A sister and I sat down for coffee a couple of days ago, when two girls around the same ages as us approached us:

Girls: “Where are you guys from?”

Us:“ I’m originally from Egypt, and I (my friend) am half Laotian and half Palestinian. But born and raised here.”

I saw one of the girls eying me while I was in line, I had a feeling she wanted to strike up conversation. She asks about the hijab and why we’re wearing it, and she asks what religion we are and when we told her we’re Muslims, she asked to know a little more about our beliefs.

I asked her if her and her friend had some time and asked them to sit down. So they sat.

From the beginning I knew she wasn’t genuinely asking in order to know about our beliefs, but I knew she wanted to try to convert us to Christianity. I love it when they try to do it, because never once has someone approached me for that purpose without them leaving defeated in all their arguments , walhamdulillah.

I could make this post just on the dawah that was given that one day, but I think to make this post a little more interactive and beneficial I want to know what techniques and responses YOU give to Christians when they come with certain arguments.

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I will give you a question, and give you my response, and I would like you to give the responses you give to them when they tell you these things, let’s call it the “Frequently Asked Dawah Questions:”

1. Jesus is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — He came down to earth, in the flesh, so that he may die for our sins! (Insert some hallelujahs.)

My Technique: Break down the concept of the Trinity.

What I say: OK, Let’s take the concept of the Trinity. Christians believe that every person must accept the this in order to be saved, yet no two Christians will ever agree upon their explanation of the Trinity. Ask many questions to explain it, and they’ll say “Well, it’s kind of complicated but…” If this concept was truly from God sent down so that all of mankind should follow it, why is it so complicated? The very core of the Christian religion, it’s whole belief system is based on a concept Christians themselves cannot agree upon. Truely, if something was sent from God, he would make it very clear and easy to understand and to follow.

That is why in Islam, we have the concept of the oneness of God. If you leave a baby in the middle of the desert with no outside influences, will that baby grow up naturally calling upon God, or will that baby call upon Jesus? Every person is born upon the natural instinct of worshiping God alone, not associating partners with Him.

Also, just to go back to the concept of the trinity. Christians believe that Jesus was crucified, and while he was on the cross they said he said, “God, why have you forsaken me?” So if he is God? Was he talking to himself while he was on the cross? Or didn’t he know that he was going to be crucified if that’s the whole reason he came to earth in the first place?

(When I brought this argument to the girl, all she could say was that he just said that because it was such a hard time for him) lol.

2. But he died for our sins, so that we can be forgiven!

My Technique: Point to the injustice caused by this concept.

What I say: This concept goes against the perfect justice of God. And let’s use an example: Hitler. Hitler claimed to be a Christian. He was responsible for the killing of millions of people. Would it be fair for him to die and go straight to heaven without being punished, just because he says he accepts Jesus as his savior, and that he died for his sins? No. This goes against the perfect justice of God. What prevents a Christian from not doing crimes and heinous actions, if all their sins will be forgiven? This is not logical.

We as Muslims believe that we are responsible for our own sins. And we must first be Muslims, submitters to Allah alone, to enter paradise. However, that’s not to say that we cannot be punished for our sins. No one enters paradise without the Mercy of Allah. So we can repent before our death, and He will forgive us of our sins. But on the day of Judgment, Allah may send us to be punished in hell for what we’ve committed for a while, then after the punishment bring us to paradise.

3. No, but, Christians will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment, We have to act in accordance with Christ.

My Technique: Show them they just contradicted themselves

What I say: (What do you guys say?) I honestly just say, you just said that he died for your sins, and now you’re telling me that there’s a possibility that you will not go to heaven because of your sins?

Sometimes I get a reply “People are punished in this world.”

4. But in the Bible it says, no person can get to heaven except through me.

My Technique: Prove the Bible is no longer the true word of Allah.

What I say: There are really too many things that I say in this case. But I usually go the route of saying all historians and in any secular religious class you learn that the Bible was altered after it was revealed; by Mark, Luke, Paul, John — not only that, over 100 years after Jesus was gone. No one denies this. It was altered and therefore does not remain the true word of God, but rather the words of men. Therefore, any evidenced used from the Bible cannot be taken, because it’s no longer a true message.

