Dawah: How to Speak to People of Other Faiths

to restrict it. He said it is the nature of rahmah. He said the womb expands, it does not contract, it expands in order to accommodate the growth of the foetus. We want to contract it, that is called abortion. So that is the nature of rahmah, it expands to accommodate. A lot of people do not know what hell is and that is why there are so many people that are so quick to put people in hell because if you knew what it was you would not want your worst enemy to go to hell. But people do not know what it is so they just want to send everybody there, the guy who raised his rent, go to hell.

 

3) People who have been taught since they were little that there was an impostor in the Arabian peninsula named Muhammad ibn Abdullah. He lied and claimed he was a Prophet. They are all terrorists and this and that. That is what they have heard. Imam Ghazali said these people have blocks to the truth because they were already indoctrinated. We know the power of this in modern psychology. The power of what happens when you are a child. When the Prophet emerged in the Arabian peninsula, those people had the opposite, they only had the positive opinions of him. The Quraysh only knew good from him. If you go to a people and all you hear since you are little is that this is a lie like Masonite Christians are taught since they are little children, this is an evil religion, an evil man and many Jewish people grow up with that as well that Islam is bad. So that creates blockages from the truth. Imam Ghazali said that he felt because it was presented to them in a distorted fashion they would not be held accountable for it. He said that in other words that to him seemed most consistent with divine justice.

 

So when you look at people out there, you should look with the eye of mercy. That is if you want to be effective. Allah says “God does not forgive that you associate with Him, He forgives whatever He wants after that”. That is important for us to remember. Now the other thing important to remember is according to our dominant theologians, shirk that you are taken to account for is the shirk that has been made clear to you because Allah says “do not associate with God once you know” and that is why when a man came to the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) he said “Masha’Allah, Allah willed and you willed” (Ibn Majah, Tabarani) but the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) did not call him a mushrik or kafir. He said “say Allah willed and then Muhammad willed”. You see he taught him how to remove that dangerous shirk. That is something very important for people to recognise. It is haram in Shariah according to Abu Bakr ibn Al Arabi, in Ahkam ul Quran, he said it is prohibited to make dua against any specific individual because you do not know their khatimah whereas you can make dua against enemies that are attacking muslims. The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) made dua for people to lose battles and things like that because they were persecuting. Persecution is worse than killing. Making dua against individuals specifically is not something you should do and the few hadith in which the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) specifically mentioned individuals is considered to be unique to the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) because he knew some people, he was told. There is a hadith in the jariyah where a girl sang “we have a Prophet who knows what is going to happen tomorrow” and the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said “do not say that, just say what you were saying before”. The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) did not say haram. We have all these muslims now that are ready to turn 90% of muslims into mushrikeen.