often referred to, often refers to a very specific form of practice.

of defense in Islam that primarily became a thing in Shia Islam, where Shia Muslims, when they were persecuted by the Sunni Muslims, when they were asked, are you Sunni or Shia, they were allowed to say, I'm Sunni, although they are Shia, in order to defend themselves, in order to protect themselves from being persecuted by the Sunni Muslims.

So it was like a license given to them to lie in order to protect their own lives and their own well-being and all that.

Within Shia Islam, it is very, very permissible and quite common to simply to lie in order to conceal your actual identity and even your intentions.

Within Sunni Islam, it is to an extent too.

It is just not very, very well and very widely among the common people known as Taqiyya.

But Muslims are also allowed to simply, you know, conceal the truth or lie in order to

protect themselves or protect the reputation of their religion to further their religious goals and so on.

It is just not really given a name and not really systematized that way.

The thing is that so many of them will not recognize the term or will not admit that they are practicing it.

However, the term itself captures a certain aspect within Islam that is very problematic.

As Christians, for example, we are always told to speak the truth, to tell the truth, to always be truthful.

And Islam doesn't really emphasize truthfulness quite that well.

And in order to further Islamic goals and in order to defend Islam from public criticism, you are allowed, you are very, very well allowed to simply to lie by omission or to conceal parts of it, to conceal the truth, to present things differently or sometimes even to outright lie in order to reach your goals.

So that's the nuance there.

If you directly say to them, are you practicing Takiyah?

They will probably say, no, I don't even know what that is.