Discovery of Islam

the performance of this duty, its very credibility of being the Muslim Ummah would become doubtful. Strangely, indeed, da’wah found no place in the literature of the centuries after the Prophet. Neither has it been mentioned anywhere in the Muslim agenda of today. The classical commentaries of the Qur’an (Tafsir) also fail to give any prominence to da‘wah as a concept. In books of hadith too, we find chapters on all subjects except da’wah. The same is true of fiqh (Islamic juris-prudence) in whose texts we do not find a chapter on da‘wah. According to the Qur’an, the exercise of patience (sabr) is a deed which makes man eligible for the highest reward (8:46); the patient man will be rewarded “beyond measure” (39:10). But the interpretation that gained popularity in later times was that the injunction of sabr, patience, had been abrogated and replaced by jihad (in the sense of qital, fighting). Thus, one who studies these books, gathers the impression, that consciously or unconsciously, patience might have been important in the past, but that nowadays it has lost its relevance. Now jihad (in the sense of qital) and not sabr is of the foremost importance. It follows that whenever a reformer calls Muslims back to their duties concerning da’wah and sabr,