Excellent. Thank you.

That’s really nice to hear especially from you, thanks!

If I ever muster the courage to write something, even anonymously, I’ll make sure to tell you.

More importantly, if anything from the aforementioned Islamic apologetics group comes into English (original or in translation), I’ll let you know.

Those are all valid considerations.

(Although from how you’ve expressed yourself so far, I believe you’d do well at the articulation of facts and arguments; better than most even. Particularly because you can express your limitations and uncertainties, and thus how your conclusion prevails even taking that into account, and thus could as well for anyone else.)

Maybe in terms of knowledge I have something to say, yes.

The problem is I haven’t opened publicly about this yet. I am also not very strong emotionally and I know I will get tons of verbal personal attacks if I write. I also think my writing and argumentative capabilities are not good enough as I have no training in either (I am a software engineer).

It is, actually. It helps to know things even like that.

It also sounds like you are well positioned to produce essays or a book of use on this subject yourself.

I have been thinking about my answer to this question for a while and it was surprisingly very difficult for me to come with an answer. I started to have doubts when I was 16 years old mainly because I started to doubt the basic tenets, most importantly the presence of a God. I also started to have problems with some Quranic verses due to moral issues and scientific errors. However, It wasn’t mainly inspired by skeptics books/writings: I was a very conservative Muslim, memorized two thirds of the Quran and read it tens of times and I am also a native Arabic speaker (Egyptian but immigrated to Germany then the UK in 2021 and 2023) so I decided to read the early (in the sense of anything before modern times especially the first 7 centuries or so of Islam) tafsirs (interpretation and commentary books) myself while also seeking apologetics answers to my questions. This was a very long process and I tried to cling to my faith but everything broke down in December 2022 after 11 years of this long process.

The only skeptic website that helped my journey, albeit only in the last year of it (2022) is WikiIslam:
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Main_Page

I know that this is not a very helpful answer unfortunately.

That’s useful to know. I’ll put it on a list of possible works to consider doing a series on.

But yes, it looks already obsolete, albeit better than the usual claptrap. Do let me know if anything better/newer appears in English.

For the present, given your situation, do you have your own recommendations for skeptical books / website / articles that you’d suggest to a genuinely questioning Muslim?

They unfortunately write almost exclusively in Arabic.

The only English book that this group of Islamic apologetics ever produced is “The Only Way Out”
https://amzn.eu/d/ic2eCEn

It was one of their earliest though (more than 10 years ago) and I think they produced better work in Arabic. However, I would still think it’s better than the level of Islamic apologetics you are familiar with.

That also sounds new. If Arabic work is actually engaging with 21st century critiques (e.g. the New Atheists), then it has finally given up on its outdated, naive, and isolationist mode and is trying now to sound more like Western Christian apologetics.

If anything good in that echelon comes into English translation, please let me know. I’d be interested in addressing whatever would count now as “the best” Islamic apologetics.

Thanks a lot for your detailed and helpful response!

In retrospect, I think the question was indeed too broad. I am, however, glad that I asked it that broadly because this wide answer is in fact what I currently need.

By the way, very nice article on Islamic counter-apologetics although I think the work of Islamic apologetics in Arabic is much more advanced and sophisticated than in English. The Arabic Islamic apologetics I have in mind read widely in English but 99% of their work is in Arabic.

You would be surprised how much they are aware of Christian apologetics general work on theism and on the New Atheism writings.