USING THE INTERNET FOR DAWAH WORK By Saidu Sulaiman E-mail: saisulaiman@yahoo.

com
Written in Muharram 1433/December 2011

Introduction Dawah work is the means by which the teachings of Islam are spread to people for the purpose of inviting non-Muslims to Islam, educating Muslims about various aspects of the religion and enjoining them to shun bad behaviours and deeds, and to observe good ones. Dawah work is therefore very essential to the spread of Islam, the curtailment of bad behaviours and deeds and the spiritual development of people. In the following verse of the Holy Quran, Muslims have been instructed to engage in dawah work. And let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity. (Quran 3:104). This verse indicates that dawah involves inviting people to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong. It also states that people who engage in dawah work will obtain happiness and contentment. The following verse also enjoins Muslims to engage in dawah and prescribes that the method of dawah should include use wisdom, beautiful preaching as well as best and most polite arguments. Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching and argue with them in the ways that are best and most gracious: for thy lord knoweth best who have strayed from his path and who receive guidance. (Quran 16:125). Another important thing regarding the method of dawah is that an unbeliever must not be forced or compel to accept Islam. An unbeliever should rather be exposed to the truth through dawah work. Holy Quran says: Let there be no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clear from error, whoever rejects evil and believes in God has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. (Quran 2:256).

The benefits that a Muslim gets from the conduct of dawah of work are immense. In addition to the above Quranic statement that people who engage in dawah work will obtain happiness and contentment, the dawah worker will also get the type and magnitude of rewards obtained by people doing good things as a result of his/her work. In relation to this, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, was reported by Abu Huraira to have said: He who calls people to righteousness, would be rewarded like those who follow him diminishing nothing from their rewards. And he who calls people to error, shall carry the burden of its sin, like those who committed it, without diminishing anything from their sins. ( see Summary of Sahih Muslim Vol. II. page 480, Hadith No. 16/2674 published in 2009 by Dar el Fikr, Bierut). This saying of the noble Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, also shows the implications of calling, leading, teaching and encouraging people to commit errors or engage in sinful acts. Some people use the Internet to spread lies, encourage or teach people to engage in bad acts such as rebellion against constituted authorities, terrorism, adultery, theft, gambling, drug addiction, suicide, blasphemy, etc. Such Internet users will get the type and magnitude of sins obtained by the people doing bad things following their exposure to harmful and perverse Internet contents. This paper explains some essential ways by which the Internet could be used as a source of knowledge and information for dawah work and the methods by which information sourced from the Internet is evaluated. Various means of Internet based communication which could be adopted for dawah work have also been enunciated in the paper. The paper cites a number of websites, web links and programmes (applications) not for the purpose of endorsing or advertising them but for providing examples and references for further research by readers. The Internet as a Source of Knowledge and Information for Dawah Work The Internet has been defined in the simplest way as the network of networks. It is the connection of computer networks around the world into one entity. It is not one big computer, but rather numerous