E-dawah Thriving in Brazil
In a vast country like Brazil, the internet is emerging as the most effective tool to spread the message of Islam, says Al-Sadiq Al-Othmani, head of the Islamic Affairs Department at the Centre of Islamic Da’wah in Latin America, in the South American nation. Othmani, a Moroccan who has lived in Brazil for the past seven years, believes the internet can be particularly helpful for Muslim preachers in Brazil. Othmani, a renowned imam in Sao Paulo, cites his own personal experience. “In 2007, I delivered a sermon themed ‘Islam and slaves freeing’ in a Sao Paulo mosque, and it was appealing to the few attending worshippers,” he recalled. “After I finished, some of the attendants asked me to translate the sermon and post it on the internet, and I did.” The sermon was posted on the website of a young Muslim who established a website to introduce Islam to Brazilians. “To our surprise, the sermon got 800,000 hit in just one week,” said Othmani. “We also received a flood of letters and e-mail from many people asking for more information about Islam, and many of them later converted to Islam.” Othmani later embraced the idea of online Da’wah and established an online magazine that introduces Islam to Latin Americans.
Eid-ul-Adha 2009: What Muslims do on Eid-al-Adha
Eid ul adha is the eid of sacrifice. Muslims sacrifice animals to please Allah, the architect of the universe. First a animal is bought. Cows, goats, camels, dumba etc animals are sacrificed. When the animal is bought it is fed, well tended and taken care of. On the morning of Eid, after the salaat of Eid, the animal is slaughtered in the name of Allah: creature sacrifice to follow the command of the Creator.
The act of slaughtering is done by the Muslim or else by a profession with a sharp tool so that it is done effectively. If it is done by someone else, he has to be paid to satisfy him.
The blood of the animal is let free to run. Then the skin is shriveled and taken off. Most of the times the skin is given free to the poor or donated to local mosques or orphanage or madrasa. Or else the skin is sold and the money obtained is given to poor or donated.
The butcher who is called to chop the meats in some places has to be paid to satisfy him. Islam places a greater emphasis to satisfy the needy and the poor.
The meat is gathered and divided into three equal parts.
- One part is kept for the Muslim himself.
- One part is kept for relatives.
- One part is distributed among the poor.
- The part for the poor is given to the poor and needy. The part of the relatives is sent to the houses of relatives. The part kept for the Muslim himself is cooked and eaten with family and children.
Islamic Beliefs on Life After Death/Dead
Is there life after death/dead? What happens after death or what happens to the dead? Will there be reincarnation/resurrection? What are Islamic views/ideas/beliefs/teaching on afterlife? Is life after death eternal? What will happen to Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Hindus after death according to Islam? What is the experience of after life? What are the stages of death according to Qur’an? All these questions are answered briefly in this post. Death is not the end.
The uncertainty of what lies beyond is frightening. It may be that of all religions, Islam, provides the most graphic details of what comes after death and lies beyond. Islam views death to be a natural threshold to the next stage of existence.
Please read on or jump to any of the subsections by clicking below:
Description of Life after death
God states in the Quran about the events of the Day of Judgment
Reasons to believe in life after death
Life after death exists
The very fact that all the Prophets of God have dealt with this metaphysical question of life after death so confidently and so uniformly – the gap between their ages in some cases, being thousands of years – goes to prove that the source of their knowledge of life after death as proclaimed by them all, was the same, i.e. Divine revelation.
For example, when the idolaters of Makkah denied even the possibility of life after death, the Quran exposed the weakness of their stand by advancing very logical and rational arguments in support of it:
And he (i.e. man) presents for us an example (i.e. attempting to establish the finality of death) and forgets his [own] creation. He says, “Who will give life to bones while they are disintegrated?” Say, “He will give them life who produced them the first time; and He is, of all creation, Knowing.” [It is] He who made for you from the green tree, fire, and then from it you ignite. Is not He who created the heavens and the earth Able to create the likes of them? Yes, [it is so]; and He is the Knowing Creator. (Quran, 36:78-81)
On another occasion, the Quran very clearly says that the disbelievers have no sound basis for their denial of life after death. It is based on pure conjecture:
And they say, “There is not but our worldly life; we die and live (i.e. some people die and others live, replacing them) and nothing destroys us except time.” And they have of that no knowledge; they are only assuming. And when our verses are recited to them as clear evidences, their argument is only that they say, “Bring [back] our forefathers, if you should be truthful.” Say, “God causes you to live, then causes you to die; then He will assemble you for the Day of Resurrection, about which there is no doubt,” but most of the people do not know. (Quran, 45:24-26)
Faith in life after death is one of the six fundamental beliefs required of a Muslim to complete his faith. Rejecting it renders all other beliefs meaningless.
After Death
Muslims believe that the present life is a trial in preparation for the next realm of existence. When a Muslim dies, he or she is washed and wrapped in a clean, white cloth (usually by a family member) and buried after a special prayer, preferably the same day. Muslims consider this a final service that they can do for their relatives and an opportunity to remember that their own existence here on earth is brief.
