A Caller’s Code of Conduct Introduction

Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Nabil Katyn Ababa, I want to welcome you all to this new series on a call is code of conduct based on my new book, which has the same title.

And at the time of recording the book is not published yet.

So these videos may release before the book, I actually plan on publishing them as a package.

And most likely, if you're watching the series sometime in the future, you probably purchased the book and watching the video series to supplement that. If you wanted the early viewers of the series, you may have to wait a few weeks before the book is released. The idea is that his book and his video series they supplement each other in covering what I believe is a very important topic for the contemporary Dawa scene. So this book and this video series will focus on 12 principles that I believe are crucial for ensuring that our Dawa is done in a way that is pleasing to Allah subhanho wa Taala and produces the best of results.

One of the problems that I have noticed in the Dawa scene today is that on one hand Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah many young people, many young people who love the deen and care about the deen they have set up our channels and our websites and our social media accounts and then go all in into Dawa 100. That's a good thing.

But on the other hand, many of them don't have Dawa training. They don't have a set methodology and principles. They don't have the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience to do it properly. And the end up sometimes doing more harm than good. So how do we solve this problem? Well, I'm not somebody to discourage people from doing Dawa. So instead of discouraging people from doing Dawa, I thought why not go through some of the qualities of the di e that are found in the Quran and Sunnah, and teach and educate on this topic, so that the next generation will be able to

follow these principles and shape the Dawa accordingly. So the idea here is simply to guide the Dawa back to the center. So it is done in a way that is pleasing to Allah subhanho wa Taala and produces the best results. And this is something that I myself went through when I was younger. When I first started doing Dawa, I was a young hothead, I was not really wise in my choice of words. To put it in perspective. I was 15 years old. And I started doing Dawa. Right? So a long time ago, two decades ago, but Alhamdulillah I had mentors and show you who guided me. So when I was 15 years old, I met the late Sheikh Ahmed Deedat Rahim Allah. And after he passed away, which was about a year later, I

actually studied at his center that somebody that center I studied our methodology at the center. After that a few years later, I met Dr. Bilal Philips and I and the way I met Dr. Bilal Philips was through studying a Dawa training course under him. Right so actually studied this our methodology, many of the same principles I'm going to talk about in this series, I studied with Dr. Bilal Philips, that was the beginning of my 13 years of working for him Al Hamdulillah, which basically was my entire 20s and early 30s. So this was something that I studied. And I benefited from studying this with my teachers.

And I feel like the next generation can benefit from this as well. So I'm hoping that this book, and this and this video series will help a lot of young people who are very zealots about the religion, to understand their mistakes, and to figure out a better way of doing things. By the way,

just one point about the series, I'm going to use a lot of personal anecdotes, I'm going to draw from my own life experience. I have over two decades of experience in the world of Dawa, in which I've seen it all good and bad, good, bad and ugly. I've seen it all. I have seen the art who have excelled and did amazing jobs, and have seen people doing absolutely embarrassing, messed up Dawa. That did not work out in their favor or the favor of the audience. And I've seen those who industry May Allah guide us and protect us from that, despite being to art at one point in their life completely going astray at a different point in their life. May Allah protect us

From that, so, I know some people don't like it. When the speaker talks a lot about their own life experience. They just want to hear Quran and Sunnah. But I believe experience is the best teacher when it comes to topics like this. So for every topic, I will call Quran, a word called the Sunnah, I will try my best to draw up on stories of the pious predecessors, but I will also speak from my own experience in the contemporary Dawa scene, things I have seen, that people have done right or wrong, or even things that I may have done, where I messed up or where I learned the lesson.

