Our responsibility towards non-Muslims is to bring the truth to them in the form of the message of Islam. God’s message must reach all His creatures, so that none may say in the Hereafter that he was left in a state of unawareness of the truth.
Man has been placed in this world so that he may be tested. The Quran says: “He created life and death that He might put you to the test and find out which of you acquitted himself best. He is the Mighty, the Forgiving one” (67:2).
This is a very serious situation, for it means that man’s end in the hereafter will depend on his attitude in his worldly life, his end being either Heaven or eternal Hell. Owing to the seriousness of the situation, God made two special arrangements to warn mankind. First, He gave everyone the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. “And inspired it (man’s soul) with knowledge of right and wrong.” (91:8).
This consciousness of Truth was instilled into man’s nature on the very first day of creation:
When your Lord brought forth descendants from the loins of Adam’s children, and made them testify themselves, (He said): ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They replied: ‘We bear witness that You are.’ This He did lest you should say on the Day of Ressurrection: ‘We had no knowledge of that’ (7:172).
Then after this initial measure at the level of nature He sent to mankind a series of prophets, so that a knowledge of reality might be conveyed to every man by a human being who had been chosen by God for this purpose. These prophets were “messengers who brought good news to mankind and admonished them, so that they might have no plea against God after their coming.” (4:165).
This chain of prophets started with the beginning of life. Adam was not only the first man but also the first prophet. In the seventh century a.d., God willed that the chain of prophethood be terminated. Muhammad, on him be peace, was the last of God’s messengers. But so far as the delivering of God’s message is concerned, it is still as essential to do so as before. For this task now the followers of Muhammad on him be peace, have been chosen. As the Quran says, “He has chosen you… He has given you the name of Muslims so that His Messenger may testify you, and that you yourselves may testify your fellowmen” (22:78). The final prophet has borne full witness to the Truth, and now it is our responsibility to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet, in testifying to the Truth to the nations of the world, until the Day of Judgement.
This is not a subsidiary task but the very raison d’etre of the Muslim Ummah. According to the Quran, the establishment of Muhammad’s prophethood rested in the eyes of God on the fact that he scrupulously fulfilled his duty, i.e., he conveyed the message of God to his hearers. Had the prophet failed to perform this task, the duty of prophethood would have been left incomplete.
“O Messenger, proclaim what is revealed to you from your Lord; if you do not, you will not have conveyed His message” (5:67). This responsibility which the Prophet bore, is also the responsibility of his followers (12:108).
Just as the establishment of Muhammad’s prophethood rested on his conveying God’s guidance to the people, similarly the followers of Muhammad are entitled to be called Ummah of the Prophet Muhammad only if they continue to pass on God’s message to posterity. So we shall deserve the title of being the Prophet’s Ummah only if we continue to perform his task, i.e. carry his message from generation to generation till the Last Day. A believer must follow Islam (submission to God) till his last breath. Failing to do so tantamounts to risking hellfire. This not only compels one to follow the true religion oneself, but also gives one the zeal to struggle to save other human beings from this danger. Ibn Abd Al-Bar relates that, according to Muawiyah ibn Heeda Qushayri, when the Prophet invited the latter to Islam, he also said:
“Why should I have held you by the waist to save you from the fire if not that my God will call me and will surely ask me, ‘Did you convey My message to My servants? Then I shall be able to say, ‘Yes, my God, I conveyed it to them.’ Listen, those of you who are present must convey this message to those who are absent.” (Al-Istiab)
The most important responsibility of the followers of Muhammad (on whom be peace), is to end all kinds of differences. According to Miswar bin Makhrama, Tabarani relates that:
“The Prophet came to his companions and said, ‘God has sent me as a blessing to all mankind. So you people—may God have mercy on you—fulfil this obligation on my behalf and do not have differences as did the followers of Jesus (on him be peace).”
