Author: Sabour Al-Kandari

As-Salaamu ‘alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wabarakatu,

Bismillah, Wa-alhamdulillah, wasalatu wasalam ‘ala Rasoolillah.

Islam Awareness Week is upon us again, alhamdulillah! A lot of brothers and sisters are really excited to take advantage of another opportunity to do their part and convey the beautiful message of Al-Islam. The purpose of this short post is to, insh’Allah, provide some additional and timely beneficial reminders to keep everyone charged up for da’wah for the rest of the week.

Let’s start from the top; the word da’wah (دعوة) itself refers to calling, or inviting. That’s an important thing to keep in mind, because a lot of brothers and sisters sometimes think IAW stands for Debating-People-Into-A-Corner-Week. Think about it, how do you behave when you’re inviting someone over to your house? Do you make the person feel comfortable and welcome with simple and straightforward speech, or do you try to pull out your tabulated statistical data of past invite declines paired with the mean travel distance, standard deviation (all with sample calculations in the appendix, of course) down their throats? Of course there is a time and a place to debate, but chances are if you try to debate everyone you see you’re going to get frustrated pretty fast and end up eating all of our shahadah candy.

Speaking of shahada’s, it’s easy for us to get overwhelmed when we don’t see the results we’d like. Our duty is very clear; it is only to convey the message as best as possible. Allah (subhana wat’ala) says in the Qur’an:

مَّا عَلَى ٱلرَّسُولِ إِلَّا ٱلۡبَلَـٰغُ‌ۗ
“The Messenger’s duty is but to convey the Message.”
[al-Qur’aan, al-Maai`dah 5:99]

Look at the examples of the Prophets, they went through trial after trial, hardship after hardship, but remained determined and steadfast upon their noble duty. Nuh (‘alayhi salam) spent 950 years calling to tawheed! Take that in for a second, nine-hundred and fifty years! And even after that, Allah says in the Qur’an:

وَمَآ ءَامَنَ مَعَهُ ۥۤ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ۬
And none believed with him, except a few.”
(Al-Qur’an, Hud 11:40)

This should be enough for us to seriously question why we get discouraged so fast after just a couple of minutes of dealing with a philosopher who thinks everything is a dream. Even without direct results, we are rewarded for our intentions; in fact there are countless rewards for the one striving in da’wah.

The Prophet sualAllahu ‘alayhi wasalam said:

من دعا إلى هدى كان له من الأجر مثل أجور من تبعه لا ينقص ذلك من أجورهم شيئاً , ومن دعا إلى ضلالة كان عليه من الإثم ، مثل آثام من تبعه لا ينقص ذلك من آثامهم  شيئاً

“Whoever calls others to guidance will have a reward like the rewards of those who follow him, without that detracting from their reward in any way. And whoever calls others to misguidance will have a burden of sin like the burden of those who follow him, without that detracting from their burden in any way.”
(Narrated by Muslim, 2674)

Allah (subhana wat’ala) has given us a very powerful incentive not only to be very hesitant in our speech, but to also be really enthusiastic in our efforts to spread haqq. Imagine if Allah guides someone to Islam through you, or one brother or sister through you to establish their salah, or to remove a serious sin from their life.  Ponder for a moment, if Allah guides someone to start praying through you, and that person then has the same effect on two other people (and so on), that’s multiplied by a factor of Σ2n for each kink in the chain, so for 10 people that’s like x2047! This is just loose-pondering and I don’t want to start some sort of reward calculator trend (so don’t try to make an iPhone app), but just reflect on the immensity of the bounties that Ar-Rahman showers us with!

Finally, we can’t forget that da’wah includes educating Muslims as well, so remember to really go the extra mile in being inviting to Muslims you haven’t seen around, or those that you see but don’t know too well.

May Allah accept from us our efforts, and make us amongst those who strive in his cause. Ameen!