The Second duty – Taking the
Message of Islam to Others
Whereas our first obligation was at the
individual and personal level, the second obligation has to do with reaching
out to others. As in the first case, the
Qur’an uses several terms to describe this duty. There are again four terms that are worthy of
our special attention.
1. Preaching (tableegh)
This literally means taking the message
to others. Islam will reach far and wide
only when it is taken far and wide by those who profess to believe in it. God enjoined the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the following manner:
O Messenger! Proclaim which
has been sent to you from your Lord. (Al-Maida 5:67)
Likewise, the Prophet (SAW) has instructed us to convey
his message (even if it is a single ayah) to others:
And convey on my behalf, even if it is a single ayah.
On the occasion of his farewell
pilgrimage he entrusted the responsibility of preaching to the Muslim community
with the words:
Those present here should convey this message to those who are not
here.
2. Calling others to Islam (da`wah). Da`wah
means calling others to Islam. God
says:
And who is better in speech than he who calls men to Allah and
does righteous deeds and says I am one of the Muslims. (Fussilat 41:33)
And in Surah An-Nahl:
Invite all to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful
preaching; and argue with them in a way that is better. (An-Nahl 16:125)
3. Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil
(`amr bil ma`ruf wa nahi `anil munkar)
Amr bil ma'ruf wa
nahi ‘anil munkar is a very important Qur’anic term and is
performed at different levels. If one
has authority and power, evil should
forcibly be stopped, and if not then it should be spoken out against. If there is fear that even speaking out
against it might cause more harm than good, then the least that can be done is
to detest it from the core of the heart. These levels of `amr bil ma`ruf wa
nahi `anil munkar have clearly been described in a Hadith on the authority
of Abi Sa'eed al Khudri which is cited by Muslim:
Whosoever among you observes some evil, it is his duty to stop it
by his hand, if he is unable to do so, then with his tongue, and if he is
unable to do even this, he should condemn it in his heart, but this represents
the weakest degree of faith.
In another hadith, the concluding
words are that there is no faith beyond this point. What is meant is that if
one witnesses evil, oppression, or clearly forbidden acts and it does not make
him/her shake from inside even in the slightest, the person is devoid of the
light of faith:
Such is the ruling by the Prophet
Muhammad (SAW) himself. Who can dare
deny his religious opinion or fatwa?
4. Being Witnesses unto Mankind
(shahadah `ala an-naas)
This fourth term most comprehensively
describes the nature of our second religious obligation. It stands for being
God’s witness over the people so that one may affirm and testify on the Day of
Judgment that the duty of conveying the message to others and adequately
representing the Divine commands had been duly performed. In performing this duty one becomes representation
of God’s messengers, since it was this very task that has been defined as the mission
of the messengers themselves, a point clearly made in the following ayah:
How then, when we brought from each people and we bring you as a
witness against these people? (An-Nisa 4:41)
On the Day of Judgment, the Messenger
will testify that he had preached the Divine message to them, thereby absolving
him of any responsibility for the conduct of their actions in this world. Let us reflect on this whether this
testification by the Prophet (SAW) will be in favor of or against the Muslims. By any measure of the yardstick, this
testimony will be against us. The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) will affirm in God’s court that he had faithfully conveyed divine
message to the people. It was, in turn,
the responsibility of the people to preach it to others. It is very clearly and forcefully stated in
the following ayah that Muslims, who are raised as the “best community”
for all of mankind, owe the responsibility of being the witnesses for all of
humanity:
Thus we have made of you an Ummah, justly balanced, that
you might be witnesses over all peoples, and the messenger a witness over you.
(Al-Baqarah 2:143)
After personal submission, this
testimony before all of mankind is the most important duty prescribed for the
Muslims. We should grasp its natural base the consequents of our lives and the
priorities we have chosen for ourselves while we claim to be members of this ummah
and followers of Muhammad (SAW). Had the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) not conveyed the Divine
message, God would have taken him to task.
Since he has faithfully and effectively conveyed divine message he
stands free of any burden of the deeds of those who claim to be his followers. He left for his heavenly abode after
entrusting this duty to the Muslim community.
The Prophet Muhammad
(SAW) had been sent down as the messenger for the entire mankind, not
just the Arabs. This point comes very
sharply at several places in the Qur'an.
For example, it is said in Surah As-Saba that he was sent
as warner and bearer of glad tidings for the whole mankind. In Surah Al –A’araf, it is declared
that he is the Messenger for all peoples.
Almost the same point occurs in Surah Al-Anbiya, where he is
spoken of as mercy unto all of the worlds.
If this task was his alone, then it does not make any sense that his
life ended before his mission was complete.
The fact of the matter is that he entrusted this responsibility on the
Muslim ummah (as pointed out earlier that on the occasion of the
farewell pilgrimage he entrusted his duty to the whole Muslim community). If this community of believers fails to
deliver the goods, it will be condemned not only for its own failure, but also
for the errors and failures of all of humanity.
Others will be perfectly justified in making the plea on the Day of
Judgment that Muslims, though blessed with the final and complete Divine
message, faith, shariah, and despite being members of the final
Messenger's community, not only failed to convey this message to them but
misrepresented the message altogether, thus making it unappealing and repulsive.
I shall be failing in my duty as a
sincere adviser to you, if I do not caution you against forgetting the very
purpose of our being bound together in the form of an ummah. Oversight in this can lead to grave
consequences on the Last Day. Can any
one give me a satisfactory reply to the question that during the final
accountability when we are interrogated about our duty of shahadah `ala
an-naas, what answer we will possibly have?
We happen to be members of the Prophet Muhammad's
(SAW) community. We possess his teachings and the Qur'an, the very Word
of God. It goes without saying that we
will not have any excuse or defense on this count. We will be certainly held
responsible for our failure to convey the Divine message to others. Sadly, far
from preaching Islamic faith and adequately representing it to others as a
community, it is our misfortune and plight that we ourselves are unable to
practice sound faith and character as individuals. We are Muslims only by birth and in name
only. As Iqbal puts it:
You might be a Syed, Mirza, or Afghan
You might be all, but are you a Muslim?
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