networked computers connected together. (http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_01.phtml visited on 26th November 2011). Dawah work requires the acquisition of sound and authentic knowledge regarding the teachings of Islam contained in the Quran and Sunnah (sayings, deeds and silent approvals) of Prophet Muhammad, the seal of all prophets, peace be upon him. The Holy Quran and various collections of Sunnah in Arabic and major language of the world are made available on the Internet. By dint of advancement in communication, data storage and retrieval technologies, knowledge onIslam is organized and made available on the Internet by Muslim scholars in the form of written documents, e-books, audio and video files on Islamic lectures, debates, conferences, etc.
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Another category of information which facilitates effective dawah work is general information regarding people and places for which dawah is planned and focused. Such information may include their location, number, cultural features, worries aspirations and experiences. With this, a dawah worker could be able to plan dawah mission and design a message that is reflective of the peculiarities of the target people and appealing to their minds. The Internet could be used to obtain information about individuals, groups of people, organizations and communities. If, for example, a dawah worker is to visit an organization such as a prison, a school, or a popular scientist, author, sportsman, etc, some background information on these may be found in Internet search engines like Yahoo! and Google, which could be helpful in planning an effective dawah work. Some examples of sources of Internet based knowledge and information which a dawah worker can benefit from could be relevant here. Islamhouse.com is just one of several websites that provides the Quran in Arabic as well as its translations in some major languages of the world. It also provides about 216 articles (as at 26th November 2011) on different aspects of Islam or issues for which dawah is needed (visit http://www.islamhouse.com/pg/9661/articles/1 ). The site also contains several dawah related videos (visit http://www.islamhouse.com/pg/9661/videos/1 ) as well as dawah related audio files for listening; they could be accessed at http://www.islamhouse.com/pg/9661/audios/1. The above underlined words are called links, if the first one is put in the address bar of a web browser, for instance, the list of 216 articles will be displayed on the screen of the computer connected to the network and the title of each article is also link to it. Some of these articles include The Belief in Allaah ... What Does It Mean? , Flash of Hajj Rites , The Contemporary Fitan (Afflictions, Trials, Test, Tribulations) , Who Deserves to Be Worshipped Alone? , Ways to Attain Forgiveness , Matters Which Nullify One's Islam , Human Rights in Islam , Purification of the Soul , etc. An article is displayed with a single click on it and one could read, copy or send it through e-mail to other people. As for the videos and audios, one could watch, listen to and download (copy) them into the hard disk of a computer, a flash disk or the memory card of a mobile phone for future uses and sharing with other people. Lastly, the Islamhouse.com website provides links to many useful websites that also propagate Islamic teachings, sell Islamic books and videos, provide Islamic education, etc (visit http://www.islamhouse.com/pg/9661/favorites/1). One of such websites is http://www.islamiconlineuniversity.com owned by The Islamic Online University (IOU) founded by Dr. Bilal Philips. The IOU was launched in 2007 from Qatar with an offering of completely free diploma courses. In 2010 the IOU launched the worlds first tuitionfree, online Bachelor of Arts in Islamic Studies. Now IOU has two separate virtual campuses: the degree campus and the diploma campus. Each campus is hosted on its

