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Dawat-e-Islami

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Faizan-e Madinah (Dawat-e Islami) in the United Kingdom.

Dawat-e-Islami (Template:Lang-ur) is a non-political, international Islamic NGO. The Organisation is strictly non-terrorist and non extremist according to reports issued by various ministries within the Pakistan government.

Origin

Dawat-e-Islami was founded in 1980 in Karachi, Pakistan, by Ilyas Attar Qadri.[1] This movement has now spread to all the continents of the world. It is active in more than 66 countries[2]. Allama Ilyas Attar Qadri (also referred as Bapa jaan (beloved father) and Hazrat Sahab by his followers), is also the current spiritual head (Murshid/ Pir (Sufism)) of Dawat-e-Islami.

Activities

Dawat-e-Islami is involved in various religious activities to promote Islam. The main objective is to guide people to practice the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The aim of Dawat-e-Islami is "I MUST TRY TO RECTIFY MYSELF AND THE PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE WORLD".

File:DawateIslami.jpg
Milad Rally, UK

According to Ashok K. Behuria in Many Pakistans within Pakistan: The Case of Sectarian Conflicts in a Talibanised Context.

Dawat-e-Islami is more of a mystic order than a political organization that revolves around the personality of its founder. It has no motive other than to cleanse the spirits of its cadres and propagate its belief system. Its cadres do not overtly indulge in political or sectarian issues and its peaceful style of preaching on the pattern of a mystic order has won it a large number of followers. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 million Muslims, who have given Bayah (Islamic spiritual oath of allegiance) to the founder of DawateIslami, Allama Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Attar Qadri Razavi Ziaee (Damat Barakatuhumul Aaliya).

… the DawateIslami chief wants his followers to be a model of the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), as interpreted and personified by Qadri himself. Dawat-e-Islami, probably, has the broadest popular base of all other Ahle Sunnat organizations. The lower and lower-middle classes form the bulk of its cadres. The number of madrassa-educated cadres, however, is rapidly increasing. Dawat-e-Islami is said to run nearly 200 madrassas only in Karachi.[3]

Annual Congregations

  • The annual international congregation is held every October in Multan, Pakistan where hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all over the World attend.Multan Ijtema[4]. In 2008, the yearly Congregation dates are from Oct 31st to Nov 2nd,2008. Check website Dawateislami.Net to watch online and click on the Madani Channel - Live Relay link.
  • The Dawat-e-Islami held the first-ever congregation for deaf, dumb and blind students at its central headquarters Faizan-e-Madina. Hundreds of students between 16 and 18 years of age attended the programme. They were given a revision session on how to pray, and character building.[5]

Islamic courses

Dawat-e-Islami offers Islamic courses at different levels. The professional courses include Dars-e-Nizami (Islamic studies, towards becoming a qualified Islamic scholar), Mufti course, Qaari course (Tajweed, science of Quran recitation) and Hifz (complete memorization of the the Quran).

For those who can commit only a short period time because of career or family commitment, Dawat-e-Islami offers Qafila course (40 days), Islamic Dawah and propagation course (can be completed in either 1 yr, 30 days, 7 days or 3 days, with the shorter duration courses being less demanding and more basic). The Islamic Dawah courses are very practical in nature, whereby the students travel to a different mosque (usually the one located in nearby town or city), and stay in that mosque for the duration of the course. During this duration, the students indulge themselves in learning about Islam, and at the same time, give Dawah to the Muslim attending the mosque.

While the professional courses can be completed in only a select number of countries where Dawat-e-Islami has a stronger base like Pakistan, the shorter courses are offered in all the countries where Dawat-e-Islami has operation.

Dawat-e-Islami also runs Madrassa (Islamic kindergarten/ school) for young children to teach students about the basic of Islamic Fiqh, history and Quran. An evening madrassa is also run during the evening/ weekend for working adults.