Also, another thing I say, is for them to look at a “Red Lettered Bible” what this is, is a Bible that supposedly highlights the “Words that Jesus said” in red. Tell them that even their own altered book, if they look through it, and look at all those highlight places, they will not ever find a place where Jesus said to worship him, he said to “Worship thy father alone.” i.e. Worship Allah alone.

Then bring it back to saying that Jesus came with the exact same message as all the other prophets, “To worship Allah alone.”

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These are a couple of questions that almost always come up when giving dawah to Christians. These are my typical responses, what are yours?

What other FAQs can you think of, and what are your replies?

I heard all of these same questions from the girls at the coffee shop, and those were my responses. Needless to say the girl that was doing all the talking was left with no arguments. And the other girl, just sat there listening, looking a little shaken by her belief system. She didn’t look like she was ready to argue any of it, but subhanAllah, the girl looked like perhaps she just stumbled upon the truth. Wallahu alem. May Allah guide them both. ameen.

Looking forward to hearing your dawah techniques, inshaAllah.

I hardly get analytical and political. However, I cannot deny that recent events are now leaving us to believe that perhaps times are ‘a changin’ for Muslims living in the West.

Such a claim is hard to make without stating what are the reasons that lead me to believe this, so bear with me if you will while I outline some incidents you may have missed:

1. The “Obesssion DVD” distributed through swing states.

Recently, as many of you have heard, supporters of John McCain distributed copies of the Fox News produced DVD “Obsession” through various swing states during this election year. “Obsession” is an anti-Islamic DVD aimed at fear-mongering. A dirty political stunt, if you will. They distributed it via mail but more relevantly, they paid major newspapers to have the DVD inserted within the fold as a sort of an advertisement.

How do the Muslims feel about this?

Angry. Seeing any clip from the DVD is enough to make your head boil. It’s the typical anti-Islamic rhetoric we’ve been hearing since 9/11. “Terrorist, Islamist, etc., etc.”

How did the recipients of the DVD feel?

Furious. Yeah, that was a surprise to me too.

Recently, in an article published in the associated press, discribed the some of the reactions and consequences to distributing the DVD:

Although a few papers refused to carry the DVD, about 70 including The New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor’s right to free speech. The decision generated letters, cancellations and even a protest.

“This is definitely the most feedback that I’ve gotten to an ad,” said Ted Vaden, public editor for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. “It’s among the heaviest reaction I’ve gotten to anything. The great majority of the reaction was negative.”

Vaden said the paper received about 500 e-mail and phone messages and had some 50 cancellations. He said the paper may have sparked some of the complaints by writing a front-page story calling attention to “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” the DVD insert that critics have denounced as anti-Muslim propaganda.

Newspapers generally insist on giving a platform to a variety of viewpoints, but readers who complained were largely critical.

“I cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering video disk `Obsession’ in my newspaper!” Margaret Lewis of Durham, N.C., wrote to The News & Observer. “What will you enclose next? KKK robes?”

2. The Presidential Election

Obama, has a pretty good lead over McCain with the second of the presidential debates just ending – despite all the attempts at tying him in with Islam and “Terrorism.”

Recently, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin made comments at a fundraiser regarding Senator Barack Obama attempting to reestablish this notion that the senator was tied to “terrorism.”

“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo.

“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said. “We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.”

The Times reported Palin as referring to a man by the name of William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.

In fact, the Times was particularly turned off by Palin’s statements:

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

It seems that the general public is sick of the fear-mongering and no longer blindly led to believe anything an opinion leader has to say, such as was seen in the aftermath of 9/11.

Nasru Min Allah, wa fathu Kareeb!

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So if there really is a different perception about Islam than we’ve seen in the years post 9/11, what is the cause?

Could it be that Islam is entering into every household as prophecized as one of the last signs before the day of judgment?

Perhaps mass media is not the best way to convey the message of Islam. That’s a weighty thing to say coming from a Muslim who went into mass media for the sake of Allah and spreading His deen. But my statement does not come without reason to believe that in order to really continue to change the world’s perception of Islam, we should continue with one-on-one dawah. Much like the example of the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam during the early Mekkan period.

