Da'wa

"Tell people about your religion without the use of your tongue"

    - Imam Jafar as-Sadiq

Muslims today assume that da'wa (invitation to Islam) involves preaching and debate. A famous Shakyh once warned that these modern exponents of da'wa are likely to put off a hundred people before converting a single soul. They often do more harm than good. The writer Reza-Shah Kazemi observes that the kind of da'wa that exists today is very similar to Christian missionary movements which the Muslim world has been subject to for the past few centuries. An imitative response to one's former colonisers.

Wahba Zuhayli and Muhammad al-Ghazali are two recent scholars who show that there were no missionary organisations in the early spread of Islam. Thomas Arnold's study confirms that the spread of Islam in the early period was primarily through merchants and mystics who simply had good character.

Obviously, it is duty upon Muslims to remind others about God, the Afterlife and invite them to Islam but it should always be in a spirit of humility. 

We should bear in mind that the most persuasive proofs of faith does not come from the intellectual scholar who convinces you with his eloquence and knowledge but the sanctified soul whose very presence carries a magnetic power. Their luminous gaze can melt hearts in ways no argument can. One Christian speaker said that the reason for the decline in religious adherence today is the complete absence of such luminaries in the modern world. Technology now allows us to spread religious messages wider and faster than ever before, but without the living embodiment of the tradition, the message on its own struggles to take deep roots in the soul.

The saint has no ego, and that very emptiness is like a magnetic void that draws people in. The egotistical person, by contrast, is full of himself, and that very fullness repels others. The saint's silence can attract a thousand souls, while the scholar’s thousand words may not move even one.  As the Sufi poet Rumi said,

"Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation"