The Importance of an Intellectual Audience

The Importance of an Intellectual Audience the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. This strategy worked. First, the best minds of Makkah embraced Islam, then after a period of some years, the whole of Arabia entered the fold of Islam. This fact is indirectly referred to in the Quran, in the chapter Al-Nasr (Help): “When God’s help and victory come, and you see people entering God’s religion in multitudes.” (110:1-3) The second aspect of this approach is that it is extremely useful for a dai, that is, a preacher. When you do dawah work with an intellectual or an educated person, your knowledge will be enhanced. From ordinary people you will receive little in the way of intellectual stimulation, but intellectuals will always present you with different kinds of challenges. They raise the kind of questions, which start off a re-thinking process. According to the Quranic account, all of the prophets invariably addressed the intelligentsia of their time. Their first target was the people of intellect. Wherever there is a challenge, there is development. This formula applies likewise to dawah work. When a dai faces an intellectual challenge, he is bound to inquire, to re-think, to study more and more, to prepare his mind afresh. This starts a process of intellectual development—as a matter of compulsion rather than by choice. The most important human achievement is intellectual development. Without this, a man is reduced to the level of an animal. The obvious importance of intellectual development is in itself enough to prove that the best way to proceed with dawah work is to start with the intelligentsia. The saying that things are known by their result applies equally to the method of dawah.