The First Imperative The first imperative I want to address is the imperative of education. By imperative of education, I do not mean just the robust Islamic knowledge because this is a basic necessity, a primary condition which I assume every Dawah worker must have. The depth of message is vital, no doubt.
This makes it unnecessary for me to belabour this point again. But if perchance there is any worker lacking in respect of Islamic knowledge, this deficiency only widens the scope of knowledge he has to encompass in the short run in the field of work, and this is no mean a task.
By imperative of education, I mean totality of awareness and currency of the social environment in which the Dawah worker operates. He must understand the organic structure of the society; the flow of power and influence in the system, its intricacies and workings; the demographic configuration, the infrastructural distribution, and resource allocation. The organic structure of the society defines the nature and level of co-operation, collaboration and struggle within the society.
The organic structure determines ownership and control of the economic resources, and their allocation just as it dictates the reservoirs of power. The knowledge of the organic structure of the society by Islamic mission would enable it to have a perfect understanding of the direction of its Dawah. Not just that; the Dawah would be able to organize itself and deliver its work to its specific objective without necessarily encountering opposition.
I appreciate that opposition and rejection, ultimately, constitute the test of Dawah impact. However, these are most undesirable at the preliminary stage of Dawah because it is distractive of the primary mission.
A perfect knowledge and understanding of the organic structure of the society expands and opens the scope of work and the field of opportunities, as it assists it in discovering talents and resources that could be helpful to the mission and ease its task. Similarly, the understanding of demographic distribution is as necessary as the quality of Islamic knowledge itself.
By this understanding, i mean the distribution of the society across gender, age, geographic and economic indices. The Dawah mission must be familiar with all the demographic indices of his environment, as the knowledge of these would enable it to define its target and focus appropriately.
Infrastructural distribution – establishment and location schools, hospitals, and other facilities relating to the health and development of the human capital are part of demographic indices that are necessary to be understood by the Dawah mission/worker as these would serve as the platform to operate and reach the people. Ultimately, our real challenge is a challenge of research. Research expands the horizon, exposes problem areas and helps in finding solutions to them.
TO BE CONTINUED