Just as the Prophet was ordained by God for this purpose, likewise the Muslim Ummah has been ordained till Doomsday to perform this duty. During the Caliphate of Umar Faruq when Rabi ibn ‘Amir was sent as the representative of Islam to the court of the Iranian rulers, a part of the conversation recorded is as follows: ‘The latter asked him why they (he and other Muslims) had come to their country? Rabi ibn ‘Amir replied: “God has sent us so that He may take away those whom He likes, from the worship of His creatures to the worship of the Creator; from the narrowness of the world to its vastness. Thus God has sent us with His religion to His creatures, so that we may invite people to come to Him.”
(Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah)
That this responsibility is a universal one, which does not stop at any geographical boundaries is illustrated by the speech Noman bin Muqrin gave in the Court of Caesar. Here is an extract from the speech where Noman answers one of Caesar’s questions:
“When Islam had spread in Arabia, the Prophet commanded us to go to the neighbouring nations and invite them to justice, so we invite you to Islam. What is good has been described by this religion as good, and what is bad has been described by this religion as bad” (Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah, Vol. 7, p. 41).
This responsibility was quite clear to the companions of the Prophet. During the Caliphate of Umar Faruq, when ‘Amr ibn al ‘As invited the religious leaders of Egypt to enter the fold of Islam, he said: God has sent our Prophet with a message for mankind. He has fully carried out his responsibility, and has left behind a clear example, according to which we have to convey the divine message to mankind.” (Ibn Jarir, Vol. 4, p. 227)
First and foremost, the aim of sending prophets into the world is to inform people of the message of Truth in public and in private (71:9). This is to enable them to learn about the scheme of creation of the universe and its ultimate end; so that what is unseen they may have foreknowledge of before the present world comes to an end, when the unseen will become the seen. It is our responsibility to make people aware of the life hereafter, and to warn them—they being the creations of the one God—that all of them are bound to appear before Him to give an account of their deeds.
Some people believe in presenting Islam to non-Muslims as a better worldly system. But this assumption is based on false premise. For, if Islam were presented fundamentally in the form of a better worldly system, acceptance of Islam would appear to the addressee as simply a way of solving the problems of this world. That is to say, the aim of Islam would appear to be to offer the means to save people from political and financial sufferings, whereas what the prophets actually came to do was to make people aware of God’s Creation Plan for man.
“He lets the spirit descend at His behest on those of His servants whom He chooses, that He may warn (them) of the Day of Meeting.” (40:15)
The final stage of this Dawah task, from the point of view of the mad‘u (congregation) is his acceptance of the invitation and his moulding of his life accordingly. But from the point of view of the da‘i, the final stage of his task is his delivering the divine message to the people and, his conveying the truth with complete clarity to his listeners so that there should be no excuse left for anyone to plead ignorance. Thus the standard criterion for the fulfilment of Dawah work for the prophets was only this. They were not held responsible for anything further. All those nations who are mentioned in the Quran as having rejected the message of the prophets and as having incurred the punishment of God for their disobedience, were those very nations to whose subjects the Prophet had particularly addressed himself through speeches, and by interacting, with both individuals and groups.
Beyond conveying the message to them, nothing further was attempted. That is why all the expressions, used in the Quran for the order to convey God’s message fully, are synonymous with making them aware of God’s Creation Plan for man. (Quran 15:94, 16:44, 21:109, 7:79, 7:35, 17:106, 29:51, 34:28, 3:193, 61:7, 5:67, 14:5).
Baihaqi relates that, according to Mughira ibn Shuba, one day when the Prophet was explaining Islam to Abu Jahl, the latter said: “Muhammad, won’t you stop criticizing our idols? What you want is that we testify to the fact that you have conveyed the message, so we do bear witness that you have conveyed it!”
The Prophet repeatedly asked his companions to bear witness to the fact that he had fully conveyed God’s message to them. Imam Ahmad relates that, according to Tha‘alaba bin Ibad Al-Abdari, once when the Prophet stood up to give a speech, after praising God, he said:
“O, people, I ask you on God’s oath to point out to me if I have fallen short, to any degree, in conveying God’s message to you.’ People stood up and said, ‘We testify that you have delivered God’s message to us. You have done full justice to the task as a well-wisher of your Ummah, and you have fulfilled your responsibility.”
