Witness to Truth

of some political power, contrive to destroy the da‘i’s movement. Another possibility is that God may create such circumstances as may help either the da‘i or his successors to acquire authority in the land. Then acquisition of authority may take various forms. It may be just political control; or the movement may receive such extensive support from the public that an organized society may come into existence on the basis of Islam. All the above results are probable, and instances of all of them are recorded in the long history of the Dawah struggle of the prophets. However, none of these forms serve as a condition for bearing witness to truth or a standard formula for it. The only valid form of bearing witness is communication of God’s message to the people in total honesty and sincerity (7:68) and in such a manner as to touch the heart (4:63). This conveying of the message has to be continued, whatever the hurdles which may arise. Whatever follows after that, will be the worldly results of the Dawah struggle or, to put it another way, the outcome of the history of Dawah which assumes different forms in different circumstances. Thus, all that is required of the preacher is that he should convey God’s message to the fullest possible extent and that he should continue to perform this duty all his life. Any further developments depend upon the response of the madu. It is obvious that no fixed list of the outcomes of Dawah can be foretold nor can difference in the nature of the response determine the completeness or incompleteness of the work of the da‘i. The next important consideration is that, in the carrying out of dawah work, there is no need to present all aspects of the religion on a single occasion to non-Muslims. The proper way is to start with the basic teachings of Islam. God, prophethood, the Life Hereafter are the concepts which are first put to nonMuslim addressees. And these are matters which have to be regularly explained to them from various angles. Effective logical explanation has to be resorted to solve any problems they may face in understanding these points and, once they have come to accept these concepts, they are taught the remainder of God’s commands for the faithful. In the tenth year of Hijrah, when the Prophet sent