Wednesday, October 12, 2005

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!

8 comments:

Suriya said...

Inspiring stories . I especially like the one about the drug addict. So oftem we dismiss these people and here is one man who changed another man. It is because the man who changed focused on the good of the Muslim drug addict. How often is it that we instead focus on the negative ?

Anonymous said...

Thank you drroza for sharing the stories with us. You have indeed been blessed to have known that friend from the US from the chat room.

And we have been blessed to have known you and ikelah from this favourite past-time of ours - blogging!!!

Selamat berbuka to you and family. It's my turn to ask you: "Berbuka dengan apa hari ini?" I'm having sweet-sour tenggiri cuts for berbuka. Guess where the inspiration was from??? ;))

Anonymous said...

Both stories truly touched me.. especially the one about the drug addict... it conveys much about being fair and non-judgmental to everyone... and shows how the scope of da'wah goes well beyond the usual ceramah and talks at the mosques etc.

sometimes i feel shamed by the fact that it's usually the reverts that know and apply more of what Islam really is.

dith said...

Nurelhuda- Our human nature is so fond of finding the negative sides of others.

Pycno - And we are blessed with you too. So who cooked that dish? You or beloved?

Crimson- yes, we should be ashamed for taking things for granted and not making things better for our own selves!

Anonymous said...

:) Lovely entry. I love reading revert stories, they are so inspirational. May the Moroccan man gain a lot of rewards, sort himself out, and gain easy entry to Jannah.
As for passing on knowledge, yes it is imperative we do that but we should also make sure we pass along correct information and do it with a lot of hikmah. I see many people who are full of good intentions but go about dakwah the wrong way, may Allah accept their ibadah, and may they learn more wisdom, amiin. I myself like to keep quiet if I fear I may cause the wrong impression or give out wrong info.

Anonymous said...

drroza, you will not give up, eh?? The sweet-sour tenggiri could have been prepared by anybody. It could have been some Mak Cik or kakak at the pasar ramadhan, could have been beloved yang prepare(dia pun sayang, and will do anything for me) or could have been yours truly himself. I'm just like ikelah, I know how to cook too. But I dont know all those 'pucuk-pucuks' that goes into the Bubur Lambuk ikelah has deliciously described. Dah dapat merasa ke Bubur Istemewa ikelah tu???

p/s - Okaylah, since it's Ramadhan, I'll tell you. Beloved yang prepare. Told you, dia sayang kat saya!!!

Anonymous said...

Assalamualaikum..

These stories brought me hopes that our efforts in dakwah are not in vain.. I'm trying my best to do to convey the real Islam to my Buddhist housemates right now... They are very much interested because what they knew about Islam is usually negative and that Islam is a 'tedious religion'. I'm trying to rectify these perceptions. I hope my efforts are paying off..

Anonymous said...

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