(O Prophet), call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and reason with them in the best manner possible. (Al-Nahl: 125)
In cricket primary objective of a bowler is to get the batsman out. Sometimes the secondary objective i.e. preventing him from scoring runs becomes equally important especially in ODIs. A fast-bowler uses Full toss, Yorker, Bouncer, Inswinger, Leg cutter, Off cutter, Outswinger, Reverse swinger, Slower-ball, etc. to deceive batsman into making mistakes and losing his wicket. A spin-bowler employs wide ranging techniques like Arm ball, Leg break, Off break, Doosra, Teesra, Flipper, Googly, Carom ball, Slider, etc. to achieve the same objective. If a bowler always bowls a Bouncer or Flipper (or any other variety of delivery for that matter), he is bound to be hit for runs (if not for boundaries) on every ball. Effective bowler in cricket can only be one who can employ a wide range of techniques as per the circumstances and weak points of the specific batsman. What is truth in cricket is also true for life… and Dawah as well if we straightaway come to the topic.
What prompted me to start like this is the fact that today some specific ‘tools’ have been popularised (universalised?) by some circles not only as one of the most effective, not even as most effective but practically as the only effective tool of Dawah. A critical analysis of other religious scriptures, distribution of copies of the Qur’ān and literature, individual contacts, social networking, Dawah squads, appeal to emotions, appeal to rationality, etc; all these strategies are important and effective, and we Muslims should learn and adopt all as according to given addressees and circumstances. Insistence only on one is not only against rationality but against sunnah as well.
A brief analysis of Prophetic life reveals that he never had a set-pattern of calling people to Islam. His strategies varied considering the environment, mood and intellectual calibre of his addressees. No need to add that though strategies varied, the essential characteristics of Dawah remained one and the same. Calling people towards the fundamentals of Islam i.e. Tawheed, Risalah, and Akhirah always remained pivotal in all his Dawah efforts. I think this point needs some illustration.
As we know Prophets were not sent in vacuum but in societies full of human beings and so they dealt with social issues or in more appropriate parlance utilised these social issues for Dawah work. All of them first and foremost called people towards Allah, “fear Allah, keep your duty to Him, and obey me” and then dealt with social issues like lavish constructions, sodomy, cheating and corruption, etc. (see Surah Shuara 123-191). Likewise, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) too called people towards Allah but also dealt with social issues like good treatment to slaves, security of girl child, etc.
When Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) was assigned prophethood, most fertile of Arab lands like Syria, Yemen were under the yoke of Byzantine and Persian rules respectively. The Arabian society was characterised by violation of human rights, some people enjoyed monopolies while others begged for necessities. Standards of morality were at the lowest ebb with drinking, violence, oppression, gambling, rapes, etc being order of the day. Still the Prophet, instead of calling a movement either for freedom or social justice or moral upbringing, called people towards their Creator and only dealt with other issues at subsidiary level. In short, instead of treating each and every fruit of evil, he struck the root cause of evil, and with elimination of this root cause i.e. people had forgotten their creator all branches and fruits of evil died their own ‘natural’ death.
The lesson to be learnt here is that a Da’ee should never lose his focus from the core issue (i.e. Islamic beliefs) while dealing with myriad of societal problems, instead he should try to deal with societal issues from an Islamic perspective and utilise them for Dawah purposes.
Use of popular media (minus its unethical means) and public places for spreading Dawah was an important strategy employed by the Blessed Prophet. It is like ‘Rain’ approach to farming. Rain graces the earth uniformly. Despite this equal attention (other factors being constant), areas which are more fertile bear fruit while rain proves of no use to barren lands. Prophetic sermon from Mount Safa, his loud recitations of the Qur’ān in K’aba, his wandering with his message during Hajj, trade and market seasons of Ukaaz, Majinnah and Dhil-Majaaz, etc., his letters to the various kings could all be clubbed together under this head.
On the other hand, individual and personal contacts too were employed to enhance Dawah. It is like ‘Irrigation’ approach to farming, where a particular field is targeted and then worked upon to bear fruit. The Prophet’s personal meets with his friends, family members, chieftains of Quraish and other outsiders was something that can be elaborated upon under this head. Prayers for Umar’s or Abu Jahl’s acceptance of Islam shows that they were special targets of Prophetic Dawah. Let me make very clear that this classification is not a watertight distribution but somewhat overlapping. The division is more of a heuristic approach to understand the Prophetic method of Dawah clearly and adopt the same in our lives.
