The Next Phase of Western Dawah, Part 2

Part one of this article identified an increasing lack of meaning in the West, born of the Information Age, as the primary challenge facing traditional dawah efforts today. Dawah, or the task of calling people to Allah, is up against not only a historically unprecedented amount of competing information, but, more importantly, the mental fatigue and dulled sense of meaning-making that has resulted from information overload. Our inability to use information to make effective meaning of our lives has been a major avenue of an encroaching nihilism in the West. The challenge of Western dawah efforts going forward will be to penetrate this nihilism. The Gazans’ intense displays of belief in the midst of horrific spectacles of violence provides the most recent example of something capable of penetrating this veil. Our own efforts, as friends, neighbors, and coworkers here in the West, must use different tactics to reach the same goal. As always, the best place to start is with the example of God’s beloved Prophet ﷺ.

What I wish to explore here are the lessons from the life of the Prophet ﷺ that will teach us what prepared him to deliver the message of revelation to his people. If our problem in the West is indeed information-overload, simply providing more information will exacerbate this problem. Rather, we must first seek to occupy a position in our societies that will allow us to deliver meaning, whether that is through information, actions, or character. Here, the example of God’s Messenger ﷺ from the period of his life prior to the first revelation will be most instructive. His words, actions, and character during this time prepared him, and many of his people, to receive the revelation with open hearts. I will discuss here two qualities he cultivated during this time: a pious distance from the idolatrous and debauched elements of Meccan society as well as trustworthiness among his people at all social strata.

Aysha, may God be pleased with her, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ referred to his religious practice before the revelation as تحنث (tahannuth), which has two meanings according to Ibn Hajar: following the religion of Ibrahim, peace be upon him, and turning away from sin. Religiously, the Messenger of God ﷺ recognized the idolatry of the Meccans as sinful and, instead, chose to follow the monotheism originally established by Abraham. The details of exactly what this religious practice entailed are lost to history. However, we know that it manifested in the life of the Prophet ﷺ prior to the revelation in his practice of secluding himself from Meccan society for long periods of time in the Cave of Hira on the Mountain of Light far above the city.

He maintained this distance in his social life as well. The Quraysh were known to throw lavish parties rife with music and alcohol consumption that would often send their hosts into debt. However, as a young man, the Prophet ﷺ occupied himself as a shepherd, again, on the outskirts of the city. He spoke of this later in his life when he mentioned two occasions when God prevented him from attending these parties by causing him to sleep before he could attend. After these failed attempts, he said that “I never intended to do something of which God Almighty would disapprove until the time I was selected as a prophet.”

We might assume that this lack of participation in the religious and social life of his people would lead to alienation on his part and a lack of trust or camaraderie for the Quraysh. However, this was not at all the case because he did join them in all that was wholesome and good. The most beautiful example of this was the love and reverence they all shared for Allah’s house, the Ka’aba. The Prophet ﷺ aided the chiefs of the Quraysh in replacing the Black Stone in its eastern corner after the building was damaged prior to the revelation. He also joined hilf al-fudul, the Alliance of the Virtuous, an organization that sought to protect the rights of all people in Mecca, especially those who did not have tribal affiliations. After the revelation, the Prophet ﷺ affirmed the virtue of such alliances, saying that if he were called to join such a group during the time of Islam, he would respond and join them. His piety was the source of both the distance he kept from elements of Meccan society as well as his deep involvement in it.

The balance of both distance from and investment in Meccan society is how he earned the title al-Amin, the Trustworthy. While this balance was simply the result of his innate character, it was also brilliant strategically. By avoiding the politics that surrounded the cult of idolatry in the sanctuary, which was just as much a matter of business as religious devotion, along with the social activities of the upper classes of the Quraysh, the Prophet ﷺ avoided becoming a partisan of the entrenched power in Mecca. However, his involvement in their virtuous endeavors demonstrated that his allegiance lay not with any one man or group, but with anyone who stood upon truth and goodness. This gained him the love and admiration of his people, eventually including his wife, Khadijah, who richly rewarded him for his upstanding character. He became a man with no incentive to be anything other than al-Amin. The home of Muhammad ﷺ and Khadijah, may God be pleased with her, became a place where others could leave their wealth while away on trade caravans; travelers to Mecca knew it as the place that would host them generously if they had no other place to go. His name became synonymous with trust.

This was essential to the moment he delivered his first public call to Allah. After receiving the command from God to call his people en masse, he ascended Mount Safa and called out to his people, asking for the elders of each clan to assemble. Once they had gathered, he asked them, “Tell me, if I were to inform you that there is an army by the valley, which intends to attack you, would you believe me?” They said, “Yes! We have only experienced truthfulness from you!” It was only at this moment, after building their trust for years, and hearing them acknowledge it themselves, that he told them: “Then know that I am a warner of a sever punishment ahead!” The rest, as they say, is history. We know that the trust he had earned did not lead to the immediate embrace of the revelation he brought. There was still much work to do. However, it was the necessary groundwork to open every heart to it that would be opened.

If the people of our own time and place are to hear the message of God’s final revelation on any significant scale, it will only take place after we have assumed the same Prophetic position. Indeed, we may look to our own history to know that this is true. Most African Americans today have at least one Muslim family member because the likes of Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X were trusted members of their communities, with demonstrated commitment to their well-being, who introduced them to Islam (theological discrepancies aside). The same sort of revival will only be possible today with similar Prophetic commitments.

Muslims are already widely recognized in Western societies for our pious distance from many of the social ills that plague our home countries. Some see this as a dangerous aversion to assimilation while others admire us for preserving our families and communities from the onslaught of liberal modernity. Yet there is a general agreement that there is something different about Muslims. What remains for us to accomplish is to move from secluding ourselves from the harm to joining with others to stand for goodness and virtue in our home societies--a task about which we have been all too meek since 9/11 knocked us into a culturally defensive position over twenty years ago.

In a recent Friday sermon, I mentioned a number of things I have yet to hear one of our leaders address in a lecture or on the pulpit: the opioid crisis in middle America, economic despair among Millennials and Gen-Z, the general sense of betrayal and regret among veterans of the War on Terror. Each of these problems contribute to the encroaching nihilism discussed above. And yet we seem to be blissfully unaware that these issues are tearing at the fabric of the society we call home. What would happen if the multitudes of Muslim doctors in this country refused to prescribe opiate painkillers? What would happen if our scholars provided a clear articulation, aimed at non-Muslims, of the harms of riba upon economic prosperity? What if our political leaders, who for decades have decried the domestic effects of the War on Terror, began to build bridges with disillusioned veterans? Muslims collectively would achieve a new hilf al-fudul. We would become the al-Amin of American society in very short order. Then, with God’s permission, a true public call to this religion would become possible. And God knows best.