The Glorious Expedition. A DM Multan Dawah Journey!

Written by: An Extraordinary sister from DM Multan.
(Bonus: There are some inspiring images of this journey in the end. Happy Reading!)

The Glorious Expedition. DM Multan Youth Journey…

May 2018:
I have been affiliated with Dawah Motivation (DM) since May’18. Before joining the Dawah Motivation group, I had no idea about Dawah and how it can leave an impact upon one’s life. Although I wasn’t linked with it in particular, however, I was very keen on conveying the call of Allah Subhana’wa’tala and always wanted to invite people towards the word of Allah.

Joining DM was an interesting event itself, so when I started practicing Islam in 2017, after that I gone through with lot of stress because of people around me, seeing them disobeying Allah swt and won’t be able to do anything was hurting me, but inside I knew that I want to connect them with Allah swt. It was summer and one day I just got free from my office work and had free time so I started scrolling up and down my Twitter, I was just passing time and was not seeing each post with focus, suddenly I watched a post by iERA and it was mentioned that if you want to establish a Dawah team(at that time, I don’t have understanding of word “dawah”) in your country then contact us.. at first I consider it random and scroll down but the picture of post attracted my attention , I watched few brothers sitting in a drawing in very informal way.. I just thought how Dawah can be so peaceful as I had observed preaching deen in a very different way like people sitting in very sophisticated manners around Imam.. I read the caption again and followed that post, I found two representatives of iERA for Pakistan, I emailed both of them just wrote simple emaiĺ that I want to establish Dawah team in Multan, Alhamdulilah Alhamdulilah very next day I got reply by one person, that is Sir Nadeem and so I joined DM.. It is from Allah swt that he opens doors for you when your intentions are pure, till to date I don’t know when I started following iERA account on Twitter and how post was pop up on my screen on that particular day when few days back I promised to myself that my life mission is connecting people with Allah swt but that time I didn’t know that how I’ll do that..

May 2018- June 2018
After joining Dawah Motivation, I started taking one-on-one Dawah training by Sir Nadeem as well as started watching videos and blogs on the same subject by DM. Getting hands on training, motivated me enough to start doing Dawah with my family. Initially, we started having weekly video sessions and we would discuss Islam, the existence of Allah Subhana’wa’tala and the Quran. This kind of discussion helped me to have more open conversations with my family members i.e. siblings, parents, that I lacked before getting the training. Not only this, after training, I realized that lack of discussions on such subjects in our surroundings make us hesitant about discussing and pondering over Allah and His Messenger Sallahu’alaiyhi’wassalam.

July-October 2018:
Meanwhile, I started initiating Dawah conversations with my cousins and relatives. Before training I was not sure how to initiate Dawah conversations and make our meetups productive, but I used tips from DM to make this happen!

I stepped out of my comfort zone & started being social again and having nice conversations with relatives, because I got antisocial after I began practicing Islam & I used to think that attending ceremonies & meet ups could be a waste of time. Few times I invited some of my cousins at home, cooked some good food, and selected a topic and discussed with them, like Asma husna, how to concentrate in Salah etc. Sometimes when they would visit us, I used to have very short reminders, and specifically I tried to switch general conversation to specific topics. Overall it had a good impact on my relationship with them, one day I just felt extremely happy when one of my cousins visited me just to have a chat and to discuss her thoughts. It was just amazing!

Moreover, in the beginning, I started online Dawah. There were two reasons behind that, firstly, I was not much confident at that time and secondly, I didn’t have face to face Dawah opportunities those days. I had made a routine of having conversation with two random friends/ contacts of mine; that too on call, not message. I did it for more than three months and it helped me in boosting confidence, improving my listening skills and answering questions about Islam, like doubts and confusions. People started sharing their thoughts with me that helped me in face to face Dawah activities. It also strengthened my relationship with them, so after that I was able to invite them to our halqa, and activities so easily, otherwise when you’re not connected with people online, it’s difficult to invite them for events because they don’t feel comfortable and connected with you.

One-to-one Dawah conversations are my most favorite Dawah activity and I feel more comfortable when I’m doing it. For this, I had many conversations at the workplace, metro bus, wedding ceremony, during travel to other cities, in hospitals, in the cafeteria, and anywhere I went, I tried to turn the conversation into the one related to Dawah! Few times I failed to do so but I kept going.

Once I started feeling comfortable in one-to-one Dawah conversations, I started organizing halqa at my home, I used to invite my few friends and select a topic for discussion. I had only a few halqa at home, as some people don’t have permission to visit home so I organized a few sessions at public places/ restaurants, and the response was nice! Sisters liked having wonderful conversations in a relaxed environment. This time I invited my friends and asked them to come up with their friends so Dawah to friends of friends was an amazing experience; meeting new people, exchanging thoughts was just awesome! Once during sessions, one sister even offered her living room to continue these activities; we had one session at her home.

Slowly, I started Dawah at my workplace, and I had amazing Dawah conversations in my office, whenever I had some free time I tried to visit any colleague and talk with them, this way sisters started feeling good and once trust was built, I began talking about the purpose of life. Till this day, I do the same. I try helping them in work and making myself available and their problems and pains. In this way I have also started enjoying my work!

