Dawa Research

A Case for Indirect methods of Dawa

In light of American Reading Habits and Tolerance

By Abdul Malik Mujahid

Is Islam really the fastest growing religion in America? Most Muslims involved in Dawa efforts do not believe that. Thirs phrase is more used now by the alarmists anti-Islam forces in America. This author believes that the number of Americans accepting Islam has gone down in the last decade as compared to the sixties and the early seventies of the last century. Many factors are responsible for this, but this essay addressed only one variable: Absence of Muslims efforts in the field of Dawa. Very few Muslims engage in conveying the message of Islam to non-Muslims in America. None of the 50 Masjids studied by the author (in 1987), with the exception of one, had any committee dedicated for Dawa or any funds allocated for it. In another survey only one of the top 30 leaders of a national organization (1987) had done any Dawa to non-Muslims in a year. However, a very small number of volunteers continue to engage in some level of Dawa. This article examines the existing methods used by this small minority and suggests ways to involve more Muslims in Dawa work.

Experience in direct Dawa

So far the methods of Dawa used by Muslims has been generally direct: that is to say Muslims speaking to individual non-Muslims or addressing their gatherings. This method is considered the best by most of the Dawa activists. Many speeches, Khutbas and sermons are geared towards propagating this method. However, Muslims are hardly using these direct Dawa methods. There may be any of the following reasons responsible for this:

1. A large number of Muslims, being the first-generation immigrants, do not talk with their colleagues at job about religion, in consideration of American work ethics.
2. Muslims make an extra effort towards "being nice", in an environment of pressure where Islam and Muslim are associated with terrorism, extremism, and fanaticism. Some are subjected to racial and religious discrimination.
3. Many of the immigrants have to work harder to move upward at their work place which does not leave much time for other things.
4. Outside of the work place their contact with non-Muslims is extremely limited. They avoid most social gatherings because of the social and dietary incompatibilities between Americans parties and the Islamic culture. The same might be the reason for the low level of social contact with neighbors.
5. A number of Muslims do not feel confident with their English, accent, or their Islamic knowledge. Not finding it up to the mark, they normally do not indulge themselves in Dawa.
6. The American shield of individualism is another problem in the direct method in Dawa. Many Muslims who tried talking to their colleagues on religion, life, politics, or Islam, found the colleagues trying to change the topic towards games, girls, and weather, which makes Muslims refrain from any further discussions on Islam.

This is about individual Muslims. Islamic centers and Masjids, on the other hand, have so much of work to do in the limited time available on weekend that they rarely spent any resources on Dawa.

A pragmatic response to this challenge: Indirect Dawa

There is a need to develop techniques to overcome these obstacles through educating Muslims. However, this article argues that Muslims should devote more resources to other methods which can, potentially, circumvent above mentioned problems in the use of direct Dawa methods, without abandoning the existing methods of direct Dawa.

Success of the existing Methods of Indirect Dawa:

Alhamdo Lillah, Muslims have come up with different solutions in this direction also. Use of television, radio, and correspondence courses are a few methods used by some Muslim organization and communities for Dawa.

Most of these programs have resulted in a substantial response from non-Muslims. Some Muslim organizations placed an advertisement in a Detroit newspaper. They received about 600 requests for the free copy of Quran offered in the advertisement. The Chicago Foundation for Cultural and Religious Reflections would broadcast a weekly 25 minute program on a local Chicago TV channel. The program results in an average of 40 calls per month, about 20% being from non-Muslims. In 1992, the Muslim Community Center's Dawa Committee placed a few Quranic verses on display on some public transportation routes in Chicago with a phone number for response. In the first month of operation they received about 17 phone calls, half was being from non-Muslims. ISNA headquarters offered a correspondence course on Islam. In its peak year (1980-81) it had 3,000 persons enrolled, about 300 being non-Muslims.

All of these programs come in the category of indirect methods. Whenever done properly, these methods have shown results. Currently only a very small number of organizations and in just a few cities runs programs like these. There is a need that more cities and organizations devote more resources to indirect methods, improve TV programs, acquire better time slots, assure proper publicity in non-Muslim media, and develop a better response system.

