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Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim, al-hamdulillah, Rabb il-‘alamin, wa salat wa salam ala ashraf al-anbiya’i wal-mursalin, Muhammadur Rasulullah, insha’Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam.
My brothers and sisters, in sales training we teach people that there are different ways of selling different things. For example, if you are selling products — if you are selling, for example, cars — how will you sell a car? The best way to sell a car is to give the person a test drive. Let them drive the car and see it for themselves, see how it feels.
If you are selling holidays, how would you do that? Obviously you can’t give a free holiday to everybody, but what resorts and travel companies do is they invite consolidators — the people who sell holidays — to their resort, complimentary, and let them experience being there so they can go back and sell those holidays. So you give them a taste of your service or that experience which you are selling.
How do you sell a perfume? You don’t give people a lecture on that perfume. You don’t give them a list of ingredients. You don’t give them a PowerPoint presentation of the perfume. You give them a whiff of the perfume, a little smell of the perfume. Those of you who have been to malls — and this happens in practically all malls — in Dubai airport as you walk through, you find many perfume shops and people there handing out samples. They put a little on your finger or wrist, or give you a strip of paper with perfume on it. They keep handing out samples because that’s the best way of selling a perfume. Even though the perfume may come in a beautiful bottle and so on, people buy the perfume after they smell it. It’s as simple as that: give them a whiff.
So also if you’re selling food items, give them a taste of the food. For example, if I tell you to sell gulab jamuns, how will you describe gulab jamuns? Brown-colored soft balls soaked in sugar — it even sounds horrible. The point is, all you need to do is give them a couple of gulab jamuns to eat and you’ve sold it.
So do something that will illuminate their mind, fill their hearts with happiness, and their lives with sweetness. This is the beauty of it.
Now display confidence. In Islam, when you’re presenting Islam, give people a taste of Islam. Show them Islam in your appearance, speech, manners, kindness, compassion, charity, and consideration. Do that.
Somebody sent me a clip about a young Muslim man who sells bread outside in Colaba, outside near India Gate and the Taj area. He is a poor man selling bread. But what he also does, quietly with no fanfare, is that whenever someone falls into the sea — sometimes by accident, sometimes attempting suicide — this man jumps in and saves them. He has saved 300 people so far. Imagine: he’s not paid for this, not a lifeguard, maybe not even thanked, but he does it out of goodness of heart. He is a Muslim man, and people appreciate that.
You might say people are hostile, and yes, there can be hostility, but when someone does good people appreciate it. So here is a person doing good without question, and people appreciate it. This is the “selling of the perfume,” if I may say so.
My brothers and sisters, the question then is: what is the taste of Islam that we are giving to people? It’s not arrogance — it’s confidence in how we conduct ourselves.
Remember what Rasulullah ﷺ did. As I mentioned, hostility toward Islam is nothing new. It started the moment Rasulullah ﷺ announced Islam. He showed us the best way of dealing with it: be confident, practicing Muslims, and show that through akhlaq.
I have mentioned the story of Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak and his neighbor many times. It’s a wonderful story. His neighbor was a Jewish man who was selling his house. He put the house on the market at double the value. People came, saw it, liked it, but said, “This is twice the price of houses like this in this area.” The man said, “Yes, because my neighbor is Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak. Half the price is for the house, and half is for the value of the neighbor.” Having a man like Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak as a neighbor was a marketable asset.
When Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak heard this, he asked the man, “Why are you selling?” The man said, “I need money.” Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, “I will give you the money. Stay here. I want you as my neighbor.” The point is that his presence as a neighbor was seen as a marketable asset. That is the value of akhlaq. Not merely because he was Muslim, but because of the kind of person he was — and what made him that kind of person was Islam.
I remember many years ago I was in Durban and asked to visit a girls’ madrasa. We came to a large assembly hall with perhaps 700–800 girls, all wearing hijab and many with burqas. The dean introduced me and asked me to recite. After I recited, he asked, “Can you guess how many of these girls are Muslim?”
I was astonished and said, “What kind of question is that? We are in an Islamic school, all are wearing hijab. As far as I can see, they are Muslim.” He said, “No. Forty percent are not Muslim.”
I asked, “Then why are they here? Are they taught a different course?” He said, “No. Same course. They also learn Qur’an, Hadith, and everything taught in the madrasa.”
I asked, “Then why are they here?” He said, “Because the parents say that when our daughters come home from this boarding school, we see a huge difference in behavior and demeanor: respectful attitudes, helping parents, doing chores, not hanging out all hours, not smoking, not on drugs.”
I asked, “How many become Muslim?” He said, “Maybe none, maybe one.” But they still come.
The point is not merely converting people. The point is presenting Islam in the most beautiful way so they have a beautiful positive experience of Islam. That is exactly what they are doing in that madrasa.
These girls may not all convert, but they leave with a positive image of Islam. Later in life, when they encounter Islamophobic messages, they can stand up and say, “No, I don’t believe this. I went to a Muslim madrasa and did not find that.”
There may be negatively inclined individuals in any group, but that has nothing to do with Islam itself. In this way, you create ambassadors for your faith among other people — by how you treat them and by what they experience with you in social interactions and business transactions.
That is da’wah. Perhaps the most powerful da’wah is da’wah by actual conduct.
So I remind myself and you: let us think about that. It is the most powerful way in which we can, insha’Allah, present Islam.