Triple Imperatives Of Islamic Work:
Opportunities & Challenges Part II - First, Second And
Third Imperatives
20 August 2012
Triple Imperatives Of Islamic Work:
Opportunities & Challenges Part I - Introduction: Dawah And Society
By Abdulwarees Solanke
The First Imperative
The first imperative i want to address is the
imperative of education. By imperative of education, I
do not mean just the robust Islamic knowledge because
this is a basic necessity, a primary condition which i
assume every Dawah worker must have. The depth of
message is vital, no doubt. This makes it unnecessary
for me to belabour this point again. But if perchance
there is any worker lacking in respect of Islamic
knowledge, this deficiency only widens the scope of
knowledge he has to encompass in the short run in the
field of work, and this is no mean a task.
By imperative of education, I mean totality of
awareness and currency of the social environment in
which the Dawah worker operates. He must understand
the organic structure of the society; the flow of
power and influence in the system, its intricacies and
workings; the demographic configuration, the
infrastructural distribution, and resource
allocation.The organic structure of the society
defines the nature and level of co-operation,
collaboration and struggle within the society.
The organic structure determines ownership and control
of the economic resources, and their allocation just
as it dictates the reservoirs of power. The knowledge
of the organic structure of the society by Islamic
mission would enable it to have a perfect
understanding of the direction of its Dawah. Not just
that; the Dawah would be able to organize itself and
deliver its work to its specific objective without
necessarily encountering opposition.
I appreciate that opposition and rejection,
ultimately, constitute the test of Dawah impact.
However, these are most undesirable at the preliminary
stage of Dawah because it is distractive of the
primary mission. A perfect knowledge and understanding
of the organic structure of the society expands and
opens the scope of work and the field of
opportunities, as it assists it in discovering talents
and resources that could be helpful to the mission and
ease its task.
Similarly, the understanding of demographic
distribution is as necessary as the quality of Islamic
knowledge itself. By this understanding, i mean the
distribution of the society across gender, age,
geographic and economic indices. The Dawah mission
must be familiar with all the demographic indices of
his environment, as the knowledge of these would
enable it to define its target and focus
appropriately.
Infrastructural distribution - establishment and
location schools, hospitals, and other facilities
relating to the health and development fo the human
capital are part of demographic indices that are
necessary to be understood by the Dawah mission/worker
as these would serve as the platform to operate and
reach the people. Ultimately, our real challenge is a
challenge of research. Research expands the horizon,
exposes problem areas and helps in finding solutions
to them. Dawah becomes easier, focused and
result-oriented when proper research is done. Such
research must not be superficial or hasty. It must be
scientific, and all the tools for testing its
application must be employed. The research must
involve studies in behavioural patterns,
socio-cultural evolution of he environment, and its
adaptative tendencies. Findings of research in these
areas will afford the Dawa mission to effectively
distribute or allocate its resources both human and
material.
Let us assume here that what our society needs now is
not the emergence new Dawah missions, but a
re-direction of existing ones. Each one must look
inward into its own activities and determine where
these activities will be relevant to the needs of ht
society and the generality of Muslims once the
objectives are to popularize teh Islamic ideology and
bring humanity to recognizing Allah as teh sole
disposer of affairs. If it successfully does a
research about itself, the result will assist it in
appraising the society it is operating in.
For instance, if after an appraisal, the mission
thinks it will be best adapted to economic empowerment
of the Muslims, it must proceed to do a thorough
research of hte employment situation viz-a-viz the
muslim. If the research reflect lopsidedness of muslim
represented in any particular area of life e.g. the
media, we must proceed to charge the balance.
The Second Imperative
The second imperative of Dawah has to do with need to
cast away the garb of negativism that portrays Daway
as an all-corner affair. Such an attitude has been
very damaging to the real objective of Dawah beause
the field of Islamic work is today mostly populated by
charlatans and opportunists and incapable or fake
scholars who rather than bring people to true faith,
further corrode their ceman and persent to them a
distorted image of Islam. The simple solution to this
Dawah has to be a thorough professionalized vocation.
By professionalization, it is not an attempt to create
an ecclesiastical class or order as in Christendom,
but to bring to reality that verse of the Quran, which
says "Let there arise out of you a band of people"
Not that his band of people will just arise without
vision, mission and training. These three elements
confer on the band the professional commitment, as it
must be consciously organized and distributed to serve
Dawah needs.
The Third Imperative
In the make-up of the human society, each individual
is equipped with his god-given talent and ability.
Training and education also assist the individual to
realize the potentials for them to be optionally
deployed for individual or societal advancement. A man
gets fulfilment and satisfaction, and his productivity
is most manifest when he is most consistent and
specializes where he has the greatest interest and
comparative advantage. It is high time this truth is
also recognized in the field of Dawah. And this is
what I refer to as the imperative of
specialization.When there is specialization in Dawah,
individuals and organisations would be able to
discover their comparative strengths and advantages
and the resulting energies are variously deployed to
the appropriate areas of needs without anyone
suffering neglect or undue concentration and waste of
human and material resources usually associated with.
The Challenge Of Knowledge And
Understanding
The reason why Dawah often lacks depth or is slow in
response to the challenges of modern time is the
superficiality in knowledge and understanding of the
dynamics to today's world.There is no doubt that tones
of literature on Islam are available, not to talk of
Tafseer of the Quran and Hadeeth. On the mimbar,
scholars and Imams can draw galloons of tears from our
eyes, exposing the vagaries of the Dun'yah and the
realities of the hereafter - its joys adn punishment.
But these sermons hardly take many muslims beyond the
precincts of the mosques. Outside are fresh challenges
which they can hardly connect with the sermons, or
which the sermons did not provide alternatives to
tackle. Muslims are told not to take interest: what
are the available investments options? How realistic
are they? Do they have access to them? How can they be
organized to benefit from them? Muslims are told that
the Palestinians are being victimized the Israelis,
and that it is an Islamic duty to support them: how do
we let the ordinary muslim know the origin of the
crisis, the extent of the suffering and the real
motive of the Israelis. These instances are economic
and political challenges. There are other fundamental
areas of life that constitute everyday challenges.
Unfortunately these would not be directly taught in
schools or be made to be part of educational
curriculum. If they are, their depth may not be
sufficient. Although many muslim scholars are rising
to this challenge with studies and researches, how
well are their findings publicized? How much are they
applied and taught to the beneficiaries?
Those who responsibility it is to educate and reform
the society must be educated about all the
contemporary challenges and their threats and linkages
to Islam. Dawah must continue to look into the
education of Imams and scholars and journalists.
Knowledge of History and International Geo-politics
are as crucial as that of Tafseer; knowledge of
Psychology and the other branches of social sciences
are as important as Seerah. In the understanding of
these branches of knowledge will it be possible to
establish connection with the Islam ideals and
precepts.
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