Dakwah Through Masjid Tour

In The Name of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful

Assalamualaikum everyone. May Allah bless us always…May He guide us through His path…Ameen. ( Ameen is the Arabic version of the word Amen which has its origins in Hebrew and means 'so be it'. Ameen is often said after a supplication (dua) with the spiritual meaning: "O Allah, respond to (or answer) what I/we have said".)

As promised, today I will share step by step how to conduct tours in mosque. I’m not a pro yet and still got many things to improve. But, as I share this, I hope many Muslim outside there will be driven to do the same thing at your own available and suitable mosque. All this step is just a summary based on my experience conducting tours in Masjid Kapitan Keling located at Georgetown, Penang.

 

-This is Masjid Kapitan Keling-

UTILIZING A MOSQUE AS A DA'WAH TOOL FOR CONVEYING THE MESSAGE OF ISLAM TO

NON-MUSLIMS

Most westerners are very curious and are attracted to a mosque especially since many of
them have never had the opportunity of entering one in their whole life. Currently , there are many mosques in the Muslim world which are open for the non-Muslim visitors but there is no systematic effort made to explain Islam to the thousands of these tourists as such a wonderful opportunity is being lost to make Dakwah to these people. Islamic Propagation Society International (IPSI) has taken an important step forward by utilising Masjid Kapitan Keling as a dakwah tool for conveying the message of Islam to non-muslims. Remember, our duty only to convey the message of Islam to not yet Muslim and not to force them to accept Islam.

 

 

HOW TO CONDUCT THE TOUR (TOUR ROOT MAP)

Step no. 1 : At the Doorstep ( Entrance to the Mosque )

This is the entrance to the Masjid Kapitan Keling

I used to wait in front of this gate to invite any tourist to visit the mosque because most of them think that they cannot enter the mosque. So, when you invite them, it’s like we are pleasure to have them in this mosque.

1. Welcome them warmly and with a friendly smile.

Known as Public Relation (PR). This is very important so that you can create a friendly atmosphere between you and your mad’u.  You should behave like a salesperson to sell your product (i.e., Islam)

2. Introduce yourself.

Also inquire about their name, country of origin, whether this is their first visit
to the mosque and how much time they have.

State clearly, “I will be your tour guide and will be giving you a brief explaination about this mosque.”

 

I’m inviting one of the tourist in front of Masjid Kapitan Keling to visit the mosque.

 

Step no. 2 : Inside the Mosque ( Main Prayer hall )

Main Prayer Hall

 

1. Let them be themselves for a while , to look around and appreciate the beauty of the mosque.

2. After that, start give brief explaination about the main hall. The ‘script’ that I always use are:

There are 3 main things you can see inside the mosque.

No. 1, We face toward Makkah. Everytime we pray, we face towards Makkah.(Show them the direction of prayer)

No. 2, As you can see, there is no images, pictures or statues showing that is God. In Islam, we say that Allah, God cannot be interpreted into any image. As God, a creator is different from His creation.

No. 3, We have no priests or monks inside the mosque. Because we Muslim, when we want to pray, we pray directly to Allah. Or when we want to ask for forgiveness, we ask directly from Allah. There’s no any mediator. (You may mention about Imam and his role).

3. Ask them if they have any question before you move to next step.

 

 

Step no. 3 : Place of Ablution (Wudhuk)

At Masjid Kapitan Keling, it still has a pool for ablution. We can make a joke,

“Looks like a swimming pool like, but this is not a swimming pool.”

1. Explain to them about ablution.

Before we enter into prayer room, we perform ablution as a purification or as a preparation before we ‘meet’ our God.

We wash certain parts of our body which is, our face, our hands, our head, and our feet.  Ablution is like a minor baptism because Prophet Muhammad SAW said, when we perform ablution, our minor sins will drop. Only the minor one. For major sin, you have to repent to God through prayer.

2. Show them what we do after perform ablution.

After we perform ablution, we will standing facing Makkah (show the direction)  and perform prayer. We standing, bowing and prostrating to God.

During the prayer, we will use Arabic language even though our mother tongue is not arabic. In every prayer, there are versus in quran which compulsory to recite. (Explain more about solat here)

3. Ask them if they have seen quran before or have they listen to the recitation of the quran before. Ask them, would you like to see it or listen to the recitation of the Quran?

 

 

Step 4: Quran section

I’m reciting surah al-fatihah to the visitors…

1. Show them the Quran without translation first. Explain to them that Quran is written in Arabic language.

2. Recite to them surah al-fatihah with the translation or any short surah. (Remember: Do not recite too many versus because they could be bored and don’t forget to read the translation as well)

3. Give them statistical value of quran. For example:

We have 1.5 billion Muslim in the world today. Almost all can read the quran in arabic language. Even our mother tongue is different. And we have 20 million Muslim who memorise this entire book cover to cover from the age of 3 years old to the age of 85 years old  which contain 114 chapters, 6236 versus. ( They might be curious what is so special about this book that so many people has memorise this book.)