Because our experience is where we gain wisdom from. So if you don't like when a speaker uses their own life experience too much in a lecture, you may not really enjoy this series. However, I still recommend giving it a chance if you are involved in the field of Dawa, because

this is something that's, that's crucial. The topics I'm going to cover are crucial and necessary for shaping the personality of the day. And I don't claim to be perfect, I don't claim to be the best of the auto they're way better people than me out there in this field. hamdulillah amazing people out there way better than me. But Allah has humbled and blessed me with the time and the knowledge and the ability to do this. And I'm hoping that this is something in which Allah will put baraka and it will be a means of guidance for people much better than me, people who reach much more people than me, people who are able to push the Dawa forward in ways that I couldn't imagine. So

this isn't about me. It isn't about you. It's about the Dawa. So, to begin, what is that word? What do we mean by that? So in the book, I say

that

the word Dawa is used in this book, in the broadest sense possible. You see with any word in

any language, there's multiple meanings, and the word Dawa is the same, there are multiple meanings of the word Dawa. So there's two general meanings used in the Islamic world. Specifically, Dawa refers to inviting non Muslims to Islam.

That is the very specific meaning. But more broadly,

the Dawa, or the hour is basically it means any act of calling anyone to get closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. So it could be inviting a non Muslim to Islam, or it could be inviting a Muslim, to be a better Muslim. Right? This is the broad meaning of the word Dawa. And that's the meaning I'm using it in, in the series. So whatever I say it applies in your Dawa to non Muslims. But it also applies in how you talk to other Muslims. It also applies in how you teach other Muslims. In fact, this series itself is a means of Dawa. It is a means of conveying a message conveying Quran and Sunnah and the principles of Islam to a audience. Even if the audience are Muslim, even the audience

are knowledgeable Muslim and practicing Muslim, it is still sharing beneficial knowledge from the Quran and Sunnah with people, that they will practice on, and the person who conveys the message, if Allah accepts the efforts, they will get the reward of the good deeds of those who practice on it. So it is our in the broadest sense of the word and that is how we are using this term in the series.

In the book, and probably in the video series, as well, I will use a variety of words entertain interchangeably, so may refer to the to the person who is doing Dawa by the Arabic term that they are plural to art. Right? So that is someone who does Dawa, to art people who do Dawa or may use English terms like color or quality Islam or

something like, preacher, student of knowledge. Very rarely, I may use the word scholar if I'm talking specifically about scholarly characteristic, but even in that case, it is something that applies to every diary, not just to the scholars. So these words are used very broadly and really interchangeably. ask you not to get hung up too much on the definition of these terminologies. It's important that we digest these 12 principles that I'm going to cover instead of arguing over what is a scholar, what is a student of knowledge, what is it that IE my shakes, it does and he shakes that that that terminology in the definitions of these terms is not as important as internalizing the

principles and living by it. So try not to get too hung up on these side details, right. So it

In this series, I plan to have 14 videos. This will be the introduction video. Then we will do one detailed video on each of the 12 principles mentioned in the book explaining the chapter of the book and we will ended up with a conclusion video. So inshallah it will be 14 videos explaining the 12 chapters of this book. In this book, I have put together

what I call the 12 principles of Dawa the 12 principles of Dawa. Now,

as a side point of no Joe,

when someone tells you something like the seven principles of leadership, or 12 principles of Dawa or 20 principles of IQ of a pseudo Vic,

this is that person's understanding that person's

methodology that they formulated his methodology and put it in this order. This isn't set in stone. This isn't revealed knowledge, the principles themselves may be, but someone else may see this 15 principles of Dawa someone else may see that only six someone else may see these 10 Right. And I notice a lot of

youngsters they like to get hung up on these details like oh, you said this 12 principles of Dawa my shakes in the six. So one of those doing better. There's no better this is just a definition of terminologies, this is just making lists bid does not apply to this type of categorization. Right coming up with terms and listen and numbers and seeing like the six Zulu three quarter seven Zulu Victor's B that doesn't apply here. So try not to get caught up in these unnecessary details, focus on taking the beneficial knowledge instead. So one of the 12 principles that I believe every day should live by

