Interfaith Dialogue in Islam

Please explain this Quranic verse: ‘Indeed, man shall be a witness against himself.’ (75:14) T his verse means that every human being has a conscience or an inner voice. A person desires that his conscience should justify his actions, but one’s conscience will never do such a thing. In this sense, it would be a witness against one’s deeds. The whole life of the Prophet of Islam was based on dawah mission, but the entire Muslim world is not aware of this. What led to the shift of emphasis? I often experienced this when I spoke to several educated Muslims and asked them why do they not do dawah work? They said that dawah work was only the Prophet’s work, while their own work was to pray, fast and establish seminaries. This is wrong thinking. The Prophet had to spread his message to his contemporaries, but what will have to be done with the generations that follow? The importance of doing dawah work was almost deleted from recent Muslim history. Some focused on the revival of the Muslim community, while others on different aspects of religion. However, nobody worked for revival of dawah work. This should raise our sense of responsibility. We should understand that we must now rigorously work for dawah, which the Muslim community has least focused on. Often people return the Quran presented to them saying it may be a book of magic. What should be done in such a case? P eople in this world have spirit of enquiry. It should be left to the choice of the receiver to read the book you present to him. You can at best tell them that they if they want they could read and that the book is not being enforced upon them. Misunderstandings should be made a point of discussion and not of offensive feeling. How can we revive Islamic spirit among Muslims?