Okaz Few years ago, I met a mosque imam and a preacher whom I knew extremely well. After the greetings and the routine question about the health and other conditions, I asked him where he had been because I did not seen him for quite a long time. He told me that he had spent the past three summer months in Canada trying to preach Islam. I asked him why Canada as it was a kafir (unbeliever) country according to his own understanding and concept. Moreover it is a country which has different customs and social habits. He said for this very reason he went there on a mission assigned to him by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to call the Canadian society to Islam and to present the greatness of this religion with the hope that Allah might help guide it toward it. I said earlier that I knew this man very well. He did not speak a single word of English. He never traveled before to any country in the Arab world let alone North America. He was living in a small town for most part of his life and therefore had no knowledge even of social differences between various regions of Saudi Arabia, not to talk of other societies in the world. I wanted to ask him about the language he used in his communications with the Canadians and the concept of his call but I thought the better of it and kept quite. This, after all, would be uncouth if not totally impolite from my part. The call for Islam in the world was a complex issue which we should have carefully thought of before sending preachers to any country. They might cause a lot of harm to us and also to our great religion due to their ignorance of the nature and habits of other societies in the world. The preachers we used to send abroad had very little or no knowledge at all of the psychology and culture of addressing foreign societies. Most of the religious men who were roaming the world trying to call for Islam were not armed with knowledge or high education. They were totally incapable of being good and convincing preachers. When we add to this the special agenda of some of the preachers who were not part of the official mission, we would expect them to do a lot more damage to us and to our noble religion. Few days ago the ministry issued a decision to halt all the procedures and invitations to practice Dawa (call) activities outside. The ministry said it wanted to study the issue carefully so as to correct any loopholes and shortcomings. This decision was long overdue. Since it finally came out, however, we should review the entire issue and decide if there was still need to send preachers abroad. Some of the preachers we sent abroad have really harmed our reputation and did a lot of damage to Islam. They have scandalized us in front of other societies by their sheer ignorance. They have hurt us and the others as well.