they are number one is Lawsonia. Sincerity of intention. And this simply means that you should do your Dawa for the sake of Allah. And your next video I will just focus on this topic alone. Dawa must be for the sake of Allah. And we are living in a time where a lot of Dawa is done for fame. A lot of Dawa is done for ego. A lot of Dawa is done for money. And for us to remind ourselves that our Dawa is for Allah is something that is crucial, it is necessary without it there is no reward at all in the data. So you may think it is oh, I've heard this so many times before every share talks about Neo every share talks about a class, you're going to talk about it again. Well, yeah, we have

to this is the most important thing. This is the most important thing everyone talks about it because it is the most important thing. If you get this principle wrong, nothing else matters rarely because if you don't have the right intentions, if you're doing Dawa towards yourself and your Dawa towards Allah then you are digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself in the hellfire.

So yes, we have to talk about this first. This is number one, the last one near is number one, it must be for Allah. Number two, principle number two, Dawa must be done with L with knowledge. It must be on a firm basis of knowledge. So we will talk about what is the minimum level of knowledge you should have to do Dawa? What do you do if they ask you a question that that you don't know the answer to? How do you sustain your study of Islam over a long period of time? How do you excel at the study of Islam and reach higher levels? God maybe you starting off today as a dark age? Maybe if you put in the time and the effort to study Islam properly, maybe in 10 or 15 years time you will be

a scholar of Islam. Right? So knowledge is fundamental to Dawa. What are you calling to if you don't have knowledge? And yes, there are levels of knowledge. There's a minimum level you need to start doing Dawa. But there are

many higher levels to aspire towards. And we will talk about that. Principle number three, son, sun,

sun, striving for excellence. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Allah loves that when he servant does anything. They do it with Sr, they strive for excellence. So we are supposed to strive for excellence in everything we do.

What about our Dawa?

But what does it mean to do Dawa with excellence?

In recent times, I've seen some Muslims

assume that Darwin excellence means that you have a fancy stage and a fancy background, and everything must look state of the art. I would argue that that's not necessarily excellence. But a well researched, well written, well presented argument. Even if it's just some kid sitting at home in his bedroom making that video. I believe that could be excellent. If he does his research properly, if he presents it properly, if it changes people's hearts and minds, if he really did the best job he could what he had. That is excellent. So we'll talk about about this what is a son? Why is it important? What are examples of people who don't do so? What are examples of people who must

understood your son and how do we apply this in the field of Dawa

number for

a HELOC.

a HELOC will either good character and good manners.

So, I list these two as one, because really, it is one concept every day ie money must strive to have the character and manners of Islam. And this is an area where people are extremely lacking today that we have do art who use filthy language. We have the art whose channels are dedicated to backbiting and slander. We have the art who are rough and vulgar and rude and crude. And this is not the o'clock or adab of Islam. So I'm going to spend a lot of time on this topic because I believe this is the root cause of many problems in the Dawa. Today. Historically, people would study other before they study LLM

and only after studying or the wild, then they would jump into the Dawa. Today people do Dawa first, maybe they'll get a bit of em later, but they never look at other.

And other is the beginning point that we have the manners and character of the believers don't have to be perfect. Nobody's perfect. I'm far from perfect. But we have to be striving and trying our best to to become people of o'clock. Wodaabe

number five hikma wisdom.

That's a big one, right? A lot of people today do Dawa with absolutely no wisdom. They just talk in a way that that pushes people away in a way that, you know, they want that shock factor. They want to attract people to their channel by saying outrageous things, right or speaking in an outrageous manner. Or they may just have a nasty personality and be shouting at people all the time. Or maybe they just don't realize it's not the right time or place for a certain way of doing things. You know, just to give you an example of that.

I know this happened many times I've actually seen this many times. Not even just one anecdote that happened so many times that you'd be at a funeral. Right? Someone passed away so you go to the janazah. And after janazah, grieving all uncle full of tears, he stands up and he starts making a DUA

and some of his friends join him in a start making a dua together for the person who passed away. And then some youngster stands up. He's like this is bit out. How can you do bit it janazah and he starts fighting with the old man. Right? I remember once seeing two uncles scream and shouting each other about this topic at 1am in the graveyard.

