Debate flagged Questions and Answers need clarification

Question

I faced situations like this answer: "Whoever kills a person.." This one looks like create debate.

And a better example: Is it halal in Islam to work as a web/graphics designer? Question and some answers( and deleted answers, like @saadet 's ; deleted by @goldPseudo) seems like create debate. However, this is a SE site and if you have resources to disprove claims made by original poster(OP), you should answer it.

There are different approaches to Islam, and every point of view should be represented on answers. This is the scientific way to approach. And it could be in different answers, because not everybody knows about ever point of view. Instead of deleting answer, debate like comments should be eliminated. If I have resources I should able to add this resources to answer.

Another thing to add this, in this question questioner claimed something like "..we know animal picture and others are not halal.." and ask questions based on this. However, OP doesn't prove his claim. If there is a way to say this is wrong, in one answer, this should be represented. We cant just accept every claim here without prove. It seems to me, if someone says "water is not exist on earth, and so i have to go to mars, tell me which way is?" and if i have a proof which shows water on earth, shouldn't i add this to answer? Yeah, I know he wants to learn ways to mars. My answers irrelevant to last point of the question, but if question somehow start from wrong information, I should able to intercept and add information there.

Another example for this view is; if I ask question like "We know there are two Gods in Islam, can I worship to one mornings and other one to afternoon?" Users of this site shouldn't intercept my first believe then try to answer afterwards? I can't see any of benefits of this approach. Can someone enlighten me?

Answer 1

I think the way to handle when you see a claim that is not a consensus view is to comment under the post and ask the OP to cite a reference for the claim and add an "according to X ..." clause to the claim. Not only this resolves the issue it also provides context that can help answer the question the OP has.

Answer 2

Fundamentally, Islam Stack Exchange a Q&A site. People ask questions, we answer those questions.

This may seem obvious, but I often feel that I need to reinforce it. Now, keeping that in mind, consider these two follow-ups:

• Does representing every point of view in an answer help the questioner get his answer?
• Does proving or disproving claims made in the question help the questioner get his answer?

Now I'll admit that, yes, sometimes they do. However, it is so so often the case that people arguing for the above are doing so for entirely the wrong reasons: Rather than out of any concern for helping the questioner himself get a useful answer, they are more interested in promoting their own theological point of view.

Just take a look on the Internet; there are countless Islamic fora out there which already encourage that sort of thing. Back-and-forth attempts to prove and disprove each others claims, often repeating the same arguments over and over ad-nauseum. In other words, noise: The people who have actual questions are more likely to end up even more confused afterwards.

The Stack Exchange model is explicitly designed to cut through all that: We're here to give people answers, not noise. In other words, we're here for the people who are tired of having to pick through pages and pages of arguing and conflicting opinions in order to find that one pure nugget of actual answer.

As part of that philosophy, yes if a question is asked under false assumptions, it could be useful to call that out and show the questioner the truth of things: That will help him toward a useful answer to his question. However, it is vitally important to know the difference between "false assumptions" and "difference of opinion".

We are open to all interpretations of Islam: So far as this site is concerned, that means any and every group that self-identifies as Muslim. So whereas your hypothetical "We know there are two Gods in Islam…" would (to the best of my knowledge) be factually untrue for any interpretation of Islam — and thus reasonable to correct the questioner on — the same cannot be said of "…animal picture and others are not halal…": There are well-known scholars and schools of jurisprudence that make exactly that claim, and there are many people who follow them.

And if a questioner is asking about something particular to the school/sect/interpretation he chooses to follow — be that a mainstream, a minority, or even a fringe interpretation — giving him a bunch of answers from other perspectives does not help him at all, and neither does "disproving" his beliefs. All that's really likely to do is convince him that Islam Stack Exchange is actually not a good place to find useful answers after all (which is sorta exactly not what we're going for here…)

As you say, we shouldn't just accept every claim here without proof, and nobody's asking you to. But just because the questioner is unwilling or unable to prove the interpretation of Islam that he chooses to believe (be that from lack of interest or lack of knowledge) shouldn't preclude him from asking questions about it, and whether or not others happen to agree with him shouldn't stop him from being given the same respect as anyone else on this site.