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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. As-salatu wa s-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. I am standing on Derwent Beach. There is a very smart wind blowing right in my face. I am using this bike with a device, whatever it’s called, a hairy head, which is supposed to cut the breeze; I hope it does. I apologize now. In the distance, the lights you see are ships. One seems to be the main thing on it. Probably a tanker, probably a cruise ship. The others are tankers or container ships that come to Derwent Harbour. So, beautiful beach, beautiful wind, and there is the lighthouse at the end doing its job.
I remind myself and you that this is the last of the series on Dawa. I remind myself and you that the purpose of Dawa is to bring people closer to Allah ﷻ, not closer to you. Keep this in your mind always: the purpose of Dawa is to get people close to Allah, to introduce people to Allah, not to publicize yourself and your work as a Dawah worker. When you do Dawa with the sole intention of pleasing Allah ﷻ, then you will find that your Dawa is effective. When you adulterate that and put in your own desires and wishes—whether it is Facebook or Instagram or whatever—and you start making videos and showing people, then you will find that the Barakah will leave your Dawa. You will not have the pleasure of Allah ﷻ in your work. So, make sure you do it only for the pleasure and favor of Allah ﷻ Jalla Sha’nu.
My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that the Hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ says, “Innamal a’malu binniyat.” The deed is based on the intention; the reward of the deed is based on the intention. Let us make sure that when we make an effort, we do it in a way where we will get the reward. Now, take this lighthouse. The purpose of the lighthouse was to warn ships of rocks. To warn ships that there are rocks, that the coast here is not safe. So, the ships can stay away from the rocks. Of course, today with all kinds of fancy, sophisticated navigation equipment, lighthouses are not really required. Ship captains are not looking at lighthouse lights to navigate. They have all kinds of very fancy and sophisticated equipment. But still, the lighthouse is doing its job. And when you look at the lighthouse, you realize that this is really the job of the Dawah workers of Islam, where you are the lighthouse for the world. You are the people who are showing the world where there is danger: the danger of shirk, the danger of Kufr, the danger of Nifaq, of idolatry, of denial of Allah, of hypocrisy. All of these are dangers. These are dangers which take us away from Islam, taking us away from the Rida of Allah.
I remind myself; I know that everything that happens, everything that is there in the world, is created by Allah. And it is doing its duty. It is fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. The waves are doing their job. The sand is doing its job. The whole world under those waves is doing its job. It is a completely new world. I always say the aliens are here, and they are in the ocean. Allah’s creation is so varied, so incredibly varied, and so incredibly complex that there is nothing which is replicated, which is wasted, which is repeated, and which you can say, “Well, you know, really there was no need for this thing.” Why is this thing here? And nothing like that. Everything is exactly how it should be. Everything is exactly in the right place. Everything is exactly in the exact position that it is supposed to be in, doing what it is supposed to be doing. And all of this is thanks to the creation of Allah. So, let us think about these things and live a life which is thoughtful, not a life which is full of heedlessness.
The thing I want also to mention to you is that the power of guidance: sometimes we tend to lose hope and we tend to give up because we feel, “Oh, well, you know, I’ve been trying to invite people to Islam for so many years and nobody is listening to me, nobody listens, nobody bothers, nobody cares.” But believe me, this is not true, right? People do care, people do bother, people do listen. And sometimes Allah shows us the effect of what we have said and done. Somebody will come to you and they will say, “Well, you know, I’ve been listening to you and you have changed my life completely.” You don’t know this man from anyone; he’s a complete stranger. You’ve never seen him before. You will probably never see him again. But here is a person, unsolicitedly, telling you that you’ve changed his life. Of course, I didn’t change his life; you didn’t change his life. His life was changed by Allah who gave him the Tawfiq to listen to whatever it was that you were presenting. And this is only to encourage you that Allah will bring results, but we don’t know how many such people are there. But then the bigger good news, the real good news, is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many there are. It doesn’t matter if there is nobody. Because Allah in His infinite mercy will only hold us accountable for what was in our control: which is to present the Deen, to give the Dawa, to convey the message. That is it.
