The Conduct of the Infallibles (a) with the People of the Book

The Infallibles (a) would mostly propagate and defend Islam from the objections and queries of the followers of other religions. They would debate with them in a scientific manner and would never display enmity with them or accuse them of apostasy. The Family of the Prophet (a) would use the following tools in their discussions with the followers of other religions: They would pay attention to scientific discussions, show respect to the person they were addressing as well as those beliefs that the person valued to, they would reference those resources that were trusted by their audience, use strong arguments to further their own claims, they would display the utmost command over the scriptures of these people and finally they always debated with them in a morally acceptable manner. These are some of the dimensions of the conduct of the Family of the Prophet (a) with the adherents of other faiths in the religious debates they conducted with them. In this paper, we have examined some of this conduct. Keeping in mind the fact that most of the contact of the Infallibles (a) with the followers of other Abrahamic religions was cultural in nature and that this was manifested in their debates with them as well as the answers they gave to these people’s questions we have divided this paper into three sections. The first section deals with the cultural conduct of the Infallibles (a) with the People of the Book. Then, we have taken a look at the debates that they had with these people and the scientific discussions that these lead to. Finally, an examination has been made of the methodology of this conduct that itself can be divided into three sections: The first deals with the scientific discussions with the followers of other religions. The next is the attention paid by the Infallibles (a) to the things that were respected by the audience they were addressing. Finally, there is the fact that the Infallibles referenced the texts that the followers of other religions accepted to be true.