Prophet’s Dawah was voluntary. The Prophet was given many ‘offers’ of exorbitant wealth, kingship, and marriage with most beautiful of girls, etc. but like every other prophet, his reply was: I do not ask you for any reward for conveying this Qur’ān (Al-An’aam: 90). It is indeed clear that professional preaching does not yield results that a Muslim can achieve through ‘natural’ Dawah work in his day-to-day life. Professional preaching (Tabligh) in response to Arya Samaj’s Shuddhi movement proved a failure in 1920s only because general people doubted the sincerity of the professional preachers.
Now let us proceed to discuss the Prophet’s strategies to make Dawah more effective and appealing.
The Blessed Prophet first used to listen to all that the addressee has to say. He was a patient listener, and not the one who used to speak on and on and thrust his ideas (however true) upon others through his loquaciousness and verbosity. He was not the one who considers himself too wise or too busy to ‘waste’ his time and energy in listening to others’ thoughts. He gave the opposite person importance and opportunity to speak his heart out (whatever he has to say). In normal circumstances, he would not start speaking before the other person stopped, he never interrupted in between. Then it was his usual habit to start speaking with the question, “Are you finished or do you have anything else to say?” With this approach and methodology, he made himself even more respectful in the eyes of others sheer by giving them respect, by hearing them attentively. With this he achieved a moral right to be heard attentively in return. When his turn would come, he would speak shortly in crispy and eloquent sentences, to the point, avoiding ruthless personal criticism and taunts, and most of the time reciting some Qur’ānic verses to cast a magical spell.
This method, even if not successful in ‘converting’ a person, would certainly earn respect and adulation for Da’ee and a soft corner for Dawah itself. The Prophet’s discussions with those who came up to him with choices of kingship of Makkah, wealth and most beautiful girl if only he abstains from preaching Islam, and with those who proposed a compromising approach that they will worship Allah one year and in return Muslims should worship their gods next year, etc. are best examples of this approach and methodology.
To one’s own friends and family members, the method of Dawah will be different. It will be more intimate and informal. The Blessed Prophet invited his family and clan for feast many times just in order to convey the message of Islam in the end. Once the Prophet’s uncle Hamza beat Abu Jahl on learning that the later had severely abused and rebuked the Prophet. After punishing Abu Jahl, he came to the Prophet and said, “I have taken your revenge from Abu Jahl, my son!” The Prophet replied: “You cannot make me happy through these tricks.” Then Hamza asked how he could make his beloved nephew happy. The Prophet said, “By embracing Islam!” Not many days had passed since then that Hamza eventually came into the fold of Islam.
The Blessed Prophet established a sense of belonging in the heart of addressees. He would speak in their own dialectics. He would try to find some or other kind of common link with the addressee. Once a slave from Nineveh met him. The Prophet, knowing that he is Christian, said, ‘Prophet Yunus was also from Nineveh and I am his brother (a Prophet)’. In short, he didn’t use the same stick for everyone. This reality makes itself manifest when we learn that to different people’s question that ‘how could we attain jannah?’ his reply was different as according to the capacities of the questioners. He asked one to fulfil only five obligations of Islam, someone else to speak the truth, yet some other person to control his anger, next to give ‘loan’ to Allah, and another fellow to attain martyrdom, etc.
Softness and tenderness was an important factor in the spreading of the Prophetic Dawah. As in the Qur’ān it is mentioned that, (O Prophet), it was thanks to Allah’s mercy that you were gentle to them. Had you been rough, hard-heartened, they would surely have scattered away from you. (Aal e Imran: 159). The incident of the Jew is rousing, who was harshly demanding his due from the Prophet before the due time but was dealt with such respect that at last he embraced Islam.
Calling people towards eternal bliss in Paradise and admonishing them from the torment of hell-fire was an inseparable aspect of Prophet’s Dawah. For e.g. let us recall the Prophetic call from Mount Safa where he admonished his kinsmen thus, “O people of Quraish, buy yourselves from Allah, I cannot avail you at all against Allah; O sons of Abd al-Muttalib, I cannot avail you at all against Allah; O Abbas bin ‘Abd al- Muttalib (Prophet’s uncle), I cannot avail you at all against Allah; O Safiya (Prophet’s aunt), I cannot avail you at all against Allah; O Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, ask me whatever you like, but I cannot avail you at all against Allah”.
Squad work was also an important strategy of Prophetic Dawah in which he used to form and send squads for Dawah work in different clans and areas. Different sarayas which are commonly understood as battles in which the Prophet did not participate were actually not battles but Dawah expeditions for e.g. Saraya-e-Bir-Maoona, etc.