The da‘i starts his Dawah work in this very spirit, keeping in view all the requirements of wisdom and well-wishing. He wants to convey his message to the people to the maximum possible extent. The events that unfold subsequently do not depend on the Dawah work but depend rather on the response of the madu for whom this task of bearing witness has been performed. This is why we cannot determine what sets of circumstances will prevail after the Dawah work has been done. Neither can we hold any particular example to be the absolute model for bearing witness. The da‘i may breathe his last, having invited people to accept the Truth all his life, without achieving any positive result.
There may also be a confrontation between the da‘i and mad‘u (congregation), and the latter may, individually, or with the aid of some political power, contrive to destroy the da‘i’s movement. Another possibility is that God may create such circumstances as may help either the da‘i or his successors to acquire authority in the land. Then acquisition of authority may take various forms. It may be just political control; or the movement may receive such extensive support from the public that an organized society may come into existence on the basis of Islam. All the above results are probable, and instances of all of them are recorded in the long history of the Dawah struggle of the prophets.
However, none of these forms serve as a condition for bearing witness to truth or a standard formula for it. The only valid form of bearing witness is communication of God’s message to the people in total honesty and sincerity (7:68) and in such a manner as to touch the heart (4:63). This conveying of the message has to be continued, whatever the hurdles which may arise. Whatever follows after that, will be the worldly results of the Dawah struggle or, to put it another way, the outcome of the history of Dawah which assumes different forms in different circumstances. Thus, all that is required of the preacher is that he should convey God’s message to the fullest possible extent and that he should continue to perform this duty all his life. Any further developments depend upon the response of the madu. It is obvious that no fixed list of the outcomes of Dawah can be foretold nor can difference in the nature of the response determine the completeness or incompleteness of the work of the da‘i.
The next important consideration is that, in the carrying out of dawah work, there is no need to present all aspects of the religion on a single occasion to non-Muslims. The proper way is to start with the basic teachings of Islam. God, prophethood, the Life Hereafter are the concepts which are first put to non-Muslim addressees. And these are matters which have to be regularly explained to them from various angles. Effective logical explanation has to be resorted to solve any problems they may face in understanding these points and, once they have come to accept these concepts, they are taught the remainder of God’s commands for the faithful. In the tenth year of Hijrah, when the Prophet sent Mu‘adh ibn Jabal to Yemen to call people to Islam, he told Mu‘adh that he would meet a number of people of the Book, and that he should first explain to them the article of faith i.e., the concept of the oneness of God, and when they had accepted this, then he should gradually teach them how to say prayers and observe other commands.
‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas relates that the Prophet said to Muadh ibn Jabal, before sending him on a dawah mission to Yemen: “You are going to a nation who are People of the Book. When you reach there, first ask them to testify to the oneness of God and to Muhammad being His messenger. When they have accepted this, tell them further that God has ordained that they worship five times a day. After they have accepted this also, explain to them that God has made almsgiving obligatory and this zakat will be taken from their rich and distributed among their poor. When they agree to that also, you should refrain from showing any interest in their most valued possessions.” (Bukhari)
That is why the prophets were given only basic teachings at the initial stage, so that they propagated these teachings for long periods. Thereafter, such detailed instructions were revealed as were consistent with the prevailing circumstances. It has never happened that a prophet has introduced in the first stages of Dawah work the whole social and cultural system to any community, and demanded that they establish an Islamic state immediately or enforce all Islamic laws in all spheres of life.
Although all of the commandments, in the above mentioned Hadith, had already been revealed, the Prophet advised the da‘i not to impart all of them to the mad‘u at the same time, but rather to put them to the people gradually, according to their circumstances. This reveals the fact that just as the commandments were originally sent by God gradually in instalments, even now it is desirable that they be presented with gradualness. The order of their revelation tells us that they are meant to be presented to people step by step at all times. It would be wrong to say that although they were originally revealed gradually, after the completion of their revelation, the policy of gradualness had been discarded, and that they should now be presented all at one time in their entirety.
