I have always thought about this topic and so far I have not heard a satisfactory answer or convincing answer on what means should muslims of TODAY use to spread Islam.
In the Prophet SAW time, it was different circumstance because he was the messenger of Allah and to deny him was openly defying Allah however today we do not have such messengers amongst us where Allahs help is directly involved or can be witnessed first hand as in the case of Prophets.
For people today we have the Quran, Ahadith, Sirah and Islamic history as testimonials to what we claim. So when we invite people to Islam and Allahs message how are we to react when people deny that message. If we are strong enough can we fight when denied or should we retract and only keep preaching peacefully?
By example. Most stories I've read by converts to Islam share one factor - they were impressed by a Muslim they knew and wanted to find out more about Islam because of him/her.
the Prophet only attacked those who didn't have a treaty with the muslims and those who had broken their treaty
there is no such thing as forcing people to convert, and this is not in Islam
rather one delivers the message and leaves everything to Allah because Allah guides whome He wills
in Quran [6:116], it says that the majority on the earth is misguided and in [2:256] it says there is no compulsion in religion
there were non Muslims living in Madinah,
the Prophet fought the Jewish tribes in Madinah because of their breach of the Covenant of Madinah which they all had agreed to
Banu Qaynuqa - dishonoured a Muslim woman and killed a Muslim
Banu Nadeer - tried to assassinate the Prophet
Banu Quraydah - committed treason
I was watching a video recently what I like about the video was most of the non-muslims argue upon hte secondary factors of Islam such as polygamy, hijab, and other non-related factors. Prophet Mohammed may peace and blessing of Allaah be upon for the 13 years of Prophethood in Makkah he only fought against the Mushriks to believe in Allaah, One God.
Importantly as a Muslim we should realise our important basic tenant of faith that is unique, distinct from other religions and thats Tauheed, Islamic Monotheism,** One Creator, One God, One helper, One protector, One worshipper*.
A straight path between Creator and Man.
This is the best form of theology no complexities. This is the primary factor of Islam the first basic tenet of faith, to even enter Paradise.
I basically regard this as primary factor because when a non-muslim questions about secondary factor to get him to the territory of Islam rather than answering questions which are refutable.
As in Surah 10:99
If Allaah wanted all would have believers.
So the Prophet Mohammed peace and blessing of Allaah be upon him was just a warner, messenger, who was send as a blessing to mankind to deliver the Message of Allaah.
But he himself had no power, till Allaah wanted to guide.
I prefer our job is to pass on the message, rest is by the will of Allaah.
Read the last verse of this Surah.
**Surah al-’Asr *
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Raheem
1. By time ,
2. Indeed, mankind is in loss, 3. Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.
Let me give an example. Say if I publicly start preaching Islam in a non-muslim land and then I am jailed or persecuted in some form or the other for preaching Islam or against the faith of the majority in the land. Then would it be just for a muslim country to attack for the persecution of the muslim.
As an add-on to this, if a Muslim country jails a Christian missionary for trying to preach Christianity to Muslims, is it just for a Christian country to attack the Muslim country for the persecution of the Christian?
You should confirm the answers given to your question with what scholars say about this issue, because these types of questions are not very common.
From what I know, persecution of a Muslim is like a declaration of the start of hostilities. But the thing is that if Muslims find it difficult to practise Islam in a land then it is better for them to emigrate to someplace where they can practise easily.
In the example that you have given, it would be the responsibility of the Muslims to ransom you from the prison in the non muslim country and try their best to secure your release. One of the categories of Zakah recipients is freeing of slaves and this category includes ransoming of prisoners.
I think www.cageprisoners.com has more info on this subject.
I am only discussing this from an Islamic perspective that is pertinent to muslims. I do not want this discussion to go off on a tangent. What rights are people of other faiths given in an Islamic state is not the topic of this thread. Islam is not based on compromises with other religions, so if Chrsitians keep changing their religion muslims do not nor have the need to.
Quite aside from the pathological hatred the Roman Church had for Islam, the excuse they used was the Seljuk Turks attacks on Christian Pilgrims going to Jerusalem.
This ignored the fact that Jerusalem was under the control of the Ismaili Fatimid Khalifat, which had no control over the Sunni Seljuk Turks who regarded the Fatimids as heretics (they recognised the Sunni Abbasid Khalif instead).
Nice answer. My question actually stemmed from the verses in Surah Tawbah where the Prophet SAW was commanded to fight the disbelievers whereas the muslims had borne a great amount of persecution at the hands of Quraish before and yet were not allowed to wage a fight against them. I have read many interpretations of those verses from different scholars. Some have said it was circumstantial and not general and some vice versa. How does that meaning of those verses fit into todays reality of muslims? Some scholars have said that the verse where it says there is no compulsion in religion was abrogated by these verses where the Prophet SAW was commanded to fight the non-believers. Another reason I have understood is muslims were also prevented to fight in the beginning because they were not not ready in terms of faith under the battle of Badr. The Prophet SAW prepared for a long time before they undertook such a huge responsibility of spreading Islam on their shoulders. Their faith had to be rock solid in order to carry out this task.
Isn’t the flaw with this argument that Muslims today are nowhere near the same level of faith as Muslims back then (the amount of moral corruption even in Muslim countries testifies to this).
If Muslims are only allowed to fight when their collective faith is rock solid - that would mean Muslims today probably would not be allowed to fight. (and given what is happening in Falasteen and Lubnan these days, that clearly is not an option).
Like you said that there's a big difference amongst scholars about these Ayaat. It's up to you which opinion you follow. As long as the opinion has valid evidence backing it up and you know this then you should follow it. It would be best to follow the one that has the strongest evidence.
I am not going to lead you towards any particular opinion, if you are not satisfied with what you know then you should try and find out more.
As I said earlier, get your info from TRUSTWORTHY scholars because these types of questions should not be answered by the common muslim.
If Muslims are only allowed to fight when their collective faith is rock solid - that would mean Muslims today probably would not be allowed to fight. (and given what is happening in Falasteen and Lubnan these days, that clearly is not an option).
Flawed indeed. However the outcome of the battle will never be in their favor until they are believers by heart. Now if a muslim state is powerful and it wins then like I said it ws never based on faith anyway. The outcome of the Palestinian issue has always been one-sided. The people are not fighting to preserve or spread Islam but its more about land and ego. Since it is not based on their faith the powerful side has always been winning.
So back to the topic, if we are to spread it peacefully by example. Who should be doing that? Should it not be the responsibility of the Head of Muslim countries to send invitations to non-muslims countries to join Islam. Once we do that we are bound to face agression in which case we should be prepared to fight.
By the previous logic, however, if the Head sends out such as invitation that invites aggression against us, and the people’s faith is weak, then the Muslim nation would lose.
A similar example of this is the Khalifat in World War 1. The Khalif declared what was without doubt a righteous jihad (the goal in joining the war was to reclaim Muslim lands the Christian Russians had taken). However, particularly given that by that stage many Turks had weak faith, the whole war was a disaster apart from a single battle.
If attempts to invite others to Islam will lead to war, then should others be invited to Islam whlst the Muslim nation itself is of weak faith? Would this surely not lead to disaster of Muslim of weak faith march to fight?
well before Islam Da'wah was the responsibility of the Prophets and Messengers, but now since there will be none then this responsibility rests on the shoulders of all muslims
technically there is no Muslim country in the world because no country follows Islam in its entirety
also you can't possibly expect people like Musharraf or Karzai, etc. to spread Islam when they themselves don't know much about it