Prophetic Dawah (The Fiqh of Dawah)

Excerpt & Review

Available from Azhar Academy in the UK: http://www.azharacademy.com/scripts/prodView.as p?idproduct=2470 & Al-Rashad BOOKS IN THE US: http://www.al-rashad.com/ 1

The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review

Review 1

“This book provides just the right

guidance in a timely manner about the various ways the Prophets and Sahaba did da'wah in non-Muslim contexts, and I believe [it] can change the future of the Western Muslim community. Definitely all Islamic organisations should seek to teach this book to the Muslim community” Bro A. Din

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review

Review 2

“What this book does is it opens the doors mysteriously to thrills unexplained-- if you wish to go in the times of the Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him), how did the companions of the Prophet(peace be upon him) exactly mimick him(peace be upon him) and received help from up above, real life people just few decades back accomplishing the unimaginable, how to handle oneself at challenging situations never faced before, use the power of dawah to get what you want, influence the good, the bad & the family and much more. check out which doors open for you and share...” Bro Khalil

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review

EXCERPT FROM PP. 133-139

Hadith 21 Ibn ‘Umar r.a relates: “As we were travelling in the desert with the Messenger of Allah ‫ ﷺ‬we saw a bedouin coming towards us. When he reached us, the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said to him: ‘Where do you wish to go?’ ‘To my family,’ replied the bedouin. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬then said: ‘Are you interested in some good?’ The bedouin asked: ‘What is it?’ The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬replied: ‘Testify that there is no object of worship except Allah alone, without any partners and that I am His slave and Messenger.’ The bedouin said: ‘And who is there to testify to what you claim?’ The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said: ‘That tree,’ pointing to a tree standing on the side of the valley. He summoned it and it miraculously started moving towards them, its roots cleaving the ground in its path until it halted in front of them. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬asked the tree to bear witness three times that what he said was true, which it did. Then it returned as it had come to its original place. The bedouin, embracing Islam, left to return to his people saying: ‘If they follow me I will bring them to you, but if they refuse I will certainly return and stay with you.’ (Sunan al-Darami, vol. 1, hadith 16( COMMENTARY The hadith is another proof that the work of Da‘wah is the duty of all Muslims, not just the scholars or learned. In fact the bedouin, feeling the preciousness of his Iman, did not need to be commanded or even encouraged to do Da‘wah, he himself felt compelled to take this religion to his people. This tells us Da‘wah is an inherent, inseparable feature of the Believer. Furthermore, we see the love of this new Muslim for Islam is so great, even at this early stage, that he is willing to leave his family and friends for the sake of Islam. Thus if a believer (even after ten or more years of residing in the House of Islam) does not see in him the fire or aspiration to call to Islam, the greatest gift to mankind, he or she seriously needs to question their understanding of Islam as well as their inner spiritual state. When one hears of the staggering efforts of Christian missionaries, who in many cases are not priests or scholars, to spread their false beliefs, one cannot help but be taken aback. One finds them ready to risk life and limb; they travel to far-off continents and even live for years in jungles to propagate their Message to God‟s slaves. They do all this because they wrngly believe it to be the truth and so are ready to give all. It follows, the Muslim whose religion is so manifestly the Truth, as testified by Allah‟s ta`ala faultless Book and its unparalleled teachings, should be ever-ready and packed with zeal to take this message to the furthest corners of the world. The Efforts of the Callers to Misguidance Today in the West there are many powerful Christian organisations that train hundreds of willing and devoted missionaries and despatch them to every country in the world. They live in those foreign lands for years on end, often having bade farewell to their families, friends