“وَمَا أَلَيْنَا إِلَّا الْبَلَاغُ الْمُبِينُ” (Wama alayna illal balaghu mubinu). As He said upon Him ﷺ. “Kama qala ‘alayhi s-salamu.” As He said Jalla Jalalah. That on you is only to convey clearly. That’s it. It is not your job to do anything more than convey clearly. It’s not your job to convince people. It’s not your job to browbeat them, to try to force them, or to try to bribe them. Nothing, none of that. Just convey clearly. And that is why it is very important. Social skills are a very important element of Dawa. Please understand this. Being polite, being respectful—right? Refer to people, especially elders, refer to them with the honorifics which are due to them. Shaykh Ibrahim, Uncle Ibrahim, right? Ibrahim Bhai, my brother. Things which are respectful. And don’t call somebody who is 80 years old, “Brother so and so.” He is not your brother. He is older than your grandfather. Right? So obviously you don’t call him grandfather. What you say: “Oh my father,” “Oh my uncle.”
I remember I met one of my friends in Oman. He invited me to his house. When I went there, the first time I was meeting his son, this boy who must have been in his 20s, he came to the car, opened the door. As I got out of the car, he said, “Umm, Ammu,” meaning uncle, “I am your son, Ahmed.” Imagine; I mean it felt so nice, it felt so wonderful, that this happened several years ago. I think probably easily about 10 years ago. But to this day, I remember that boy, Ahmed, may Allah Ta’ala bless him and grant him the best of the best. Just that one interaction, it was so beautiful. I was so impressed. It felt so warm, so wonderful, and so respectful. “Uncle, I am your son, Ahmed.” So beautiful. You know, this is how people are; this is how children are raised. This is how children should be raised. Right? Not that you call somebody who is old enough to be your father or maybe even older than your father just by name. Very, very shameful, very humiliating. And especially if you are in the work of Dawa, be especially careful. Right? Good manners are things which open doors. Good manners are things which open the hearts of people, which make the hearts soft. And in good manners, the number one good manner is respect: showing respect for elders, showing respect for scholars, showing respect for women. Very, very, very important.
So please understand that in Dawa, it is not only correct knowledge, but the way that correct knowledge is conveyed, which wins results. Right? Knowledge should be correct. You must learn. That’s why I mentioned this earlier in the previous episodes: that you must learn Islam. And there is no age where you are too old to learn. I just today met Sheikh Bilal Ismail, the head of IDP (Imam Development Program). I am an advisor to IDP. My book, my Khutbah book, is given to every Imam when he comes and joins the IDP. So I said to Sheikh Bilal, “I am an advisor. So I want to do the course that your Imams do—the Tarbiyah, Talim, and Tarbiyah course.” I would like to do that. So I did that, Alhamdulillah, and I completed that course six months or eight months earlier. So Alhamdulillah, that finished. And today, since I was in Durban, he invited me to the IDP office and presented me with a certificate, which was very nice and so on. He told the people, “Here is Sheikh Yawar, who is 72 years old, 71 years old in the Hijri calendar, 73 years old, but he is not ashamed to learn, right? He is not ashamed to take a course.”
And that is the reality. If you want to learn, if you want to keep your brain active, if you want to keep Alzheimer’s at bay, learn new things. It is better to look for difficult things to learn, not easy things. The more difficult the thing, the more beneficial it is, because it stretches your brain. It’s not easy on the brain. So, it pushes you. It pushes you to do more and to learn more. So, we ask Allah to make us among the learners and to help us to learn the right thing. And as I said again: learn how to convey, not only what to convey, but how to convey. Allah said about the Prophet ﷺ: He didn’t say you are the most knowledgeable person; He said you are the best behaved, you are the person with the best manners, you are the person with the best character. So, this shows us the importance of manners and of character. We ask Allah to make us among them and to help us to live our lives according to the blessed Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.