Spare me a few minutes

Salams

I've been meaning to write a post on this here forum on this subject but for one reason or another until now I have not been able to do so.

It strikes me as surprising at how often I get text messages from friends with the 'chain letter' formality that fwd onto 5 friends otherwise bad luck will befall you. These are Muslim friends whom I thought would have more sense than to believe that such garbage being sent by text msgs could affect what Allah has bestowed for them.

But then when we think about it Muslims wanna take the shortcut to satisfy themselves, moreso in deen than dunya. Be it in Salah or fulfilling our other obligations we wish to find the shortest possible routes in order to satiate our egos that Alhumdulillah, I have done what is required of me. We have seen that many a times on forums where copying and pasting the latest anti/ false Islam wesbite warnings do the rounds quite frequently. Another common example is texting Radio Station XYZ on a poll about Islam, its truly astounding at how many people text you with them standard msgs instructing you to vote.

What we have to ask ourselves though, is this enough? Is it enough to play the role of 'Defender of Islam' for those few seconds it takes to send a text, forward an email or copy n paste a msg into a forum? I dont mean to discourage anyone from doing these things but come on using one text out of the free hundreds we get each month on our mobiles or taking a few seconds during our mammoth daily 'net session' is hardly a big drain and effort on our part, is it?!

So what should we do? Well how about being a little proactive and enforcing the correct teachings and methods of Islam, instead of waiting to ward off that guilty feeling you get when you discover the next big threat 'to misguide muslims/ wipe Islam off the face of the earth?' Why not spend a few moments to email articles from reliable and authentic islamic sites to your Email adress list of buddies? Why not text that hadith about good character/ loving your neighbour to your circle of friends? There are lots more 'small' POSITIVE things that can be done for Islam in this way and Insha'Allah you will also obtain reward for it too. The purpose of this message was not to list them all but just for us to reflect, review and correct our actions.

May Allah Almighty give firstly me and then you the ability to act upon what has been said.

Wa akhiru da`wana an il hamdu lillahi rabbil alameen.

MAy Allah reward you.

Assalamu Alaikum,

That is so true.

What can we do to help promote authentic Islamic sites, or help you in promoting islamic sites online?

Jazakallah for sharing your thoughts. It's about time it's brought to people's attention.

Salams

Broadly speaking we can help promote Islamic sites by making others aare of them through emails, word of mouth etc. Another novel way is to add authentic islamic sites into your signature for any forums you go on. If anyone wants to help promote the Haq Islam site (see my signature) then I am willing to go into details of how in a private community discussion here. I hope this wont deter the 'non techy' members of this forum, as believe me EVERYONE can play a part and collectively we can go from strength to strength.

Salams

I just got another email from my cousin today asking me to vote in a online newspaper survey lol

Anyway, I also wanted to add that the members here should also be helping to promote MuftiSays, which is alhumdulillah a very good site. May Allah bless all those involved in it, ameen.

Wasalam

Did the rules change that now I have to have my post authorised??

Wassalam

Actually, I receive plenty of these saying, 'recite such and such 5 times right now or else ....' I receieve them through e-mail and text messages.

Because it has duas or verses to be prayed, people automatically think it to be ok and dont think it to be chain messages. On the contrary, it is regarded as a chain letter. I tend to delete it and reply back saying, 'This is regarded as a chain letter. As muslim, we do not believe in it. Please avoid it next time. Send this on to all the others whom you texted.'

It is a sin right? These chain letters?

I'm not sure if its a sin, I'll leave that for the Ulama to answer, but it most certainly is a waste of time and resources. Here some reading for all on the subject:

Is it a chain letter if an email has dua (supplication) and says send it to people for a miracle tomorrow?

Islamic chain letters and doom if not forwarded

Wasalam

salam

You're right somehow we do need to get these sites out to people. Haq Islam is working to promote the authentic islamic sites. But the site is only of benefit if people visit it.

People have to be made aware of it by others linking to it so they are more likely to visit the site. This is a big task for any one person to undertake and so here those Muslims who regularly surf the net can help. They can request and encourage others to link to Haq Islam:

• so many Muslims have/ author blogs. Whether they are Muslim/ Islamic blogs encourage them to link to haq islam and other authentic sites. Who knows who might click that link and be blessed with practising/ embarcing islam. I recall a brother who informed a group of us of an Islamic stall setup at the local Mela to hand out free Islamic lectures. Shortly after this mela a girl got in touch with those who organised the stall to say her friend gave her the free CD and through that Allah blessed her to start practising Islam and pray 5 times daily.


• Most Islamic societies and Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) have websites, please encourage them to link to Haq Islam.

Even just doing this will only take a few mins. What if a group of 25/ 30 of us were to commit a few minutes daily to do the above? Insha'Allah in no time would the authentic sites be out to the people and spreading the true and correct and teachings of Islam, ameen.

Wasalam

Jazakallah for sharing this beautiful and motivating example. We can't know what effect our efforts have on people. Maybe Allah might take such 'small' deeds and making it means of salavation from hellfire for us.

For all the readers:
Google the word Islam and then look down the results displayed, how far into the results do you have to go before you get to (what you would class as) an authentic Islamic site or even a site that links to an Authentic Islamic site???