Description of Life after death
The dead have a continued and conscious existence of a kind in the grave. Muslims believe that, upon dying, a person enters an intermediate phase of life between death and resurrection. Many events take place in this new “world”, such as the “trial” of the grave, where everyone will be questioned by angels about their religion, prophet, and Lord. The grave is a garden of paradise or a pit of hell; angels of mercy visit the souls of believers and angels of punishment come for the unbelievers.
Resurrection will be preceded by the end of the world. God will command a magnificent angel to blow the Horn. At its first blowing, all the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth will fall unconscious, except those spared by God. The earth will be flattened, the mountains turned into dust, the sky will crack, planets will be dispersed, and the graves overturned.
People will be resurrected into their original physical bodies from their graves, thereby entering the third and final phase of life. The Horn will blow again upon which people will rise up from their graves, resurrected!
God will gather all humans, believers and the impious, jinns, demons, even wild animals. It will be a universal gathering. The angels will drive all human beings naked, uncircumcised, and bare-footed to the Great Plain of Gathering. People will stand in wait for judgment and humanity will sweat in agony. The righteous will be sheltered under the shade of God’s Magnificent Throne.
When the condition becomes unbearable, people will request the prophets and the messengers to intercede with God on their behalf to save them from distress.
The balances will be set and the deeds of men will be weighed. Disclosure of the Records of the deeds performed in this life will follow. The one who will receive his record in his right hand will have an easy reckoning. He will happily return to his family. However, the person who will receive his record in his left hand would wish he were dead as he will be thrown into the Fire. He will be full of regrets and will wish that he were not handed his Record or he had not known it.
Then God will judge His creation. They will be reminded and informed of their good deeds and sins. The faithful will acknowledge their failings and be forgiven. The disbelievers will have no good deeds to declare because an unbeliever is rewarded for them in this life. Some scholars are of the opinion that the punishment of an unbeliever may be reduced in lieu of his good deeds, except the punishment of the great sin of disbelief.
The Siraat is a bridge that will be established over Hell extending to Paradise. Anyone who is steadfast on God’s religion in this life will find it easy to pass it.
Paradise and Hell will be the final dwelling places for the faithful and the damned after the Last Judgment. They are real and eternal. The bliss of the people of Paradise shall never end and the punishment of unbelievers condemned to Hell shall never cease. Unlike a pass-fail system in some other belief-systems, the Islamic view is more sophisticated and conveys a higher level of divine justice. This can be seen in two ways. First, some believers may suffer in Hell for unrepented, cardinal sins. Second, both Paradise and Hell have levels.
Paradise is the eternal garden of physical pleasures and spiritual delights. Suffering will be absent and bodily desires will be satisfied. All wishes will be met. Palaces, servants, riches, streams of wine, milk and honey, pleasant fragrances, soothing voices, pure partners for intimacy; a person will never get bored or have enough!
The greatest bliss, though, will be the vision of their Lord of which the unbelievers will be deprived.
Hell is an infernal place of punishment for unbelievers and purification for sinful believers. Torture and punishment: for the body and the soul: burning by fire, boiling water to drink, scalding food to eat, chains, and choking columns of fire. Unbelievers will be eternally damned to it, whereas sinful believers will eventually be taken out of Hell and enter Paradise.
Paradise is for those who worshipped God alone, believed and followed their prophet, and lived moral lives according to the teachings of scripture.
Hell will be the final dwelling place of those who denied God, worshipped other beings besides God, rejected the call of the prophets, and lead sinful, unrepentant lives.
God states in the Quran about the events of the Day of Judgment:
Then when the Horn is blown with one blast, and the earth and the mountains are lifted and leveled with one blow [i.e. stroke] – Then on that Day, the Occurrence [i.e. Resurrection] will occur, and the heaven will split [open], for that Day it is infirm (i.e. weak, enfeebled and unstable). And the angels are at its edges. And there will bear the Throne of your Lord above them, that Day, eight [of them]. That Day, you will be exhibited [for judgment]; not hidden among you is anything concealed (i.e. any person or any secret you might attempt to conceal). So as for he who is given his record in his right hand, he will say, “Here, read my record! Indeed, I was certain that I would be meeting my account.” So he will be in a pleasant life – In an elevated Garden, Its [fruit] to be picked hanging near. [They will be told], “Eat and drink in satisfaction for what you put forth (i.e. literally, advanced in anticipation of reward in the Hereafter) in the days past.” But as for he who is given his record in his left hand, he will say, “Oh, I wish I had not been given my record, and had not known what my account is. I wish it [i.e. my death] had been the decisive one (i.e. ending life rather than being the gateway to eternal life). My wealth has not availed me. Gone from me is my authority.” [God will say], “Seize him and shackle him. Then into Hellfire drive him. Then into a chain whose length is seventy cubits insert him.” Indeed, he did not used to believe in God, the Most Great. (Quran, 69:13-33)
Reasons to believe in life after death
Thus, there are very convincing reasons to believe in life after death:
1) All the Prophets of God have called their people to believe in it.
