In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Ever Merciful

      PREFACE

      We live in a time when people can spread their views around the globe at the touch of a button. Yet such views may come from people of little knowledge who can confuse and even misguide others. This is a concern that has become particularly acute with the widespread misrepresentation of Islam, both by those hostile towards it, and, unfortunately, even those who claim to profess it. Through their evil but eloquent schemes, such people can misrepresent the sacred teachings of this religion, and direct the ignorant and the ill-fated to perpetrate heinous crimes against both an innocent public and an innocent religion. Such deception and misinterpretation has sadly become all too common in our day, and among its causes is, undoubtedly, the relative inaccessibility of sound Islamic scholarship and literature in the English language. An additional cause is the suggestion that there is no difference between experts and non-experts. It is as though God never declared in His Book: ‘How can those who know be equal to those who do not know?’ (39: 9)

      A plethora of problems can arise when non-experts begin to consider themselves experts on a subject matter. One can vividly illustrate with the example of a person who requires medical attention . A sensible individual would choose to be treated by a medical professional—an