A less used method of indirect Dawa:
'Mail a Quran' campaign:

This proposal suggests that Islamic books and the Quran be sent by mail to a target audience which is relatively more open-minded and has good reading habits. Books can be sent to a selected target segment of the society, or could be sent in response to an advertisement for free literature on Islam. The idea could be implemented as a mail library, or as an Islamic book club on a non-profit basis. Details of these proposals will be discussed later. Here, I would like to continue with the rational and the assumptions in forwarding this proposal.

Christian missionaries have used mail as a regular method for the distribution of their literature to non-Christians. In Muslim societies like Pakistan, where literacy level is about 38%, this method has not been as successful as in Indonesia, which has a literacy rate of more than 84%. Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population in the world has a very high rate of conversion towards Christianity. Mailing is one of the most useful methods for the missionaries there. Personally, I read the Bible in Urdu even before I read the Quran in its entirety. It happened just because it was available free to anyone who dropped a line asking for it.

Because of a virtual universal literacy, there is a greater possibility in North America for the success of this method. It is also compatible with American culture: They do not like to talk about religion, but they do read about it. According to one bookstore chain, any time there is negative news about Islam, there are more people asking for books on Islam.

Tolerance in America:

The American sense of fair hearing to the opposite point of view is greater than many other societies in the world. This praiseworthy characteristic should be considered an asset for the cause of Truth and Justice. This liberal American attitude towards the opposite point of view became evident when I initiated Dawa Field Trips in Chicago. We distributed more than one hundred thousand brochures on Islam during a six month period in 1991-1992. One brochure entitled "Is Jesus Really God," was distributed in no less than twenty thousand in quantity. This brochure is quite direct and aggressive in its tone and subject. We regularly distributed it for several months, at the same subway station. During these months of distribution, none of the Christian receiving it reacted offensively except one. Former Boxing Champion, Muhammad Ali, likes the brochure so much that now he distributes it with his autographs as he travels. The brochure is written by an American Muslim who became Muslim while in the army and is now a business executive.

Statistics on Tolerance towards Communist and Anti-Church Books:

The following data on American public opinion suggests the extent of this tolerance:

Question asked: "There are always some people whose ideas are considered bad or dangerous by other people. For instance, somebody who admits he is a Communist. Suppose this admitted Communist wrote a book, which is in your public library. Somebody in your community suggests that the book should be removed from the library. Would you favor removing it, or not?" The response is as follows:

A big majority opposed the idea of book removal at the height of cold war days. Americans were even more liberal when asked about a book written against churches and religion:

A majority of those people who showed this liberal attitude towards established anti-American ideas were below forty in age. Older people had more rigid attitudes. These liberal attitudes become significantly more pronounced with a higher educational qualification. Sixty three percent of Americans with less than a high school education were against granting these civil liberties to Communists. Differences in the attitudes of the educated ones about the anti-religious material are as follows:

Suppose that the image of Muslims in the American perception is as bad as that of Communists during the Cold War period, and suppose that for them Islam is nothing more than a form of Anti-Church (i.e., anti-religion) phenomenon, still a majority of the Americans, inferring from the above data, are not in favor of letting someone deny them access to the controversial books. These data strongly reflect not only on the support of the civil liberties, but also on the culture which cherishes books and protects free access to knowledge. These values played an essential role in the American support of the Rushdie book.

AMERICAN BOOK READING HABITS:

Despite the fact that TV takes up a lot of time, the most common source of information in America is still the printed word. According to one survey, 82% of Americans report turning to some form of printed matter in the past two months to get answers or obtain information about a particular subject. It is noteworthy that over half (56%) of the people report reading all or a part of a book in the past month. In terms of the total number of books read in the past year, nearly half (48% read six or more books. Whereas a minority of 20% read more than 21 books a year. Among those who read the most are Americans between the ages of 18 and 34, college graduates, and professionals. Of the books read by Americans, 58% report reading fiction, 52% non-fiction, of which 46% read specialty or reference books (total exceeds 100% because of multiple responses).

Approximately one in four (27%) Americans report obtaining at least some of the books read in the past year form a library. A greater number (36%) however, report obtaining their books most often from a bookstore, and the rest borrowed from a friend or received as gifts.

Sixty one percent of the American adults purchase at lease four books per year. Twenty-four percent of all the American adults, 30% of the Americans in age group 18-49, and 38% of the college graduates purchase twenty or more books in a year.

