Early Recollection of Dakwah and Tabligh Effort

I have 7 brothers and 2 sisters and I am the youngest. Alhamdulillah, our family is not alien to the effort of dakwah and tabligh ever since my second sister got married to a man whose brothers were amongst the early men who had embraced the effort of dakwah and tabligh many years ago. I recall my sister used to read ahadith from Fadha'il Amal after Maghrib or Isya' when I was very young whenever she returned to visit us and our parents for a few days. Sometimes she would asked me to read from the kitaab which I gladly did but I was too young to understand them. But the scene of us sitting together, hearing the ahadith sticks in my mind to this day. Never mind about understanding any of the ahadith, it is the mahul or the environment of ta'leem that is important. In fact, I believe even now many Muslim adults have difficulties in understanding ahadith and aayah (verses) from the Holy Quran. Blessed are the souls who are given deep understanding by Allah of kalamullah and kalam of Rasul sallalaahu alayhi wassalam, and none understood them better than the Sahabah radiyalaahu anhum. When Allah wishes well for someone, He guides him towards the understanding of Deen. Even a verse of ahadith is being read and listened to by a Muslim household members in a Muslim home is a giant step towards emulating the households of the Sahabah radiyalaahu anhum during the time of Rasulullah sallalaahu alayhi wassalam.

My father (may Allah fill his grave with noor) had been a chairman of the Jame' Masjid in our community for a long period throughout his lifetime. When I was very young, I vividly recall heavily bearded men of Pakistani or Indian origin with a local man came to viist him on several occasions. Subsequently, I used to play with a miswaak that somehow my father had kept one in his car, knowing not what the use of the twig like miswaak for. Only now I realised that the solah offered after doing miswaak in wudhu'  is seventy times better than the solah offered without miswaak. I also found out after the demise of my father that one of the kitaabs that he frequently read every morning sitting on his rocking chair was the Fadha'il Solah booklet by Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Zakariya Kandhlawi rahmatullah alayhi, a part of Fadha'il Aamal kitaab. 

When I was about fourteen or fifteen years old, I remember on several occasions, my childhood friend who is the son of Arwah Haji Wan Mahmood had approached me with a group of people, amongst them his elder brothers and one of them talked to me about something that I could not comprehend. I only recalled they asked me to go to our local masjid. It turned out that they were already doing umumi ghusht long before I knew about the effort of dakwah and tabligh.

When I was at a primary school levels at a military college, I recalled sitting with other students listening to ahadith being read out after Maghrib solah. It turned out also to be a fadha'il ta'leem from Fadha'il Aamal that had been started by my past seniors since the mid 70's. 

When I was studying at pre-university levels, I recalled spending a night with a few friends at Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur, which turned out to be a sabguzari night at the former markaz or centre of dakwah and tabligh in Malaysia.

When I was an undergraduate in England, I arrived there with the wrong intention of anticipating freedom. Even before I arrived in the UK, I plotted nasty thoughts and actions away from what I foolishly thought of regimented life at home lands. Just before I was about to be drown in wretched sinful life, someone came knocking at the door at my house at George Street. I was in speechless shock when I opened the door and there standing at the front door of my house the smiling faces of heavily bearded men in white robes and white amamah, a couple of them looked very much like Indians or Pakistanis, one looked like he was from West Indies and the other, white British man with dark brown beard. As if I could still see their glowing faces. I stood there motionless. I could not remember even a word of their short speech. The only thing that crossed my mind at that very moment was how could there possibly exist such men in England? I was completely awestruck. Though I did not fulfill their supposedly invitation to the nearby masjid, that moment really had saved my fragile imaan and served as a wake-up call on me as a Muslim. I hope I would have an opportunity to relate about this episode of my life in more detail and my subsequent dakwah and tabligh journey back to England after the lapse of 12 years.

The most astonishing thing is that I could not recall any of the above mentioned foreshadowing glimpse of guidance until I finally went out for the first time in khuruuj in the path of Allah for 3 days. Only after the blessed khuruuj, those auspicious memories started to come to me like river flow. It is rather frightening when I see them as several signs and signals of guidance by Allah, yet I had failed to grasp them earlier on. I dread imagining those moments of events are only be put to recall and recollection on the Day of Judgement where there is absolutely no hope for return. All praise is due only to Allah. We seek salvation in Him from the evils of our inner selves and the vices of our actions. There is none to guide one whom Allah intends to misguide and there is none to misguide one whom Allah intends to guide.


Note: Other early recollection had reached me in the form of tall-tales.