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review and comfortable lifestyles they enjoyed, all so the misguided may find Jesus. The Southern Baptists, for example who are based in Richmond, Virginia USA, have a fully equipped state of the art Missionary Learning Centre where the four hundred new missionaries each year spend the final seven weeks of their training. The recruits are almost always young, white, married couples with children. Typically, both partners will have received formal theological training and they will be embarking upon a lifetime career. Like other Americans working abroad, they will have a proper career structure, educational and health benefits, pension schemes and generous salaries. Few of them will have had much experience of cultures outside the United States or any close encounter with real poverty. At the centre the families are housed in specially designed accommodation with shared kitchens and dayrooms all of which is intended to prepare them for future curtailments of their privacy. A certain amount of “ethnic” cooking is introduced into the diet and the children are gospel in its untrammelled essence.” The following are brief profiles of just a few of these callers to misguidance, some of them belong to Missionaries like the one mentioned above, while others work independently. Reverend Paul Freyburg and his wife are Americans who left their comfortable life, friends and family and settled in Papua New Guinea. They remained there for fifty years mastering the indigenous language and converting many people to Chistianity. Then there are Bob Kennel and George Walker who belong to NTM (New Tribe Mission). Their Organisation has an annual income of fifteen million dollars and finances 1500 full time trained missionaries who are scattered throughout the world. It even owns its own airline called Tribal Air which transports missionaries easily to any place in the world. As for Bob and George, for the last ten years they have been concentrating their missionary efforts on the Bisoria people “who inhabit the dense forests and mountains of the Sepik River Region.” Father Hans Burgmen displayed a rare level of sacrifice in his missionary work. He left his easy and coveted life in England for the harshness of Western Kenya. “He was once the Vicar General of Mill Hill Missionaries in North London. As a missionary priest he might have pursued an academic career in Europe. As a missionary priest he might have come to the comparative comfort of a rural mission, or to the protected Institutional environment of a school or hospital compound. Instead he chose to live in Pandapieri, a shanty town where sanitation is poor and malaria is endemic. At night he sleeps in the humble homes of his parishioners: the former Vicar General beds down on a reed mat on a beaten mud floor.” Such dedication is not something new and examples are found throughout history. In the 1890s the Missionary Theodore Pennell took upon himself the challenge of converting the Muslims of Afghanistan. He dressed like the Muslims, learnt their language and served them to enable him to impart the Christian message. Realising the Muslims would never tolerate the open propagation of Christianity he adopted a novel and more indirect approach, what he termed “medical missions,” and which was copied by many other missionaries and is still being used till today. In 1893 he set up a hospital in Bannu, he would lovingly treat patients and at the same time acquaint them to the Christian teachings. The Hospital he set up is still operating today one hundred years later. William Carey went to India in 1873 to spread Christianity. He lived there for thirty years. During this time he mastered Bengali, Sanskrit and Marathi and with the help of his team of missionaries completed six translations of the Bible and twenty-three complete translations of the New Testament. One can find a plethora of examples in the books written on this subject and on missionary web-sites. One will read with disbelief the number of whole families who, all keen on spreading Christianity, abandon their homes and establish themselves in the remotest and most unaccommodating of lands.