2) Whenever a human society is built on the basis of this belief, it has been the most ideal and peaceful society, free of social and moral evils.
3) History bears witness that whenever this belief is rejected collectively by a group of people in spite of the repeated warning of the Prophet, the group as a whole has been punished by God even in this world.
4) Moral, aesthetic and rational faculties of man endorse the possibility of the life after death.
5) God’s attributes of Justice and Mercy have no meaning if there is no life after death.
What Helps Convert Christians/Jews/Hindus/Non-muslims to Islam/Muslim: Qur’an: Effective Dawah Tool
The Qur’an: The Best Dawah Tool
Of All
Honour goes to Yahya Abdul Rahman ( Shawn Smith : A Muslim Convert who helped me write this.
The efforts to revive the Ummah is a global one. What is the most effective tool to spread the word of Allah. Of course it is the Quran: the direct word of Allah.
Well, these may all have their place and we should use them, but I am still convinced that there are no more convincing words than the word of Allah. I found a blog of a muslim convert and he says,
“In my own personal experience coming into Islam, and hearing the testimony of other converts, the QUR’AN had more of a profound impact on convincing me and others of Islam than anything else. For me, Surah (chapter) Yusuf had the most impact of all. It was certainly not the behaviour of Muslims, or the fancy buildings, if any, nor the flashy web sites which will convince people of the truth of Islam. None of these had the slightest impact on my decision. But the QUR’AN struck a might blow to my heart and swept away the cobwebs of unbelief and filled it with the wonderful sweetness of Iman (faith). We must never forget that Umar Bin Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) entered the fold Islam as a result of hearing the words of Surah Tahah of QUR’AN and also a group of jinn embraced Islam after hearing the words of Qur’an: “Say: It has been revealed to me that a company of Jinns listened (to the Qur’an). They said, ‘We have really heard a wonderful Recital! ‘It gives guidance to the Right, and we have believed therein: we shall not join (in worship) any (gods) with our Lord. (72:1-2)” “
There are several other incidents in the seerah, way too numerous to mention here, which relate the fact that people embraced Islam after hearing the message of the Quran.
The message of the Quran both touches the heart and also is filled with perfect logic which appeals to all right thinking people. How many converts have said after hearing the words of Allah that “I have always believed that but I just did not hear it like this before?” Just read the following testimony of one recent convert:
“I’m just going to tell you about how I became a Muslim. When I was three years old, my parents christened me. I was a Christian from age three to twenty, but I didn’t become religious until I was seventeen.
If you want to know how that happened I could tell you later because it is kind of a long story. Anyway, even though I was a Christian I didn’t know much about Christianity. I didn’t go to church much at all.
For the next three years I began to learn more about Christianity and once I did, I knew something wasn’t right. Without knowing anything about Islam, I started questioning why I should pray to my creator Allah through another being. I didn’t do it. I started to go to church with my mother when I was eighteen. I shouldn’t have been there though because even in church I didn’t pray to, or through, or ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’. All of my prayers went straight to Allah (of course back then I said God). When singing the hymns, I did not recite the lines that basically shared any divinity with Allah.
While all of this was going on, I noticed that there was a huge rise in Islam, but I payed no attention to it because I thought Islam was a religion that believed in a different god named Allah (I didn’t know that Allah stood for ‘The God’, the same one that Christians refer to). Then one of my college friends told me that he might convert to Islam, and when this happened, along with the rise in Islam, I decided to find out what this religion al-Islam was all about.
I read an article on the internet, that compared Christianity and Islam and after that, I knew I was a Muslim at heart. I was so excited, I bought the Qur’an and read all of it in three weeks. I told my parents that I’m not going to church any more and that I will most probably convert. They didn’t like it at first but once they realized that it was not the Nation of Islam I was joining and more importantly that I am still their son, they accepted it.”
Furthermore, I receive e-mails very frequently from people who are searching and are investigating Islam on their own via the internet. What shall we offer them when they ask? The prophet Muhammad e told us that “The best speech is the book of Allah and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (Pbuh) ……”
I am convinced, but not sure most Muslims are, that the answer to every objection to Islam can be found in Qur’an. The objections of the non-believers towards the religion of Allah has NEVER changed throughout the course of human history – they are essentially the same! This is just another reason why the Qur’an is the most effective dawah tool we have in presenting Islam. In fact, many parts of the Qur’an are DIRECT answers to the objections of the non-believers and hypocrites.
Although the Qur’an addresses many topics, the three main components are:
Tawheed (Oneness of Allah)
Ahkirah (Hereafter)
Risalah (prophethood)
If we concentrated on these three points our dawah efforts will be much more effective and closer to the method of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh).
As a final note, please keep in mind that these are the reflections of someone coming into Islam from the outside and not a scholar. I just feel sometimes that born Muslims fail to see the beauty and simplicity of Islam and take it for granted. While for us who are entering into the fold of Islam everyday means a new and exciting discovery, many born Muslims yawn and boastfully proclaim “why are you telling me this? I already knew that.” This is a great shame indeed.