4. Ask them if they have any question.

 

 

Step 5: Praying Timetable

1. Explain to them about praying time table.

We Muslim pray 5 times a day. First prayer start early in the morning, 6.08 am. Second prayer is 1.27, third prayer, 4.49, fourth prayer 7.20 which is sunset in Penang and last prayer is 8.35 pm.

Each prayer only takes 5-6 minutes. You can do at your home, office or anywhere when the times come. But you are encourage to come to the mosque because you can meet other people here.

Some of them may thinks that we have to pray a lot it kinds of burden. You can explain to them, we eat a lot in one day, breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper for our physical strength. We need food for our spiritual as well.

Praying time is change day by day according to the movement of the sun.

2. Tell them about Jum’ah prayer

Every Friday, at second prayer, 1.27 pm, all Muslim especially man, will be gathering in the mosque, to listen to a sermon. (Show them the pulpit)

This is the pulpit at Masjid Kapitan Keling.

The sermon contain instruction of piety, righteousness, remembering of Allah (God),reminder of the day of judgement, the life after death and so on. Sometimes they talk about current issues such as global warning, financial crisis etc. It’s all as a reminder to us.

The Friday congregational prayers allow Muslims from different neighbourhood to meet one another. This leads to a bond of love and affiliation among people of different communities.

3. Ask them if they have any question.

 

 

Step 6 (Final Step) : Genealogy of the Prophets

I’m explaining about Genealogy of the Prophets. Inside the mosque there is smaller one.

This is where the genealogy of the prophets is placed inside the mosque. It can’t be seen inside this picture because its smaller one..huhu.. psstt…Bro Kamarudin in action..

 

1. Take this opportunity to ask their religious beliefs.

We Muslim believe that God created Adam as a first man. Adam and Eve. If you believe in Adam and Eve, so are brothers because we come from the same parent. Right?

From him, come the descendants of the prophets. God send prophet or messenger to remind us to worship one god alone without partner. (Mention the names of prophet which familiar in Christian world such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and we believe and love Jesus Christ).

Tell them more about Jesus Christ in Islam. We believe he born miraculously. We believe he born without a father. We believe he can do wonderful things. But we say Jesus Christ is a messenger of Allah. A prophet not a god.

And we say, the last messenger of god is Prophet Muhammad and to him was reveal Al-Quran as a guidance not just to the Arab but to all human being. And we say Prophet Muhammad is the mercy to the entire world.

May stressed that all the prophets we believes and we dignified them but we don’t take them as a god. The only god is Allah. Allah is not a man. Allah is not a woman. Allah is not galaxy. Allah is not a moon. Allah is not a sun. Allah is the creator. Who created man.

2. Ask them if they have any question.

3.  Thank them for their interest and show your appreciation for their patience in listening to you  and wish them a nice day.

~End of tour section~

One-Stop-Centre at Masjid Kapitan Keling

At Masjid Kapitan Keling, there is one room at the minaret called one stop centre created by IPSI as a place for discussion or gathering further information after the tour. We may bring potential visitors (selected one) to this minaret and we can give them more details about Islam. In this centre, it has hundreds or perhaps thousand of books and also copy of Al-quran as a gift to the visitor according to their needs and interest. So during the tour we have to pay attention to their interest and question. From there, we can decide which literature is good for them.

 

Remember these simple rules while conducting this tour:

If they ask any question which you do not know,  don’t try to go around a question in trying to answer it when the matter is not clear to you. Clearly state “I do not know” .

Please do not not argue or debate with the visitors.

Do not interrupt while other people are doing the same job as you did even though you might not agree how they conduct the tour.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Islamic Propagation Society International (IPSI) especially the President Tn. Haji Kamarudin for encouraging and constantly guiding me in this training until I’m manage to conduct this tour without supervision anymore.

 

References:

1. Experience of attending many Dakwah practical with guidance by Bro Kamarudin Abdullah.

2. The Comprehensive Guide For Da’wah in Mosques (Masjids)  Compiled By: Farahat Mohammed Nassor Al-Kindy

 

Copyright notice -

This website and its content is copyright of [Discover Your Serene] -© [Discover Your Serene] [2012]. All rights reserved.

 

Come and Join Us as a Volunteer on Penang Heritage Day 2012 (7th July 2012) @ Kapitan Keling Mosque, Georgetown.

