5. Prerequisites for Dawah Work

Dawah is an obligatory duty of the believers. What is meant by dawah is to convey the message of God to those who are still unaware of it. It should be made clear here that the work a Muslim or a da‘ee does among the Muslims is not dawah but it is called islah. However, this type of work is also of divine nature though not dawah work. In dawah we call those to God who are still unaware of the creation plan of God; those who are still leading a purposeless life.

Now a question arises as to how we can convey this message of God to the non-Muslims. Those who work on islah can easily find the people they want in the mosques, the religious schools and other gatherings the Muslims hold on different occasions. But those who desire to perform dawah work that is, those who want to show the non-Muslims the divine path cannot find their desired people in the mosques or in the religious schools of the Muslims or in their gatherings. They can find them only in their own gatherings and celebrations. The only solution to this requirement of dawah is that a da‘ee should perform this duty of dawah work on personal basis where it is possible for him otherwise, he should go to the gatherings of non-Muslims and do dawah work there to the extent of his capacity.

But this is not a simple matter. It requires great patience and perseverance. The non-Muslims cannot organize their gatherings on the conditions of a da‘ee rather they will organize them according to their own customs and traditions. In this situation, to make use of these gatherings is possible for a da‘ee only if he adopts the Islamic principle of i‘rad or avoidance mentioned in the Quran (7:199). That is, on such occasions, meeting those who have a mature outlook towards life and telling them about Islam avoiding those things related to their own culture or religion. He has to show respects to others’ religions also so that the conditions remain favourable for him. It is difficult to perform dawah work in strange relations. Patience and avoidance is a must for performing dawah work. Without patience and avoidance performing dawah work in an effective way is almost impossible. The whole life of the Prophet is a practical example of this wisdom of dawah work.