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review Who is Upon the Truth? Is the religion of a Muslim of less value to him than a Christian‟s religion is to him? Is Islam not so precious that such efforts be made for its sake? Yet we find it hard to find such examples among Muslims today; yet to work to spread the pure teachings of Islam is comparatively easier for whereas Allah Most High is working against those who call to falsehood He is very close to and supportive of those who go in His path to spread His guidance and call to Him. Allah says in the Holy Qur‟an: “O you who believe! If you help Allah He will help you and make your foothold firm. As for those who disbelieve for them is destruction and He will render their deeds vain. That is because they hate that which Allah has sent down, so he has made their deeds fruitless…. That is because Allah is the patron and friend of those who believe and the disbelievers have no patron” (Qur‟an 47:7-11). In another place He says: “We verily do help Our Messengers and those who believe, in the life of the World and on the day the witnesses stand up” (Qur‟an 51:40). And in another verse He says: “Indeed He (Allah) will come to the help of those who help Him. And indeed Allah is mighty and powerful” (40:22). One would however also be mistaken if one thought there were no servants of Allah Most High left who have believed in the above promise of their Lord and given even greater sacrifices than those mentioned above. One will find throughout Islamic History that there have been such golden examples. Some of these will be found scattered throughout this book. But I will take this opportunity to record the example of one particular heroine of Islam, an amazing sister from the Republic of Uzbekistan. During the brutal reign of communism over the former soviet republics, Islam, despite being the religion of as much as 90% in some states of Central Asia, was targeted to be wiped out completely from political, social and cultural life. Books on Islam were banned by the soviet regime and Madrasas were closed down. The ubiquitous houses of Allah that housed worshippers were forcibly given over to other purposes. This was a naked and savage attack to remove Islam from hearts of the people. It was during this dangerous time, a young Muslim woman from Samarkand, seeing her fellow sisters being seduced away from the preciousness of their Iman and Faith took a historic stand. Despite the obvious threat to her life and honour, she passed her days and nights of her youth tirelessly appealing to her fellow sisters to remain firm in their faith and not to be taken in by the communist propaganda. Shaikh Dhulfiqar Ahmad on a visit to Samarkand in 1994 met with this now ninety year old grandmother and recounts the experience in the following words: “After the completion of the Friday prayer some men approached me and said: „Would you please come with us to our home, our mother wishes to meet with you.‟ I apologised that I could not come as so many people had come here to see me and I could not leave them. The aged Mufti of Samarkand was standing next to me at the time and asked me not to refuse them and that it was necessary to go to see her, promising to come with me. “On the way the Mufti informed me that the mother of these men is a Mujahidah and a true Believer. When the communist revolution occurred she was about twenty, nearly seventy years had now passed and she had reached ninety years of age. In that age, when communism was at its height, Allah had given her such strong faith that in the face of the flood of atheism this young woman remained steadfastly calling to the religion. She would speak to other women for hours and only rest having brought them back to Islam and having them recite the

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©

Excerpt & Review Kalima. At that time we were anxious for her safety, lest the Godless army arrest her and either rape her or execute her. In fact we would advise her against this and tell her that she

was a young woman and her honour and life were at risk. Do not speak about Islam so openly. She however would reply: „My honour and my life are not more precious than Islam. If my life is taken in the way of Allah it does not matter.‟ Thus she continued to publicly call women back to Islam leading countless numbers of women to repent and come back to Islam from Atheism. We feared for her day and night, all the scholars were worried about her that any day now she will be caught and humiliated publicly by being stripped or executed. She nonetheless remained staunch and continued like this telling them about Islam for seventy years and was the cause for thousands of women becoming Muslim. Presently she is ill, aged and all her time is spent resting in her bed. Someone told her that a scholar had come from Pakistan and she said she wished to speak to you. It was for this reason I told you not to refuse When I heard this I was filled with happiness, such a pious woman, I thought, I must go to her and ask her to pray for me. When we arrived at her home, her bed had been brought out into the courtyard. I walked to within one metre from her bed and said: ‘As-salam alaikum, we have come for your Du‘as.’ When the interpreter told her this she raised her hands and in her weak voice said: „O Allah, protect our Iman.’ These words brought tears into my eyes and it was that day I realised the value of Iman.”

End of Excerpt, From pp. 133-139 Book Description There are few who will disagree that the duty of D`awah, or calling, to Islam has been severely neglected in our times when the need for it is more pronounced than ever. It is either not undertaken altogether, or if it is performed, then it is undertaken without the knowledge of the etiquette, preconditions, and general teachings that the sacred sources of Islam have provided for it. Therefore, the Da'wah is many times bereft of the results and blessings that could be attained. The Fiqh of Da'wah attempts to explain this duty in a detailed and thorough way. It is based on a comprehensive collection of forty hadiths pertaining to the preaching methods of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) as well as his teachings regarding Da'wah to Allah. The commentary then elaborates upon the hadiths, carefully outlining the virtue, principles, conditions, and etiquette of this lofty duty. Furthermore, the work documents a number of practical examples from the lives of the pious predecessors and from those more recent, showing how they were prepared to make Da'wah even in the most inhospitable of circumstances. This work should prove an indispensable guide for anyone who wishes to seriously understand and practice this forgotten obligation in the twenty-first century.

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The Fiqh of Da`wah, Mufti Muhammad Sajaad©