[erroxiainsona]

Salamwalayykumm.

Is HY human?
Of-course he is.
So its human to make error [although strictly speaking, this is a huge error], the way forward for him is to apologize and move forward. My humble opinion.
Do I need to write about Harun Yahya after all this?
His scholarship on many matters nobody can deny.
Again he is looked up-to.
As a Scholar.
Have we made takfir of him?
No, we haven't.
We are only saying, his hobnobbing with women is wrong.
And because he is looked up-to as an 'Islamic' personality, his amal's will also be copied, if he is lax with regards to matters regarding women, then we too will be influenced sooner rather than later.

Lets hope we all are guided and kept on guidance for-ever, summa aameen.

Brother I supposed you started this thread as a reply to suggestions by me that we should not criticize scholars harshly. Scholars and advocates of Islam will always be better than us no matter their occassional lapses. If we dont want harsh criticism upon ourselves for our flaws and mistakes, then who are we to criticize these people who actively engage. I dont live in the subcontinent but I know for example there are kufr fatwas by barelwis on some deobandi greats for mi-spoken statements about nabi s.a.s - the only one which comes to my memory is something along the line they allege that one of deobandi greats- i think maulana thanvi- comparing the attribute of the unseen knowledge that our prophet possessed for certain issues and making a reference to animals that these also have the attribute of unseen knowledge in trying to refute that this particular trait made the prophet special and different to other humans. I am not sure of the specific argument. Even the remotest thought of making an argument by comparison with dogs was in their eyes an error beyond rectification and can emanate only from a genuinely diseased person. So how do you go about refute this distorted logic of theirs (even though at first glance it sounds a good argument) without being able to assess the intention of maulana thanvi rahimahullah. YOu look at his works, his self-sacrifice for the deen. From a crude assessment of his works and life history we can know he was an honorable mu'meen, a great islamic reviver and a wali of Allah. We then overlook such commentary by people who like to criticize harshly with distorted logic.

What I am trying to say is that this forum is made of amateurs - hyperactive virtual-world people who probably wont even go public to do dawah - closet da'ees. When people are making so much sacrifices and whose intention and creed is generally Ahlus-Sunnah then why focus on lapses they make and dismiss their entire portfolio. I never held hamza yusuf as a great exceptional scholar. I always considered and still do a average to upper average good scholar - who from my perspective if also I can achieve 10% of works he has done after my life-span I will be happy. I dont focus on his work alot. He is an tele-evangalist for me who does a good job generally for inspirational format dawah. I have just been newly informed about his stance about qadianis and this dante issue which I have no idea about and will be reading about.

Harun yahya is in another league. I have followed harun yahya for 10 years now in his works. I dont know any single Turk nor has any advocacy group of his influenced me. I dont know any harun yahya close follower as well as a declaration. I started reading his books and literature in 2002 and since developed a great fondness for his works. If his shows were the first and only thing I saw about him I wouldnt have been impressed to the any extent I am about him. I dont know the particular wisdom behind the shows. I think he has his own wisdom behind them. I dont see him promoting to others his particular approach with women. Also I dont see him talking about going movies with women and going on dates and telling women to remove their hijab and to wear tight clothes. He sits there and 90% of the time talks about his view of the world, end times, islamic unity and about the mahdi and about the evil of evolution, atheism, communism and other things like protecting and looking after christians and jews. It is mostly casual talk which reflect his ideas. He occassionally talks about beauty of women, cats, animals, children. I do acknowledge that he is passive to the dresscode of his immediate audience and I dont want to make a judgement about his wisdom behind that. For sure my amal are not affected by this. Infact perhaps the most obvious thing which one can see from his shows and perceive is giving compliments to women and make them feel happy. That also hasnt really fused into me because its not my style. So when you see that his adherents and followers will be influenced in a negative way I think you are wrong. I dont see him telling his group men also to mingle with women and learn Islam from each other in such a setting. Its him alone which has chosen such a setting and as I said again I can only infer some of the points which might have lead him to such a decision but I dont know the real wisdom behind it.

I am making my judgement of him being the most exceptional advocate of Islam of the modern centuries based on his books and other works. There is no validity or proof by those who claim the works are not his principle efforts. Every team has a leader whose thoughts, ideas, knowledge, constitution guide the efforts of the team. It is clear harun yahya can speak and write turkish, his works have amazing literature consistency, his speeches reflect the overall conclusions of all his books. And there is no one claiming the works titled under him as their work. SO it is almost a shame that we have muslims alleging and confident in suspicion that the works are not his authorship. Many classical great scholars have written books ranging from hundreds to a thousands so claiming that the feat is humanly impossible is an exagerration.

I hate long posts but just to clarify my position about these two scholars - one of whom I will not make a judgment upon who I have a generally positive view and dont know about his controversial views in detail and the other who I dismiss all arguments just like all deobandis dismiss any arguments against their greats of barelwi (muslim sunni) accusations without reservation because I have read his works and enjoyed fruits. Consistently amazing fruit only comes from amazing selfs and I and most of us here are only worthy of cleaning their shoes - both Maulana thanvi and harun yahya's.