All praise and thanks belong to Allah, I was able to attend the Dawah stall yesterday and it was the best day so far that I had at the stall to date. Last week I spoke with an atheist, a hare Krishna, a spiritualist but not a single Christian, which prompted me to ask if Christians were a dying breed. This week there were nothing but Christians.
I want everyone to be clear that I do not treat Dawah like some sort of competition, where I’m trying to make my team (Islam) to overcome the other teams (all types of disbelief) just for the sake of saying… oh look how many of your lot become one of us. Nor do I think that this is a popularity contest where if you have the most numbers then you must be the most correct. No! Numbers mean nothing. I do this work only as a obligation to my Lord. I am calling to God, if no one accepts the Dawah from me, I am not upset. My job and the job of all Muslims is to deliver the message. It is God’s job to guide whom ever He wills.
I ask Allah ta’ala to reward the two brothers that maintain the stall that has given me the opportunity to give Dawah and share in some of the reward. It is an honour to stand there with you both. All praise and thanks belong to Allah alone.
I arrived about 45 minutes late and as I settled in a Seventh-day Adventist was setting up a microphone on the other side of the street, which he would use to sing, read and insult the prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He must have noticed the stall because this was not his usual spot. He was acting in a similar way to Abu Lahb, may Allah curse him, in that we were calling people to worship their Lord and their Lord alone and he was attempting to make so much noise that no-one would listen to our call, it backfired for him.
A Christian approached our table after speaking with him. I would describe his initial demeanour as slightly confrontational because among the first things he said was, ‘the essence of Islam is Jihad’. I corrected him saying the essence of Islam is monotheism then he challenged me with, ‘but you do believe in Jihad’. Yes, of course I believe in Jihad. Do Christians really think that Jihad is such a problem that Muslims would be timid and shy to speak in favour of it? Jihad is one of the proofs for the correctness of Islam and a proof for the weakness of Christian theology. After a brief discussion on why Jihad is necessary and a good thing, which he later agreed to, we were able to move the conversation to a more essential topic, monotheism and the ‘divinity’ of Jesus. I asked him what his proof for believing that Jesus was divine and should be worshiped, he says the Bible and then quotes from it. Fantastic, this is where we want to go. Since the time of Jesus is gone and the time of Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, is gone, we must all rely on the Books sent to know what is correct and what is incorrect, otherwise we would simply be following our whims and desires or Satan. We discussed his ‘proofs’ and I also quoted from the Bible where Jesus specifically said that he was not God and it went like that for some time. I asked him if he has read the first chapter of Genesis, in it God said, Let there be… and there was. Meaning God is so powerful that he can create this whole world and everything it just by saying BE. I asked him then what was more amazing the creation of this world and everything in it from nothing or to create a man without a father but with a mother. His reply was, ‘reason would say the world’. Of course it is more amazing! Then the virgin birth of Jesus could never be a proof for his divinity. How easy is it for God to create from nothing, how much easier must it have been to create a child from a virgin birth.
God says in His Quran,
Verily, the likeness of ‘Iesa (Jesus) before Allah is the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust, then (He) said to him: “Be!” – and he was.
Then I questioned the authenticity of the Bible but I stuck to just one book, John. I asked him who wrote it. He doesn’t know, no one does. I reminded him of the long and hard debate about its authenticity within Christianity. The debate was because it differs significantly from the other three: Mark, Matthew and Luke. He admitted that he was aware of this and that it had troubled him. If you proof is flawed, then the faith that you derive from that flawed proof must also be flawed, to which he agreed. He spent the next few minutes speaking about how I helped change his life and that he was getting a spiritual moment and asked me if that was normal. He took all of our literature and thanked me and my friend and praised us highly before leaving. I ask Allah the Most High to guide him to the Truth, Al-Islam.
After some time had passed, I noticed a man that I had seen before approaching the table. The last time I seen him his face was red and he shouted and argued and fought with us. In his mind we were calling to evil and not good. When I seen him, I thought that it was about to kick off. But no, he greeted us with salaam. The other two brothers knew, I didn’t, this man that was so opposed to us had accepted Islam! Allahu Akbar! I was so shocked because of his behaviour the last time. I was so happy for him. The fruits of the Dawah! I ask Allah the Most High to keep him firm upon the path of Truth.
Later a woman in her forties approached the stall because of our banner and we had the most pleasant talk of the day. She was recently baptised but she knew a fair amount about the practices of Muslims because her partner is a non-practising Muslim. Although, from our conversation I gathered he was trying to change that and I ask Allah ta’ala to make it easy for him. We talked about the Justice of God, racism, mixing genders, the original sin, the practices of Jesus. We also talked more personally about our own life experiences and I shared with her freely some stories from my family. Towards the end she said her partner told her a few days ago that he thinks she is going to accept Islam. She responded to him by saying that she wasn’t going to. She then said to me that she may have to eat her words after speaking with me. I ask Allah the Most High to guide her. She asked me to pray for her, which I have done and will continue to do. I ask all the Muslims who read this to also pray for her.
The last couple of people were those hardcore Christians that just come for the purpose of debating, which is fine I suppose. Even though they are opposed to listening and only want to talk, there are two benefits to debating publicly. One, I benefit from learning something about Christians and their tactics. Most of the time I learn a new angle to expose the falsehood in their claims. Two, those listening and not arguing can clearly see the problems of Christianity.
One of the Christians admitted that if I can find fault in the Bible that we could throw the Bible in the dustbin, I showed him a fault. I read it out loud. He could not and did not refute the claim and then he says to me of course there are mistakes in the Bible and that I could throw the Bible away but he knows that Jesus is God because the Holy Spirit is in him guiding him. I ask him how he knows that is not the devil. He replied because I do good. Really, you do good? You worship a man instead of God, despite that man telling you not to worship him and to worship only God and you call that good! I guess I should have asked him his definition of good because that does not fit into my definition. He had to go, suddenly.
The last Bible thumper took exception to our banner saying that in this political climate it was not wise. After, I explained the wisdom behind it. He asked me who gave me the right to do it. Gave me the right to call to the Oneness of God? I asked him who could take that right away from me. Then he showed his displeasure at what he thought as a deliberate attempt to target Christians. How hypocritical! Not a single Christian complains when their missionaries target Muslims. In any case it is not true. We speak to anyone that wishes to speak to us, some are Christians and some are not. As far as the banner is concerned that majority are from Christian backgrounds and so it is only natural that we begin our discussion with some common topic, which in this case is Jesus, alayhi sallam.
Then I challenged his belief in the divinity of Jesus by asking him a series of simple questions. Did Jesus eat? Yes. Did. Did Jesus go to the toilet? Yes (by God this should be enough for thinking people to prove Jesus is not God). Then why did Jesus show weakness on the cross? It can not be to show his humanity because what is more human than to eat and go to the toilet? Moreover, if Jesus really wanted us to worship him then at some point he would have had to show his Godliness. How can we be expected to think this man was God when he only ever showed that he was a man and even objected to being called good! This Christian then said, that this was not a subject that should be talked about on a Saturday afternoon and then he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers.
All in all, it was a great day for me, I felt that I really make a connection with two people and I soundly refuted two Bible thumpers. All praise and thanks to God. I love face to face conversations with non-Muslims about religion, those who are sincere in their quest for guidance are a joy and pleasure to speak with and the hardcore blind followers are easily bested.
I testify that none has the right to be worshiped except God and I testify that Muhammad the son of Abdullah is His slave and messenger.
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