Islamic Bookshop (Maktabatul Madina)

Dawat-e-Islami also operates Islamic bookshop, under the name of Maktabatul Madina, where it sells Islamic books, clothing and accessories like praying beads, praying mat and stationery. These bookshops operate under a strict rule of "No profit; No loss".

Charity Collections

Dawat-e-Islami collects Zakat and Sadaqah in the month of Ramadan for its dawah and organizational activities. [6]. It also largely financed by donation of sacrificed animal skin during Eid al-Adha, which is then sold to the leather manufacturing industry. This turns out to be a reliable source of funding as Pakistan has a very well established leather industry.

In Asia

Dawat-e-Islami has well established presence in Bangladesh, India and Iran. Allama Ilyas Attar Qadri is known to have visited both India and Sri Lanka, and his sister is also said to be residing in Sri Lanka. Dawat-e-Islami also has presence in UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. Activities in Saudi Arabia are however a little shadowy because of the contrast between the Sufi teachings of Dawat-e-Islami and the Saudi Arabia state official Salafi interpretation of Islam. In the East Asia, Dawat-e-Islami has a strong presence in South Korea and Hong Kong, which correlates with a strong Pakistani diaspora in those places. Dawat-e-Islami organizes annual procession for the Mawlid in Hong Kong, which is said to have full support of Hong Kong government. It also has limited presence in China, Russia and Malaysia.

In Europe

Dawat-e-Islami has had a presence in the United Kingdom for more than 15 years. The European headquarter is Faizan-e-Medina in Bradford, where they currently hold their own seminary. Other centers of the same name can be found in Accrington, Peterborough and Birmingham. It is estimated that around 10,000 British Muslims are in some form or the other associated with Dawat-e-Islami in UK. In Continental Europe Dawat-e-Islami currently Operates five centres in Greece and three in Spain. The Faizan-e-Medina in Barcelona was set up in 2007 on the occasion of Milad Un Nabi. [7] Norway, Germany and Italy are also know to be countries with active presence of Dawat-e-Islami activities.

In Africa

It is often said that South Africa serves as the largest center of Dawat-e-Islami outside South Asia. From South Africa, the message of Dawat-e-Islami has spread to Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Generally speaking, Dawat-e-Islami has little or no presence in North African countries.

In Americas and Australia

Dawat-e-Islami is active both in USA and Canada, and has its on centers there. However it has virtually no presence in any of the South and Central American countries. Because of sparse population of Australia and diluted spread of Australian Muslim, Dawat-e-Islami only has a small presence in Australia, limited to Sydney and Melbourne.

Outlook towards terrorism

Dawat-e-Islami is strictly against any form of killing of innocent human beings through suicide bombing and terrorism. It is no surprise that both the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Aufaq and Ministry of Defense of Pakistan has issued a letter of appreciation to Dawat-e-Islami for its peaceful activities, in the presence of current day violent Islamic ideologies. The government of Hong Kong, and UK among others are known to give Dawat-e-Islami full permission to conduct their annual juloos (march) in celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad with full police support. Dawat-e-Islami believe that the true message of Islam can be spread only through good gesture and good will to other people. As such thousands of non-Muslims are known to have accepted Islam in the hands of Dawat-e-Islami preachers.

References

  1. ^ The Islamic Missionary Movement Da´wat-e Islami. The Barelwi response to the translocal activism of Deoband?
  2. ^ http://www.dawateislai.net
  3. ^ Welcome to ICPS| International Centre for Peace Studies Seminars & Conferences Archives
  4. ^ http://www.dawn.com/2002/10/21/nat42.htm
  5. ^ Spreading the word, Daily Times, December 10, 2007
  6. ^ Dawat-e-Islami beats KKF in zakat collection, Daily Times, October 30, 2006
  7. ^ Thomas K. Gugler: Jihad, Da´wa and Hijra: Islamic Missionary Movements in Europe

Notes

  • Attar Qaudri, Ilyas (1991). Dawat-e-Islami ka Maqsad. Maktaba Ahle Sunnah Karachi.
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