The Man Islam Builds

A commentator of the Quran has interpreted this as follows: Muslims are intermediary between the Prophet and the nations of the world (Al-Tabari). In conformance with this, dawah work is obligatory for the Muslim Ummah. It is their essential duty to receive the divine message of the Prophet and convey it to the rest of humanity. It is not simply an act of annunciation. It is the most important struggle. Because of this the Quran says: Do with them the great jihad by the help of the Quran (25:52). The Quran is a book, not a weapon. “Great jihad with the Quran” means a great religious endeavour; da’wah work is thus a great ideological struggle. It is a supreme intellectual effort which stretches to the utmost the mental capacity of the human being. Intellectual Development Dawah is a strictly non-political mission. But it is an extremely difficult task to perform because it invites challenges from virtually all sections of society. The da‘i says: “Here is the truth with a capital T, and success in this world as well as in the world hereafter depends on the acceptance of this truth, so man has no choice but to accept it.” This kind of claim is highly provocative, eliciting reactions from every ideological group—religious, materialist, secular, atheist, etc. The man with a mission throws down a challenge which provokes a response. A challenge-response-mechanism becomes operative which stimulates continuous interaction, involving questions and answers, discussions and dialogues. It is during this interaction that the process of intellectual development begins.