The following is a rubric for persuasion in mass media, that can very much be applied to Dawah for the sake of Allah:

Keep in mind:

Advertising and promotional media are controlled media, generally external to the (person/organization doing the marketing/PR work), that also offers access to large audiences.

News Media provide opportunities for the credible presentation of organizational messages to large audiences.

Organizational media are published or produced by the organization, which controls the message content as well as its timing, packaging and distribution.

Interpersonal communication offers face-to-face opportunities for personal involvement and interaction.

How does this all relate to the first part of the post?

Well, if we analyze the situation of Muslims in the West post 9/11 and see what is leading to this change in perception, we should analyze this model.

It’s pretty obvious that very few successful attempts at getting the proper message of Islam dissiminated through mass media whether that was advertising and promotional media, news media, and organizational media. Those in esence reach the greater audiences but dont have as big as an impact with regard to persuasion.

However, you’ll notice that interpersonal dawah efforts sky rocketed and this still remains the case, which is in my humble opinion I see is a big factor to the changing perception. It may happen slowly but there is no doubt that it is surely happening, wallahu alem.

With that said, the reason I went into mass media is because of the lack of Muslims with a proper understanding of the deen of Allah who are actually withing the feild of mass media. Sure, I’m still learning, but I hope that through my quest to seek knowledge it’ll help reach that larger audience, the mass media.

We generally cannot say that speaking to mass audiences is not effective at all — because it is. But when you throw in elements such as the guidance of Allah, planting the seed of iman in someone’s heart, and the barakah Allah ‘az wa jal has placed in your dawah, you will not only be able to reach mass audiences, but inshaAllah perhaps have mass persuasion as well.

WAllahu ta’ala alem.

*Note: I didn’t edit this post yet, please disregard all typos and grammatical errors… it’s been a long week.

My opinion columns turned into a speech. That speech turned into a script. And that script has been turned into a dawah, public service announcement video. (To see the video, keep reading…)

Last year, I wrote and delivered a five minute speech to my public relations class. I decided to take the easy way out of the assignment and decided to take the opportunity for dawah and picked the subject of prejudice to talk about. I chose excerpts from my past opinion columns in The Daily Reveille and made them into my speech.

After delivering the speech one girl came up to me and said, “It really does make me see how ignorant we really are. Especially seeing how it’s only the actions of few that get attributed to your religion.” Others told me it was a successful PR speech because it made them look at their own beliefs about Islam and compare them to my words. I didn’t expect that feedback. Alhamdulillah it was successful, all by the will of Allah. And only Allah has allowed me such opportunities, walhamdulillah.

Meanwhile, I was working on a media kit for Leechon and particularly the upcoming documentary, “Tufaan.” During that time, we came up with the idea of shooting public service announcement videos to put at the beginning of every documentary that Leechon would produce — especially Tufaan, since its primary target audience is non-Muslims. Hence, the idea to use my speech as a script for the PSA emerged.

So we decided to do it much like the format of the “Bear Witness” video that Br. Belal Khan had produced a while back, where every person would read two lines from the script. Here’s the Bear Witness video, which in my opinion is an really nice dawah video:

*video removed because sisters shown in video

Anyway, Br. Ahmed Eid, a brother from NJ who has been working with me and the PR team for quite a while took up the challenge of shooting and editing the video for Leechon. MashaAllah, it turned out great. Although I don’t personally know anyone in the video, I wanted to give a big jazakum Allahu Khairan katheeran for the work and effort you guys put into it. May Allah make it heavy on your scales, ameeeeen. And inshaAllah I look forward to working with you all in the future, bi’ithnillahi ta’ala.

So without further adeiu, our PSA: FREEDOM FROM FEAR

(video removed)

Lastly, in the future I would like to write dawah videos that are not on the defense. Sure there are people who hate Islam, sure there is still a lot of anti-Islamic sentiment around, but I would like to move away from being on the defense to speaking to people in general about Islam. A PSA about “Islam” why they see us prostrating on the floor when we pray, etc.

Good things to come inshaAllah. Give us your feedback and if you like it spread it around inshaAllah.