Kamal El Mekki told this true story at the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center on Sunday.
A woman was on an airplane and she noticed three men whom she thought were Muslims looking at their watches, leaving their seats and entering the restrooms at the same time. She began to worry that a hijacking was about to take place. They exited the restrooms and proceeded to the front of the plane and she became more nervous.
They began to perform their daily prayer. She was impressed by their graceful movements as they prayed. Eventually she converted to Islam. And according to El Mekki, "She could close her eyes and visualize the movements of the men in prayer."
This was one of the many ways El Mekki suggested the average Muslim may give witness, or dawah, and attract people to Islam.
"This seminar is a highly effective and sought after method through which all brothers and sisters can pursue their duty of spreading the light of Islam through dawah, both collectively and individually," said Mariam Absassi, the vice president of the dawah committee at the very active Union City mosque.
Some 60 people spent a full day listening to El Mekki talk about ways for people to "revert" to Islam. In their way of thinking, Muslims believe that all people are called to Islam and for them a convert is really returning to the fold, thus a revert.
But there are specific ways to entice them.
El-Mekki warned about watering down Islam to accommodate neophytes. Even though he was not advocating violence, the fact that some Muslims resort to violence to get their message across can be a means to attract followers.
El-Mekki recounted a story about a person who said she would become Muslim because these people made such sacrifices.
Most of his message, however, was practical advice to get people to make a shahadah or a confession of faith that Allah is the one true God and Mohammed is his prophet. For one, El-Mekki said, "Create a sense of urgency."
People will say that they will think about it or do it sometime in the future.
He urged Muslims to get people simply to say that they will accept Allah and the rest will fall into place.
Unlike other faiths, Muslims have no special period of preparation but simply make a declaration in the mosque before the imam or religious leader. There are opportunities to study and apprentice with another Muslim, but those courses of action are optional. But the most valuable way, El-Mekki said, is to give personal witness in the open where people can see what Muslims do. Even in the workplace.
If someone works in a cubicle, talk loudly so others can hear what you are saying. The odds are they will ask you some questions on their own so you can't be blamed for proselytizing.
The same can work on public transportation. It is also helpful to place literature in public spaces or waiting rooms of doctors and dentists and the like. He told some humorous story about men going into a public restroom and washing their feet by placing them in a toilet (sink). It is customary for Muslims to wash and cleanse parts of their body before they pray. These kinds of actions certainly get attention.
And the some 60 people who participated in the workshop listened intently to El-Mekki, who is the imam of George Washington University, an Islamic radio talk show host and a teacher at several Washington, D.C., mosques.
Ahmed Lotfy, 27, lives in Little Ferry and normally worships at a Hackensack mosque but came to the workshop in Union City. He immigrated to the United States in 2004 from Egypt and now works as a market analyst for Reuters in Manhattan.
He liked the suggestion of "calling people to Islam."
His wife, Amber Acosta, 26, is herself a convert from Catholicism who became fascinated with Islam as a Fordham University student and met her husband when she was studying in Egypt. After self-study, she made her shahadah.
She agreed with her husband that inviting people is the best way, because at some point in her life she knew, "I think of myself as a Muslim."
SANTORA is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, 201-659-0369, fax 201-659-5833, e-mail:
!