own dedicated server. Towards the end of 2010, Allah has blessed the IOU with a student body of over 30,000 students from over 177 different countries. Web search engines facilitate easy sourcing of materials from the Internet. If you are looking for documents , images or videos on Hajj rites, for instance, you simply type Hajj rites, video on Hajj rites, pilgrimage to Mecca, etc, in the search bar and press enter on the keyboard of your computer or click the word search . After this several results will be displayed from which you can select the relevant ones. Web search engines work by storing information about many web pages retrieved by a web crawler (also known as a spider). Data about web pages are stored in an index database. The purpose of an index is to allow information to be found as quickly as possible. Some search engines store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages. There are several search engines on the Internet including Yahoo! and Google for general contents, YouTube and TV Genius for multimedia, BlogScope and Amatomu for blogs, and Healthline and WebMD for medical contents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines visited on November 29, 2011). With translation software a dawah worker can source information from documents and web contents made available in different major languages of the world. The dawah worker can, for instance, translate a document written in Arabic or any other supported language into English language, or translate his / her own work or lecture notes typed in English into Arabic or any other major language within seconds. An example of translation software is Babylon 9, which is desktop software available for both private users and corporate organizations. It offers text translation in 33 languages and Wikipedia (an encyclopedia) results in over 25 languages, all in a single click, ( http://www.babylon.com/about/ visited on December 9, 2011). The foregoing explanations show the degree to which the Internet could be used to source knowledge and information for dawah work. As not all what is written in books and other printed materials could be regarded as knowledge or factual information, not everything made available in the Internet is true knowledge or reliable information. There is therefore the need for one to evaluate Internet based information before one uses or spreads it to other people. Methods of Evaluating Internet Information A summary of an article captioned Evaluating Internet Information (available at http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_08.phtml visited on November 26, 2011) is made in the following paragraphs to explain some important methods of evaluating Internet information. Taking note of the types of websites visited by their domain suffix (eg. .com for commercial sites, .gov for governmental bodies, .org for NGOs, .mil for military, .edu
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for educational institutions, and .net for networks) could be helpful in evaluating Internet based information. Commercial sites driven by commercial interests may provide misleading information. Governmental sites may contain propaganda materials. Information coming from the websites of educational institutions, professional bodies and NGOs may be credible and unbiased but not always because certain interest of donors providing research grants and other funding may dictate the nature of what is presented as research findings. Ascertaining the authority of authors is another method of evaluating Internet based information. Are they experts on the topic they are writing about? What are their educational backgrounds? Do they acknowledge or give credit to other authors whose works have been cited? If no responsible author is listed, is there an indication of any sponsorship for the publication of the material? Lastly, one needs to check and see if there is a list of sources given for the information on a site such as references or a bibliography. Checking the currency of information is also another evaluative technique. Outdated information may be incorrect or incomplete. A well maintained Web site will tell you at the bottom of the initial screen when it was last updated. Checking the effectiveness of the links provided on website is another way of evaluating web-based information. An informational Web site in which all the hyperlinks are broken might not be a very reliable resource. Existence of many broken links could be an indication that the site is not maintained on a regular basis. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which is the address of a website can provide clues as to the ultimate sponsorship of the site. It is important to ensure the correct address of a website to determine who owns it or who is sponsoring it. This could be done by truncating the URL to its root address so that it will reveal where the site is being hosted. The site http://www.mikeschoice.com/reports/rda.htm, for example, provides information on nutritional RDAs. When you shorten the URL to its root address, http://www.mikeschoice.com you will discover that this is a site selling a mineral supplement. Given the apparent bias, this is probably not the best source of nutritional information. Another clue to what type of site one is visiting is whether there is a ~ (tilde) symbol in the URL. This symbol usually shows that the site is a personal Web page and the information should be given careful scrutiny. One could also evaluate Internet based information by comparing it with similar or same information provided by other websites or other sources such as printed books and encyclopedia. An addition could be made to the methods of evaluating web-based information summarized in the preceding paragraphs. As knowing the capability, reputation, integrity and inclinations of a scholar or an author could be helpful in evaluating the reliability of his/her works, the same applies to the Internet based information. Most websites have links usually entitled About us which state the owners of the site, their addresses, their affiliations, qualifications, experiences, accomplishments, their missions and goals for establishing the website, etc. These could help in evaluating web-based contents.
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In conclusion it could be said the diverse and deep knowledge of a person and his/her integrity are the main determining factors for the reliability of web-based information emanating from him/her. Whatever comes from such persons could be accepted even if it is presented on their personal websites or blogs. Again the reliability of what is presented in the websites of institutions of learning, NGOs, governmental bodies, commercial entities, etc, largely depends on the diverse and deep knowledge as well as the integrity of the persons doing the work. An honest person could, out of ignorance, provide false information just as an educated person could do the same out of insincerity or in pursuance of a selfish interest. The Internet as a Means of Communication for Dawah Work Communication for dawah can take place in several ways. A dawah communication exist when a person succeeds in using a chosen medium to pass a message to people with the intention of spreading the teachings of Islam, enjoining them to do good things and shun from bad acts. The Internet provides people with several and splendid means of passing messages which a dawah worker may avail himself/herself with. They include the following: 1. E-mail: In this method of Internet communication, the computer acts as a "post office" by sending and receiving mail for those who have accounts. In addition to composed messages files containing documents, pictures and movies could be attached and sent to one or several people wherever they are. One can also contribute to dawah work by simply forwarding the dawah message one receives to other people through their e-mail addresses.