Another feature of Prophetic Dawah was the fact that he used to invoke a person’s deepest self-interest in order to acquaint him with Islam. And this self-interest was not just betterment in afterlife. For e.g.: once the Prophet asked Abu Jahl and co., “Will you accept a kalma by embracing which you will dominate over the whole world?”, “Yes! Why not? We are ready to accept ten such kalmas,” Abu Jahl replied. Then the Prophet told him that this kalma is la ilaha illallah. Through such tactics the Prophet conveyed the message to his addresses that in the long run their most intimate of desires could be attained in most perfect and best terms only if they accept Islam.
An English saying goes, ‘to be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work’. Dawah is such work with which our predecessors had fallen in love. It was their highest priority and not some part-time or vocational assignment. Have we not read that the Prophet who had just lain down in the bed with extreme fever (after returning from a Dawah visit) got up on hearing the news of arrival of some new caravan in Makkah that he may convey the message of Islam to them? When his beloved wife asked him to relax, he said how could he when he fears that if he misses the caravan he could be held accountable on the Day of Judgement. This sense of responsibility and accountability is essential in order to fulfil the task of Dawah successfully. The Blessed Prophet’s craving that people would accept Islam and save themselves from hell was so that the Qur’ān has this to say:
(O Muhammad), if they do not believe in this Message, you will perhaps torment yourself to death with grief, sorrowing over them. (Al-Kahf: 6)
(O Muhammad), you will perhaps grieve yourself to death because these people do not believe. (Al-Shuara: 3)
Besides this sense of responsibility and accountability, there should be extreme love and care for the addressee. This love and care was one of the most noticeable features of Prophet’s Dawah. This quality of the Prophet was manifest especially during his visit to Taif. The people who didn’t listen to him, who humiliated him, who made him bleed profusely, were so mercifully condoned by the Prophet on the pretext that, “If not they, may be their coming generations will embrace Islam” – Subhanallah! In doing so the Prophet was in fact following the Quranic injunctions:
(O Prophet), good and evil are not equal. Repel (evil) with that which is good, and you will see that he, between whom and you there was enmity, shall become as if he were a bosom friend (of yours). (Ha Mim Al-Sajda: 34)
Andrew Carnegie has said, “Dealing with people is a lot like digging for GOLD: When you go digging for an ounce of gold, you have to move tons of dirt. But when you go digging, you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.” The same logic applies in Dawah work as well. If one expects to sow a seed in one moment and pluck fruit in another, he could not prove to be a good Da’ee. It is here that the analogy of Da’ee with a bowler is best illustrated. Even best of the bowlers in the world bowl extensively, throws wide and no-balls, shed runs, hit for fours and sixes, and it is only on a couple of those lucky balls which earns him wicket in which his credibility as a bowler lies. This patience and perseverance of a bowler is extremely essential for a Da’ee.
To be a bowler, you don’t need to attend hi-fi coaching. To bowl, you just need a ball and will to bowl. With a ball in the hand and will to bowl in the heart, when you first reach the ground to face the batsman, your first ball will crawl over the pitch barely able to reach the crease. It will be followed by dozens of wide and no balls; some balls will go over the batsman in the gloves of wicketkeeper, others over him as well, across the boundary line. Then the umpire may whisper in your ear that your action is not appropriate. After all this, when your first ‘legal’ ball will reach the batsman, he may send it flying for six for several times. It is only after going through this ‘humiliating’ process that you could aspire to be a Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne.
In the same manner, you have to hit the grounds for Dawah work. You must train yourself, polish your arguments, read extensively but your actual training centre will only be your Dawah field. You may commit mistakes but these mistakes will teach you lessons that thousands of books and lectures could not. Every question that your addressee asks and whose answer you don’t know will prompt you to increase your knowledge, every taunt of your addressee on your personality will help you improve your personality. Believe me, if you get busy in Dawah work sincerely, the day is not far when you will notice that whatever you are preaching, you are automatically practising yourself. Dawah work will improve your personality, skills, character and most important of all, it will be an asset for the afterlife.
Remember! Dawah is The Antidote for poisons of biases against Islam and Muslims. Dawah is The Only Hope of the survival of Muslims. Dawah is The Key with which Muslims can open the latched doors of success and glory. Dawah is The Lifeblood of the Ummah. Dawah is The Greatest Sunnah of the Prophet as the Qur’ān mentions:
This is my way: I call you to Allah (Yusuf: 108)
Which is your way? Decide yourself!