Da’wah or inviting people to Islam is an important duty of the Muslim community. This is especially so since no Messenger of Allah will appear after our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). In fact, the Qur’an makes numerous references to spreading the message of Islam through beautiful preaching. Our Prophet (PBUH) also cast upon his followers the duty of conveying Islam to others such as seen in his Final Sermon. Thus Muslims have a duty to convey the universal message of Islam to the rest of humanity.

The early Muslims went far and wide spreading the message of Islam so that within a hundred years Islam came to dominate a good part of the world from Spain in the West to China in the East. Today, however, it has not been as easy to promote Islam due to adverse media publicity and political pressures, so that we Muslims have to think of other means of conveying the message of peace and truth of Islam.

One such is “Awareness Through Mosque Tours” or ATMT, a unique concept of passive da’wah conceived by Syed Raziuddin Ali, a Director of the Bahrain-based Discover Islam organization in the late 1980s. The program which commenced at Al-Fateh Mosque in the Kingdom of Bahrain and was later introduced to other historic mosques in many parts of the Islamic world, including the Blue Mosque in Turkey has proven to be a success story.

There is a mistaken belief among many Muslims today that Non-Muslims cannot be allowed into mosques. In contrast, there are many instances in the lifetime of our Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) where those of other faiths were admitted into the Prophet’s Mosque, Masjid-ul-Nabawi in Medina. For instance, a delegation of Christians from Najran was housed in this mosque by the Prophet and were even allowed to practice their devotions in this sacred spot.   »»» Sailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

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