Taqiyya: Difference between revisions

Critics of Islam are often ridiculed when some of them conflate the doctrine of taqiyya with lying in general. When the subject comes up, most ex-Muslims attest that they had never heard of taqiyyah until they saw people being accused of it on the Internet. Lying in general, as well as in specific situations such as commercial transactions is condemned in various hadith, and the Qur'an condemns various groups for (allegedly) lying about Allah and Muhammad. However, there are some situations in the hadith literature in which Muhammad endorses deception, such as deceiving the opponent in warfare, to facilitate the murder of one of his enemies, when it is better to break an oath than to keep it, or to bring reconciliation between parties ([[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Lying and Deception|Lying and Deception]]). This is not termed "taqiyya" though and is in fact a strategem of war that has been employed across the ages and cultures of the world.

As with an other believer in an ideology they are personally invested in, generally when a Muslim seems to be lying about Islam, they are likely either to be simply deluding themselves, or misleading people for much the same reasons as adherents of other religions, who sometimes lie to further or defend their faith, rather than deliberately following some widespread "secret" doctrine of "taqiyya"