Ml Saeed Ahmed Khan رحمة الله عليه always emphasized the importance of presenting your message in a ‘good manner’.
When speaking, it’s important not to confront, reject, humiliate, disgrace, or belittle the other person. One should adopt a self-effacing manner. The practice of the Prophet
was to explain things with gentleness, compassion, and wisdom.
In 1980, we went to America and spent a year in Tabligh. There was no effort. We would speak to people there.
One local said, “You haven’t talked any ill of the world (dunya) that this world is less than a mosquito, and so on.”
I said, “We don’t do this.”
So he responded, “We appreciate this. Because we came here for this world. We didn’t come here for worship. There is no Kabah here. This is America. If someone talks ill of this world, we don’t appreciate it.” They wouldn’t accept anyone speaking ill of this world.
We would tell them, “Look, you want your children to be well educated. Similarly, teach them faith so that your children remain honest, faithful, and obedient to you. You give them not only education but also morals.”
Speech that ‘unites’ rather than divides. Thus, the other is receptive to it.
Allah also explains this way. When the polytheists didn’t believe in resurrection, Allah reasoned with them. Allah explains beautifully:
“and how We send blessed water down from the sky and grow with it gardens, the harvest grain, and tall palm trees laden with clusters of dates, as a provision for everyone; how with water, We give new life to a dead land? This is how the dead will emerge from their graves.”
(50:9-11)
Allah is saying, look, just as I bring the dead land to life with water, I will also raise the dead from the earth by My power.
Read the Qur’an—it explains things in a ‘good manner’ full of wisdom. As callers to the faith (dawah), we must understand and learn this.
