The following article written by Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed appeared in the Wall Street Journal in April 2017 in response to a WSJ interview introducing University Professor Ayaan Hirsi Ali as "Islam's Most Eloquent Apostate." (WSJ, Opinion, The Weekend Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tunku Varadarajan)
The Truth of Dawa
By Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed
Muslim-American Leader
(Author’s Note: The above spelling is used for the Holy Qur’an term دَعْوَةُ which is generally rendered in English as ‘dawah.’ We have used the above spelling so as not to suggest that what we are speaking of is a reference to another term different from the one Professor Ali discusses in her interview.)
'Dawa' as an Arabic word, an Islamic term, and as a principle of the science of Islamic faith and practice means simply 'a call, an invitation, or invocation.’ As a native born African-American Muslim, a fluent student of the Arabic language, a formally trained Imam in the tradition of Imam W. Deen Mohammed and his representative and successor, and an author of a book that details the Islamic principles which inform Muslim-American commitments to nullifying extremist doctrines associated with Islam, the accuracy of this definition can be trusted. To her discredit, Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's description of the term and its aim, as highlighted in her interview with the Wall Street Journal to promote her book "The Challenge of Dawa," proves the universal maxim that naked truth exposes false eloquence.
The verse from the Qur’an defining the purest meaning of dawa is:
لَهُ دَعْوَةُ الْحَقِّ
It is translated: “For Him (G’d) alone is the purest and truest supplication.” (Holy Qur’an: 13:14)
The verse of the Qur'an from which the characterization for 'dawa' is derived as a functioning strategy of faith was revealed to Muhammed the Prophet at Madinah, the first Islamic community, where under the Prophet's leadership the practices of Islam in a community reality began, and where Shariah was formed:
رَبَّنَا إِنَّنَا سَمِعْنَا مُنَادِيًا يُنَادِي لِلْإِيمَانِ أَنْ آمِنُوا بِرَبِّكُمْ فَآمَنَّا
It is translated: “Our Lord, we have heard a caller, calling us to faith: 'Believe you in your Lord.' And we have believed." (Holy Qur'an 3:193)
In the teaching of the late leader and teacher of Islam, Imam W. Deen Mohammed, and under the influence of his thinking, we Muslim-Americans succeeding his school of thought know better the aims and interests of 'dawa' than the assertions of Ms. Ali's tenebrous machinations. We know 'dawa' to be the invocation of Our Lord-Creator. Further, we know it to be the invitation to all human beings to faith in God, and to decency, and to civilized behavior befitting dignified human individuals and communities. We also know it to be the 'invitation' for Muslims to work intelligent strategies in order to expose, defy, and eradicate the misanthropic doctrines of the wrongdoers and extremists.
Ms. Ali wrongly asserts or assumes that there is no American, nor Western, indigenous community of Islam that speaks for democratic ambitions with a sincere attachment to democratic principles. She supposes that the precepts of Islam and Western democracy -U.S. Constitutional values and religious pluralism- are "incompatible," and she concludes that Muslims in America and other Western nations must ultimately seek the demise of the democratic order. Contrary to Ms. Ali's report, the principle of 'dawa' or Islamic 'call' is not the desire to access "Western institutions of socialization" as a strategic and surreptitious political aim. Rather, 'dawa' is the method prescribed by the Qur'an to inform a Muslim and non-Muslim public of Islamic teachings and commitments that seek to contribute to and strengthen society.
Muslim-Americans measure the needs of their own community and their ambitions for social progress alongside and with recognition of the needs and ambitions of their non-Muslim family members, co-workers, neighbors, and friends -their fellow American citizens. Through open, transparent, and public 'dawa' programs which promote understanding of Islamic values, Muslim-Americans participate in supporting the democratic notion of an informed electorate, and they contribute an enlightened moral perspective to help solve troubles in American society.
Ms. Ali's characterization of 'dawa' as a mortal threat to the American, Western, democratic system and to the lives of innocent citizens of democratic nations, belies the intent behind the Muslim-American desire to obey Islamic teachings. Indeed, it is this intent that the First Amendment protects for Christian, Jewish, and other religious communities in their adherence to religious teachings. The Judaeo-Christian ethic of 'love thy neighbor' in the interest of peace and stability is the actual objective of Islamic 'dawa.' Ms. Ali's suggestion that 'dawa' is an Islamic scheme to supplant the democratic order is as ridiculous as characterizing the traffic jams caused by last year's Papal visit to Washington, D.C. as a Catholic scheme to sabotage the necessary government functions of the United States.
Muslim-Americans are certainly aware of the evil in the world that parades and masquerades as Islam. However, Ms. Ali's miscategorization of the idea in Islam that Muslims cite to inform themselves and the public of what Islamic faith is and what it is not, so as to condemn the religion of Islam generally, and by implication the whole Islamic community in America as a column diametrically opposed to the democratic order and committed to its absolute destruction, should earn rebuke and censure from all responsible quarters defending democracy.
In the the Muslim-American tradition the Islamic view of democracy not only aims to guarantee freedoms in speech, opinion, and expression, but most importantly it seeks to guarantee the opportunity for citizens to express vital truths from which principles of justice and equality may be derived to govern society.
Ms. Ali's description of 'dawa' falls far short of truth. We 'invite' her to become better informed.
Muslim-American Leader Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed was National Representative to the late Imam W. Deen Mohammed (son of Elijah Muhammad, and leader of America's largest indigenous Muslim community). He is author of "Democracy, Civic Virtue, and Islam: The Muslim-American Jihad Against Extremism” and founder of the Muslim-American Ministry for Human Salvation.