How Muslim Scholars Profit from Islam

This topic of “you’re doing this for money” comes up a lot. Sometimes its worded less strongly, sometimes its more strongly worded like the below:

I’m going to address this from several angles.

1. This is an ad-hominem
2. Muslims do the same
3. I already have a highly paying full-time job
4. The money helps me do more

First point — This is a circumstantial ad hominem.

Circumstantial Ad Hominem occurs when someone attacks a claim by saying that the person making the claim is only making it because it’s in his interest or because of their circumstances. This actually has no bearing on whether or not the claim is true or false.

I think this is self explanatory. My points don’t become false even if I benefit personally from saying them. So this can be thrown out immediately.

Second point —Muslims do the same! Yasir Qadhi, Zakir Naik, Yusuf Estes, Bilal Philips, all of them make money talking about Islam. Jonathan Brown makes money writing books about Islam. He holds the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization at…