| al-3ilmo noor
Status: Offline Posts: 3,111 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: enhaling the evening breeze Gender:  Way of Life: Muslim |  Re: Guide to giving dawah to Non-Muslims -
01-08-2008
 Quote: Our children and dawah
Children are the future leaders of their communities. The most important factor for dawah to continue effectively is raising callers from the new generation of Muslims living in the West who are knowledgeable about Islam.
Preparing children for dawah
It is the responsibility of the entire Muslim community, particularly Islamic schools, mosques, callers, and parents to establish interesting long-term educational programs for children, to strengthen their faith, accustom them to Islamic practices, assert their Islamic identity, and protect them from negative stereotypes.
Making dawah should be part of our children's upbringing by making them aware that they are the future carriers of Islam; and Islam is their identity; without it they are lost.
Islamic schools, mosques, and dawah centers should offer dawah training.
Children should be asked about their dawah efforts and rewarded or and kindly redirected if they err.
To have dynamic successful callers for our new generation, brilliant youth should be sent to Islamic universities to learn Arabic and obtain good knowledge and understanding of Islam.
Dawah and stereotyping of Islam
Unfortunately, in the West, Muslims are stereotyped in a very negative way. They have been associated with terrorism, suicidal attacks, mistreatment of women, etc.
Dawah in the West will not reach optimum levels of success until misconceptions about Islam and Muslims are replaced by the true image of Islam.
One of the aims of dawah should be correcting the popular untrue beliefs about Islam. Establishing strong relations with media is a very powerful tool in counter-acting the stereotyping of Muslims and improving public perception of Islam. However, only skillful and qualified people should deal with media; they should be alert and ready to act quickly whenever an incident against Islam occurs. However, one should be careful not to supply inaccurate information, or to defame or stereotype people.
Dawah in history
Islam is a natural religion; once obstacles moved from its way, it will spread like wildfire. Islam spread from Arabia to Persia and India in the east and to North Africa and Spain in the west, in a relatively short time. Many see this fast spread of Islam as a miracle that has no parallel in history.
In Islam; there is no compulsion to convert-people have always entered it willingly. The historical presence of non Muslim minorities among Muslims is evidence of tolerance in Islam.
Islam spread in the most populated Muslim countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Africa through the contact between native people and Muslim travelers, merchants who brought with them not only goods but also values of Islam-straight dealing, honesty, and generosity.
The impact of Muslims upon these communities was tremendous. In Singapore, on Arab Street, near the port where the Arab traders used to land, the residents say that the natives used to prefer to buy from Muslim merchants because they expected good treatment and fair prices.
In my opinion it is unfair to compare the spread of Islam in Asia and Africa with the spread of Islam in the West, and blame Muslims for not effectively promoting Islam in the West. Unlike the modern western world their history was free from hostility and enmity against Muslims, and therefore, their conversion to Islam was natural and easy.
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