2. Internet Relay Chat: Users on different computers anywhere in the world can communicate in "real time" or simultaneously. One can instantly see a response to a typed message by several people at the same time.

3. Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP): This is a technology that allows users to make telephone calls over the web. VoIP offers cheaper calling rates than teleconferencing services but in order to use a VoIP application, all callers will need to purchase headsets that can be connected to their computers.

4. Usenet: This acts like a bulletin board or an e-mail list without the subscription. Anyone can post a message to or browse through a Usenet newsgroup. Usenet messages are retained on the serving computer only for a predetermined length of time before being automatically deleted. A dawah worker can use this medium to post messages about Islam.

5. Videoconferencing: Videoconferencing allows participants with webcams small, inexpensive cameras that send images over the Internet to broadcast a video image of themselves into an online meeting. Such meetings could serve as avenues for dawah work. 6. Blogs: A blog is the short way or saying or writing web log. It is just website made in a dairy/journal style with posts displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs are used post information, news, opinions. There are blogs for text based documents and images. Blogs containing photographs, videos and audio files are called photoblog, vlog and podcasting respectively. With blog software such as the WordPress on your website, you can blog using your own website or simply use the WordPress.com site to create a blog for posting your messages and making them available to the entire world free of charge. There are many other websites that allow people to create blogs in them free of charge. 7. Social Networking: Some websites provide social networking services to interested users free of charge. A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. Social networking sites provide users with opportunity to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks. (http://mashable.com/follow/topics/social-networking/ accessed on November 29, 2011). Examples of social network sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Badoo . Academia.edu is another social network site where authors and researchers can upload and download books and articles on various academic disciplines. Scribd.com is a document-sharing website which allows users to post documents of various formats, and embed them into a web page using its iPaper format. With any of these social networking services one can extend the message of Islam to friends, class mates, members of professional bodies to which one belongs, etc. 8. File Sharing: File sharing means providing people with access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images, and video), documents, or electronic books through a variety of ways (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing accessed on November 29, 2011). With the use of file sharing software like Limewire installed in a computer, dawah related messages which you have created or have the legal right to distribute to other people, inform of documents, audio and video files can be put in a shared files folder so that they can be accessed and copied by other people around the globe whenever your computer is connected to the Internet. There are many file
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sharing applications, most of them can be obtained and used free of charge. A comparison of their features, advantages and restirctions is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_sharing_applications . 9. Web hosting services: These refer to websites or software which allow users to distribute their video clips. Video sharing services can be classified into several categories, among them: user generated video sharing websites, video sharing platform / white label providers and web based video editing. User generated sites mostly offer free services whereby users can upload video clips and share it with the masses. Many websites place restrictions on the file size, duration, subject matter and format of the video file to be uploaded. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_hosting_services visited on November 29, 2011). YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, for instance, allows billions of people to watch and share originally-created videos. (http://www.youtube.com/t/about_youtube visited on December 5, 2011). With a digital camera or handset a dawah worker, can for instance, record a video clip showing the steps in performing ablution or a lecture he /she delivers at a daawah occasion and make available to millions of people by using Youtube. 10. Audio hosting services: These allow you to record voices and sounds during dawah talks and lectures and make them available to millions of people using the Internet. With SoundCloud , for instance, people can create sounds and easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks as it takes just a click to share sounds to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare. (http://soundcloud.com accessed on December 5, 2011).

11. Website: A website is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos and other digital assets and hosted on at least one web server accessible via a network. All publicly accessible websites collectively form the World Wide Web. The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple URL. Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their contents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website accessed on November 29, 2011). Creating a website offers one with many means of storing information communicating it to people online. There are many factors that determine the cost of maintaining a website and there are web hosting companies that host websites free of charge or as a means of placing advertisements on the sites created by people. The types of dawah work being provided by Islamhouse.com already mentioned in this paper indicate the degree to which a website could be used for dawah purposes. A website can have books, magazines and journals, and online radio and TV stations in additions to documents, videos, graphics and pictures.

Conclusion From the forgoing one could see that the Internet as a source of knowledge and information as well as a superb means of communication provides ample opportunities for people to engage in dawah work. The ability of a Muslim to read this paper qualifies him/her to acquire some basic skills for browsing the Internet, sending, forwarding and receiving e-mails with and without attachments, downloading and uploading contents. These skills can be acquired within a period of five to ten days, and with continuous use of the Internet one could learn many things including website building without a teacher. The implication of all these is that Muslims with these capabilities and potentials are duty bound to use the Internet for dawah work by at least forwarding a dawah related e-mail message they received to other people. Muslims with expertise in web design and software development and wealthy Muslims who could sponsor Internet based dawah work have more responsibility to enlighten and educate Muslims and humanity in general about Islam. This is with a view to re-awakening Muslims and promoting understanding and peaceful co-existence among them on the one hand and between them and non-Muslims on the other hand. We live in the information age so Muslims must provide humanity with the true teachings of Islam, the latest revealed religion. They must also counsel humanity on bias reporting in the media as well as mischievous publications on Islam and Muslims.