Small Effort, Big Effect

I WILL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER OF 'GUESS WHAT AM I' QUIZ SOON, MEANWHILE PONDER THIS:


A wonderful friend who resides in the US whom I befriended in a chat-room years ago, would send me CDs and tapes of lectures by renowned 'dhaie(s)' over there. She has a web-site that sells CDs online here. I find these lectures very enlightening and helpful in improving my Islamic knowledge and the lecturers very eloquent too. The latest I received is a complete set of 12 tapes by Imam Anwar Al-Awlaq (an American of Yemeni descendant) entitiled The Life Of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., The Meccan Period.

There are so much that I can relate here but this morning , in tape 7, he was talking about Rasulullah's directive to his sahabah and us, his followers/ummah to convey to others even an ayah (ayat) from him. This is the 'gist' of dakwah (propagation of Islam). Imam Anwar was narrating about how a staunch sahabah, Abu Dzarr r.a. who was jusr an ordianry Bedouin but able to convert his whole tribe and consequently another whole tribe just by conveying what little knowledge he got from his very first short meeting with Rasullullah s.a.w.

Then Imam Anwar digressed further to relate about two incidences that he came across, personally. One was about a brother he knew in Canada, a revert. This person recalled that he was interested in religion at a very young age. In fact, it was at the age of 9 that he started pondering about life and religion. But at school he got negative images of Islam thus he never got near it. He came from a broken family, his father left his mom, who later became a drug addict. He himself became a junkie and later a dealer at age of 14. There was this park in the city he lived and the drug users would congregate there to smoke or administer drugs, intravenously. Once he noticed a fellow addict was folding the wrapper for the hash he was about to smoke, in a different manner. So he asked him where he came from and the man replied he was from Morocco and that he was a Muslim. This got the revert started. It reopened his old interest in religion. Thus for the next two hours, under the influence of drugs, being high and all, he kept on asking the Moroccan about Islam. So the Moroccan raved on and on about the tenets of Islam and every little knowledge he has about this religion. They talked till they were out of drugs but continued for another 2 hours nevertheless. Another muslim, a non-addict, who happened to be there, joined them and he would rebuke and correct the Moroccan what wrong facts he had conveyed. Thus the whole conversation went on for 4 solid hours, with the revert listening attentively and the 2 muslims, correcting each other. If one made a wrong statement, the other will rebuke.

With Allah's will, this whole incident opened up the revert's heart and he later embraced Islam, unknown to the other 2 men. You see, because of this unique chance meeting in a very unlikely fashion of dakwah, i.e. in a drug joint and under the influence of drugs, a man became a muslim. The revert later became a staunch muslim and gave dakwah to others. Once, he overheard someone made negative remarks about the Moroccan and he was quick to criticize them saying that the Moroccan had a hand in his conversion to Islam and whatever ibadah,solah ,dakwah etc he does, the Moroccan will get a copy of pahala from him till the day he dies! He may be still going around getting high on drugs, not knowing that all these rewards are being deposited for him everyday. Subhanallah!

Another miraculous true-story is about an African-American who were studying in Berkeley Uni.Like all other African Americans (we shall call him AA) he had had an early brush with Islam as almost all of them had a relative or a friend who is a muslim. However he was never interested in finding out more about it till one fine day. A muslim was helping in distributing out copies of Quran to students in the campus grounds, not thinking much or having any hopes for any of the students to really get interested in it. AA got a copy and whilst on a bus, he thoughtlessly opened the first page and read the opening chapter, Al-Fatehah. He thought this must be the introductory and nobody reads intoductory, so he flipped to the next chapter, Al-Baqarah and read the first verse, "Alif Laam Miim. This is a book that has no doubts in it". Wow! He exclaimed! What book is this that would make a bold proclaimation at the start? All the books that he had read would start with an apology for whatever mistakes and shortcomings it would have. But not this book.It shook his heart! (how many of us will feel the same way when we read the Quran?)He looked at the covers for the name of the author and he couldn't find it. Thus he kept reading on and on and finally he decided this book was not written by a human. This book is divine and must come from God, Allah swt. He later became a Muslim and a dhaie. So, you see, it all started from a person distributing the Quran without much thought or hope but this person, from this small deed, will rake pahala after pahala, each time AA does an act of ibadah! Masyallah!

So friends, remember what Rasululah s.a.w. has asked us to do: to convey from me to others, even an ayah (verse) and who knows what might transpire. Small effort with a big, tremendous outcome! Insyallah!