Feel free to contact : +604-2274846/47/49 or ipsimal@gmail.com

Penang Heritage Day 2011 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eer9k-Du7_o

 

I met them today (Abby and Ashley)  at Masjid Kapitan Keling..They were excited to wear hijab because they saw women in hijab is very beautiful. Please pray for them..May Allah guide them to His path.

 

It’s not how much you can tell them about Islam, but how much

you can activate their interest in Islam is really counts.

It took me about a week to finish this post..huhu…sorry for all grammatical error in this entry..I’m still learning…

With Love,

NUR

Ph.D Progress Report

In The Name of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful

Assalamualaikum semua…Semoga kita semua berada di dalam naungan dan lindungan kasih sayang Allah selalu. Apa khabar? Semoga iman kita juga sihat sahaja seiring kesihatan fizikal kita. Dah lama jugak tak update pasal Ph.D nikan… Jadi kali ni nak update pasal my phd journey pulak.

 

-Status saya di fb bertarikh 21/6/12-

Sekarang ni kalau ikutkan sistem semester, dah nak hujung semester dah.. Semua student undergrad tengah melalui fasa peperiksaan dan bakal bercuti tak lama lagi. Student postgrad pulak tak terkecuali dengan update research progress report kat website campusonline. Kalau tak nanti tak boleh register untuk sem depan. Terima kasih farha ingatkan kina!

Masa nak isi tetiba termenung sendiri. Apa ye progress research aku setakat ni…Hmm..dah sambung PhD for about 4 months now, yet rasa macam tak buat apa pun lagi. Haish… Banyak benda yang belum settle lagi. Kadang-kadang macam tau banyak benda nak kena buat dan apa perlu buat. Tapi tak tau nak mula dari mana. I need a guidance. Please anyone help me. Huh!

 

-Sticky notes kat laptop-

Untuk human ethics ni, yang tak selesai cuma pengiraan sampel size. Dah jumpa statistician untuk mintak bantuan last two days camne nak kira sampel size kat IPS. Tapi agak tak membantu jugak. Mungkin perlu jumpa statistician kat School Math pulak kot nanti.

Untuk research saya perlu guna laser. Dah bagi laser quotation kat yang berkenaan. Sekarang tunggu update dari beliau pulak. Hope dalam masa terdekat dah boleh dapat laser tu.

Plan nak publish paper tapi review paper. Tak pernah tulis paper sebelum ni jadi kena belajar banyak perkara. Its ok la. I take it as a first step towards academic writing. Dah register few workshops berkaitan penulisan journal kat IPS. Tapi kadang-kadang kecewa juga bila pihak IPS batalkan workshop sebab kekurangan peserta sedangkan i really need it.

Masa pergi Program Phd Briefing Workshop yang dikendalikan oleh IPS USM, Dean of IPS ada share yang for her students, she ask them to have a book like a log book for their research. So any progress or data or any meeting, they will jot down into that book and she will sign and check, in every meeting. So at least you won’t miss something which important for your research. If you keep writing on different book or piece of paper, you might ended with losing it. So, I’m thinking that’s a good idea.

I bought a book and paste a made-calendar into that book. Its like a planner. I will write any plan, any idea, any discussion, any decision that I made with my supervisor I will record it inside this book. Jadi kalau supervisor saya tanya apa-apa yang kami dah bincang dan dah berkeputusan, saya boleh tunjuk apa yang dah direkod dalam buku ni.

 

 

Bila buat research ni benda yang susah bukan nak buat research tu. Tapi nak mengatur masa dan langkah dalam nak buat research. Sebab bila buat research totally it depends on you. You have to find a way how to figure out the steps you should take and how you are going to manage your time accordingly so that you can finish your research within the corresponded time. Kalau salah ambil langkah dari awal dan kurang bijak dalam utilize masa yang kita ada sepanjang tempoh pembelajaran ni, kita mungkin end up dengan tidak dapat menyiapkan research kita dalam tempoh yang diberikan, ataupun mungkin jugak research kita tu tak memenuhi kriteria yang ditetapkan untuk lulus sebagai pelajar Master or Ph.D of research. Jadi perancangan sangat penting. Takut jugak saya kalau tak mampu nak menghabiskan Ph.D ni. Permudahkanlah urusan hambaMU ini Ya Allah…..Ameen..

 

Catatan Perancangan Bulanan

 

Dalam proses untuk buat Research Progress Report sendiri untuk evaluation diri sendiri bagi memastikan I’m on track. Harapnya istiqamahlah dalam menulis report ni..huhu

 

Doakan saya dapat menghabiskan study dengan jayanya dalam tempoh masa yang ditetapkan ye…

 

P/s: 32 bulan je lagi yang tinggal…

 

With Love,

NUR