They hadn't even finished burying their father and screaming and shouting at each other about Buddha. Of course, neither of them were listening to what the other person was saying. But it really shows the lack of hikma it's not the time or the place to be talking about concepts like that. Not when someone's in that emotional state. So what is wisdom? How do we gain wisdom?

How do we apply wisdom? What are examples of wisdom are examples of lacking wisdom we will go into all of that principle number five, Rama compassion, compassion is necessary in Dawa

and today we have actual duat who are demonizing compassion

right they've turned it into a slur against other to art

now to be loving zali

it's ridiculous absolutely ridiculous. Raha compassion is the description of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as the day that he was Ramadan laid out I mean, he was a compassion to the universe. It is the fundamentals of how you treat people and talk to people and interact with people that you begin with compassion. You begin with understanding people caring for people wanting good for people. That's how you connect with

People, that's how you get through to people. That's how you get people to be receptive to your message

that needs to be the Rama in the heart. So, we will talk about what is Rama the evidence of Rama examples of Rama from the Sierra. And we will also talk about people who go to extremes when it comes to Rama, because there is some legitimacy to that to that argument. There are some people who go to extremes when it comes to Rama. And we go to and we will go to the other extreme of people who demonize the things we need to be harsh and mean all the time. No, we'll talk to the time to this time for that that's where hate bar comes in. But the default setting is that a DA II should have Rama that is the default setting. hikma will decide when it's time to show your other side. Right.

So if last Illinois,

double hit ma Rama

number eight Sudak. Honesty, truthfulness, being clear and honest and truthful about the message of Islam.

One of the biggest problems I've noticed over the past 20 years was that many do art distorted the message of Islam to make it suitable to certain people and their worldviews. So your ridiculous arguments like Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was a feminist. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, or ridiculous arguments like Islam is BS, or jihad is just struggling to smile. Absolutely ridiculous nonsense. This is lying about your religion. This is distorting your religion. This is changing Islam, to suit the people. No Adar II needs to be honest about the teachings of Islam.

Yes, there's a time and place for talking about certain topics. And there's a methodology of talking about certain topics. And you have to do it with wisdom and you have to do it with compassion. But you should never ever lie about what Islam teaches. If someone had to ask you, does Islam teach this? And you know that Islam teaches that you should be honest about it. You can explain the wisdom, you can explain the Islamic worldview. You can explain the evidences, but you cannot change the message itself. And I have seen too many people do this when it comes to topics like jihad, slavery, polygamy, women's rights, are many of these issues, people completely distort Islam to make

it suit somebody else's worldview. We don't need to do this we discussed the house and of this methodology how to do things truthfully. But with wisdom when we come to this chapter.

The next quality is shujaa courage. It takes courage to do Dawa. Because you are challenging people's worldviews. You are challenging the way they think about life. You are challenging a core beliefs and ideas and values. People would like that. People won't like that. When Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam received the first revelation. And he went to work I've been awful work I've been awful told him I wish I could live till the time when your people turn against you so I can support you. And Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was the most beloved of people to his community. He said My people will turn against me. And Warlock or even oval said, There has never

been anyone before you who brought a message like this, except that his people turned against him.

When you speak the truth, people will turn against you. And that is when you have to be brave and courageous for the sake of the truth. You have to so if you want to do Dawa, you have to speak the truth. If you speak the truth, you have to be brave in dealing with the consequences of speaking the truth. Because people will dislike you for it. People will turn against you for it. People will slander you, people will try to get you to lose your job. People will try to boycott you to exile you. They may even throw you in prison. Right? If we look at the history of Dawa every day in history went through trials like this. Nobody does Dawa honestly and truthfully, without having to

face hardships for the sake of Allah.

So you have to be brave. You have to have courage. If you do not have courage, this is not the job for you.

You're either go work in a shop or do something else.

Allah subhana Wadala describes those whom he loves. While you're funa low medalla they do not fear the criticism of the critics. Meaning people will criticize you. You have to

Learn to live with that.