November 2018-March 2019:
After 6 months of training and Dawah work, I was able to speak publicly and in groups easily, before that I was very bad in group conversations. Then I decided to approach institutes because you find a large audience there and you also don’t have to worry about venues and other things. Using my contacts I got permission in a college and meanwhile I got connected with sister Irum in Multan who is passionate about Dawah. Throughout the time I was trying to build a team but was not able to do it, because initially, sisters showed interest but they disappeared later, it was stressful but I kept giving Dawah, so when I connected with sister Irum via DM I felt excited and blessed, she came up with her friend Hania so this way we were three and then we started working together and had amazing time. Till now we have visited few colleges in Multan; we delivered talks there and had one-to-one conversation at the end of the talk.

April 2019:
In April 2019, we hosted Winds of Change (WOC) by Youth Club (YC) in Multan. One of the YC speakers delivered powerful talk, after that we had face to face Dawah training with Sir Nadeem for the very first time, we invited some new sisters for training and they became part of our team including Sister Zahra and Sister Hurma. I consider that the best training in my life. We felt much more confident and motivated after that training session.

May 2019:
After the WOC we also had one mixed event with the collaboration of brother’s team, which was organized one week before Ramadan 2019, called “Super Recharged Ramadan”. Many new sisters and brothers joined the event, and two sisters joined us as team members through that event; Haya and Khadija. Khadija recently shifted to Multan from Lahore after her wedding. Although she remained in the team for a few months only, but yes she has been a beautiful addition to our team. We had only a few Dawah projects together, but we had a memorable time, she was creative and a team player.

June 2019 onwards:
Slowly, the team started growing, many sisters joined and left, but Alhamdulila Dawah work continued! Gradually, we started looking for near-by events in Multan and went there for Dawah in small teams, such as, Blue Fair exhibition, mango festival, book fair at library, Women’s Day exhibition, mall dawah etc. At first, it was not a piece of cake for us! When we visited the expo for the first time, we didn’t have any game plan and we were unsuccessful, we faced rejection and we were disappointed, but after mentorship and training by Br. Nadeem we tried going to book fair, mall and exhibition again and Alhamdulillah we approached sisters easily and had dawah conversation with them. Now we are thinking to do regular dawah activity at malls to engage with more people on a regular basis.

In mid-2019, we started doing monthly video sessions at sister Irum’s home, our strategy was to invite non-practicing sisters at home (although practicing sisters also joined), we played a video and had discussion about that video, we had some good quality food and fun games. This idea worked amazingly because this way we got in touch with new sisters. Unfortunately, we had to stop this activity in March-2020 because of COVID-19, but surely, we will resume this after a few months Insha’Allah.

But in the lockdown period too, we have had online events; keeping in view the people’s interest, we did an event on “Entrepreneurship” and many sisters joined the event and we stayed in touch with them afterwards. Similarly, we started a “Surah series” for team members, however other sisters also joined and benefited from it. In this series we discussed one particular Surah once in a month.

We had a Dawah mission in a nearby small city, Shujabad. I motivated 3 sisters online to get involved in Da’wah and then we organized a Dawah meeting in their city, we discussed the importance of dawah and planned how we can do dawah in villages as it’s different from the city. The Shujabad team had few activities afterwards; they are focusing on one-to-one dawah these days.

In December 2019, we organized Dawah week in Multan, we dedicated the whole week for dawah and it went wonderful! We included different dawah activates each day, such as: family dawah, friends dawah, online dawah, neighbor dawah, relative dawah, group dawah, random dawah, park dawah, mall dawah, all team members actively participated in the activity. Similar to this we planned “3 days Non-Stop Dawah” in July 2020.

The one thing that keeps me motivated and consistent is DM, I made this habit of reading DM blogs, watching DM videos, listening to DM sound clouds, attending training sessions on a regular basis; staying consistent is the most important trick for learning a new skill.

Right now we are focusing on strengthening our team and learning dawah techniques, I used to have one-to-one regular calls with team members and we used to organize regular online and offline meetups with the team to stay consistent and motivated for dawah. Recently, Sister Sibgha joined the team through DM, and she is very passionate about Dawah and she has a lot of potential. I hope our team grows gradually and we do more Dawah work in Multan city and help other sisters around the world in building a dawah team in their area.

I want to mention few points for people who are starting their dawah career and also trying to build a Dawah team, please consider following:

1. Firstly, and most importantly, check your intentions on a regular basis and make sure you are doing this for the sake of Allah swt, you will see that Allah swt will make ways for you from nowhere, just keep going.
2. In the beginning, it’s tough to find the right team members but it doesn’t mean we should stop dawah, just keep doing dawah and hunt for team members at the same time, remember one quote: “You are the team, others are just bonus” (Br. Nadeem Ashraf).
3. Focus should be Dawah; not events and number of people.
4. Never be harsh to your team members, they are doing work for the sake of Allah SWT; not for you. If they become lazy or don’t fulfill commitment, just make dua for them and move forward.
5. Remember, we have a short time period; death is near so never miss a single dawah opportunity, always be ready to call people towards Allah swt, don’t be lazy. Go small but do it with consistency.
6. Passion is good but training is important also. Keep learning new dawah techniques each day.
7. Rejection can be hurting but it’s short-term while reward is immense and long-term. Never stop dawah due to fear of being rejected, Prophets used to be rejected but they never stopped.
8. No matter how busy you are, don’t let worldly stuff get more important than dawah! Make time for it even if it’s 30 minutes in a week. You will feel Barakah in your time Insha’Allah!

Many Thanks!