Summery of the above:

Because American culture does not appreciate talking on religion, Muslims generally are reluctant to do so. However:

• Since Americans in general read books and are tolerant about controversial belief systems;
• We believe they would like to own the Quran or a book on Islam.
• Free availability of such a book will be a charm in itself.
• If they did not read it right away, it is likely that they would do so later because of the constant negative media attention on Islam and Muslims.

Proposal 1:

1) Select a group of people whom you consider to be more inclined to read about controversial issues. The above-mentioned data indicates that Americans in the age group 18 to 45, with college degrees and occupationally professional are more tolerant and well-read people (this point, however is not suggesting that Dawa should be limited to any particular group. There are other studies, which tend to focus on those Americans who are likely to change religion).

2) You can develop a database of non-Muslim opinion leaders for a sophisticated system of inviting to read about Islam. This selection can be done by giving certain demographic criteria to mail order companies on one time fee basis, or by scanning the directories of different professional groups, or by resorting to the neighborhood phone directories.

3) Or select a neighborhood with the consideration of the above mentioned demographics. One may also select a location merely because of spatial convenience.

4) Prepare a short list of books considered suitable for non-Muslims.

5) Launch an well-orchestrated campaign asking Muslims in that town or that neighborhood to "Sponsor Dawa to a non-Muslim" by donating a Quran or a book in your list. The best method will be to solicit a particular amount, say $5, so that you can buy books from the publisher in bulk, which will save the project 30 to 40% per book.

6) Launch a pilot project first, see the response, and then project for future expansion.

7) Those who appreciate the project should be asked to join hands by giving some of their time for the operation of the project.

8) It will be useful if the project is co-sponsored by as many Islamic Centers and Islamic organizations as possible for the optimum use of Muslim resources. It might be easier to convince Centers if the pilot project has some responses to show the comparative usefulness of the method.

9) A brochure or advertisement can be then mailed to your target audience about the availability of a copy of Quran or books on Islam.

Proposal 2:

Replace the first, second and the third point of the proposal 1 with the following:

1) An advertisement be published first in the classified section at the pilot project level and then as a separate advertisement, about the availability of the Quran/Islamic books to anyone, free of charge to those who write to the given address. You can decide to ask for the postage if you want to limit the size of the project further.

2) At the initial phase, if you choose so, the advertisement can be printed in smaller neighborhood newspapers. Sometimes these papers run free classified advertisements, or charge an affordable fee for an independent advertisement.

3) You may prefer to utilize any university campus paper, since that community has a higher level of educated people who, according to the demographics discussed above, are expected to be more open-minded and ready to read than others.

Proposal 3:

Same as the proposal 2, except that the advertisement is run not for the availability of free books and Quran, but for free information on Islam. This method requires the following in addition to the above mentioned points:

1) Prepare a list of books available in your library or the library of your Islamic Center and have it printed along with information about the Islamic Centers and Masjids in the area. Also include the list of Islamic books in the public library which you recommend.

2) Acquire brochures on introducing Islam from Islamic organizations. It will be good if your material sounds relevant in the light of current propaganda about "Moslem terrorism." Make sure that your address is printed on the brochures.

3) Prepare a list of the library books you recommend to be mailed along with the brochure. In case of a request for further information, more brochures or a book can be mailed. The interested person may also be invited to participate in a correspondence course on Islam that is currently offered by some Muslim organizations.

4) If the results of the pilot project are encouraging, and your resources allow, you can start a correspondence course of your own.

Some final thoughts:
A gradual approach will be preferable.

The financial aspect has not been outlined, as it will be different for each proposal. Implementation on Proposal #1 might cost $5 per person, but it gives greater control of the finances; you can limit and expand your program based on the flow of donations. A pilot project for Proposal #2 might cost five to ten thousand dollars. You can keep choice in your hand by including a statement in your advertisement that the offer is limited by time and quantity, thus a first come first serve method will be followed. Later you can raise funds based on the size of the response to the advertisement. Proposal #3 might not inspire many responses since it does not have the charm of getting any free book, but to some "gradualists," this slow response might look good.

I propose that fund-raising be done in such a way that each Muslim individual can feel that by sponsoring Dawa to non-Muslim he is fulfilling his obligation of Dawa in America. He should also be assured that his money is directly going to the Dawa work. The project aims at helping Muslims be witness to non-Muslims with this indirect method. The project can not achieve success without mobilizing Muslims. Therefore, the publicity of the project and its progress is as important as the project itself.

May Allah help us convey His deen in this part of His land. Ameen.