Dawah, in Islamic perspective, is the process of calling, conveying, inviting people towards the Message of Islam, towards Allah, towards the Truth, towards the right path prescribed by the Almighty for all mankind. It is to invite and encourage people to voluntarily submit to the Will of Allah, by worshipping Him alone and following His Commandments.
Dawah, in essence, was the call of all the Messengers and Prophets of Allah. They invited people out of darkness (ignorance) into light (knowledge) by leading them to worship the One True God and shun false deities. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was the last and final Prophet and Messenger of Allah sent to mankind. With Prophethood coming to a close, it becomes a noble obligation for all Muslims to convey the Message of Allah and invite mankind to the truth. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in his Farewell Sermon, concluded with the words, ‘Let those who are present, convey to those who are not present.’ Allah states in the Qur’an: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction and argue with them in the best manner possible. Indeed, your Lord is Most Knowing of who has strayed from His way, and He is Most Knowing of who is [rightly] guided.” (Qur’an 16:125)
Although Dawah is obligatory for all Muslims, it should not be misunderstood as the struggle to convert people to Islam. In fact, Islam never declared the conversion of people to the faith as an obligation of Muslims. Guidance comes only from Allah, the Almighty. Only He knows who is worthy of and qualified for His guidance. He tells his Messenger in the Qur’an: “Indeed, [O Muhammad], you do not guide whom you like, but Allah guides whom He wills. And He is most knowing of the [rightly] guided.” (Qur’an 28:56) The job and duty of a Dae’e is to present before others the Message in clear terms, and as nicely as possible and then leave the rest to Allah. As stated in the Qur’an, “Your duty is only to convey the message; and on Us is the reckoning.” (Qur’an 13:40)
Social Media: A gift from Allah
Almost 1500 years after the departure of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Allah gave the biggest Dawah tool to the Muslims in the form of Social Media. It has provided immense possibilities for Dawah and it now becomes the duty of all Muslims to put this tool to its best use. Dawah through Social Media would certainly be the most appropriate way to show our gratitude to Allah for this great gift. Social Media, it can easily be said, is the best medium a Daeé would wish for.
Social Media Platforms
Most of Dawah work being done on Social Media is through the popular platforms used by the masses like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc. All these Social Media platforms, although quite different from each other, act as virtual meeting grounds for people. They may be pure socialising ones like Facebook, WhatsApp & LinkedIn; microblogging sites like Twitter; photo sharing platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest and Instagram; video sharing ones like YouTube or knowledge sharing ones like Quora. A Daeé, depending upon his interest, can use any or all of these for propagating the message of Islam in various ways.
Facebook can be considered one of the best social media platforms for Dawah as it is the world’s largest, with nearly 2.41 million monthly active users, and with the most diverse audience. It has users of all ages and recent statistics shows that people with ages 25-34 make up its largest user base. It would not be off the mark to say that anyone who is there on Social Media is there on Facebook. Dawah messages can be shared on Facebook in many ways: Texts, Graphics and Videos. Facebook Live is also a superb way to increase social media engagement. Facebook pages and groups facility can also be effectively used for Dawah.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site launched in 2006, and after Facebook, is undoubtedly one of the most popular social media platforms available today, with 100 million daily active users and 500 million tweets sent daily. Twitter engagement Campaign and Twitter Trending are great options available on Twitter that help a Daeé reach out to a large number of people for Dawah.
YouTube is one of the most popular video sharing platforms that is being widely used for Dawah. Every minute of every day, more than 35 hours of videos are being uploaded to YouTube and around 6 billion hours of videos are watched every month. Attractive and eye-catching Dawah videos uploaded on YouTube can find huge audience and unlimited reach. Of the billions of videos available on YouTube, there are a huge number of videos uploaded for Dawah purpose by Dae’es from around the world and these have been very effective in spreading the message of Islam.
Quora is a knowledge seeking blogging site based on questions and answers. A lot of questions these days are on Islam, Muslims, Qur’an, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ etc. It provides a great Dawah opportunity to answer these questions in a way that would create in the reader an urge to read the Qur’an and to know more about Islam. It has around 300 million registered users.
Coordination on Social Media
It is heartening to see Social Media abuzz with people engaged in Dawah. There are people on Facebook who share ayahs from the Qur’an every day. There are people who share a Hadith every day. Some of them are doing it from their profiles, while others have created attractive pages to promote the same. There are many Facebook groups and pages dedicated to questions and answers. Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Quora and all other platforms have their share of Dawah workers who are churning out impressive material 24×7 with magnificent results.
It, however, appears that these are individual and independent efforts. They would have borne more fruits if some sort of coordination existed between them and they were knit together in a Network. Muslim organisations, with nationwide network, should seriously think of setting up such Social Media Dawah Networks with a National Coordinator and a full-fledged team of experts in various requisite fields working under him. A national research team should also be set up to keep track of the national and international discourses in the media, both traditional and social, and how these could be converted into opportunities for Dawah. Efforts are also required to coordinate responses to the barrage of fake news being churned out regularly to tarnish the image of Islam and Muslims.
Social Media Ethics
We believe that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was sent to raise morality to its utmost level. For a Muslim, no part of his life is exempted from the moral bindings of Islam and more so when inviting people towards Islam and presenting the teachings of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. A Daeé needs to take utmost care to follow, in letter and spirit, the ethics laid down by Islam, or else, he is more likely to become a source of alienation rather than a source of attraction towards Allah’s Guidance. The saying that end justifies means, doesn’t hold much water in the way of Islamic Dawah.