You have to learn to live with that. People have been criticizing me for over 20 years. I had to deal with people writing reputations of me when I was 18 or 19 years old.

I had to deal with people boycotting me, getting me fired from my job, and trying to prevent me from getting a job anywhere in the country. When I was like 22 years old. You have to put up with these things. If you're doing data, you have to you can't expect things to be rosy. You can't expect everything to go your way. This is a job that requires courage. If you don't have courage, find something else.

The next quality of the die and think we are number

nine now, right? Let's check 123456789 Yeah. All right. Number nine, is this good to knifes? The purification of the soul.

This is something I've noticed a lot of do art neglect. They spend so much time with intellectual arguments and so much time with fighting and arguing with others and calling others they forget to focus on their own selves. And I've seen two extremes on this one extreme there are some people who say we have to purify our soul first, later we will do Dawa. But guess what the purification of the soul is a lifelong journey. So those people never stopped doing Dawa. The other extreme we have people who are so focused on the dollar that they neglect their own souls.

And then suddenly they go straight and your your your mind is boggled How does such a great die you go a slave straight. How?

Because they neglected their own souls. Understand that your iman is increasing or decreasing. If you're not working on increasing it, it will be decreasing. So you have to make time every day to focus on purifying your own soul. You cannot focus only on other people, you have to focus on yourself as well. Think of it in terms of that. Safety measures in the airplane. Right? In the airplane we did teaching you the safety measures they say like when the mask drops down. Put your own mask on first, before helping someone else. It's the same thing.

Focus on three obeying your soul. Because you also have to save yourself you can't lose yourself to saving others are so hungry. I have so many stories, sad, sad stories in my own lifetime.

I have seen so many do art because they do not focus on purifying their own souls. They went so far as 3d became unrecognizable. I'm talking about people who at one point in their life, they were like the most pious people I knew.

And nouns would be like 10 years later, they weren't practicing Islam at all. Completely gone. Talking about for example, sisters who went from wearing niqab to not even wearing hijab complete displaying of the old talking about brothers who were, you know, bearded mashallah, teaching Islam full time to becoming completely clean shaven, and not even praying five times a day anymore? How does somebody fall off that badly, by neglecting the purification of the soul by neglecting the purification of the soul. And unfortunately, we have some do art within the purification of the soul is a bit odd, or it only can be done to be honest, so they completely ignored this is absolute

nonsense. This is a fundamental of Islam. This is a fundamental of Islam, god of the Harmon Zabka success is only in purifying the soul. That's how you're successful. So we will talk a lot about the purification of the soul, and how to balance that with your dharma.

The last three qualities Deanwood, how you interact with other people. So all the other qualities, the first nine are about yourself. The other three are about the people you surround yourself with. And so these final three are

spending time in righteous companionship. Naseeha being open to sincere advice and counsel and the r1 working together for the sake of Allah.

So

you must surround yourself with righteous people. And in this chapter, I talk about it from three perspectives. Your teachers, choose the most righteous of people to be your teachers, because their piety or lack thereof will affect you and impact you.

Number two, your spouse, ensure you marry a righteous woman or man depending obviously on your gender, right, because they are female to heart as well. Right? I know some people think that this is aimed only at men notice

This this course and this book are aimed at men and women equally.

Make sure you marry a righteous person. I have seen in my life, people who they wanted to dedicate their lives to Dawa. But the person they were married to was the biggest obstacle in the way of their data, and completely ruin them, completely ruin them. So the person you marry plays a

important role in the success of your data.

And the third type of righteous companionship are your friends.

Are you hanging out with people who bring you closer to Allah, or you're hanging out with people who are sabotaging your Dawa.

So be careful whom you choose as your teachers, as your spouse, and as your friends, make sure you have righteous companionship in these three areas, this is fundamental for your success.

The next level of working with others is Naseeha. To both give and receive sincere counsel and advice.

With an open mind and open heart, you must be open to correction. Because we all make mistakes, we all mess up. I probably missed a couple of times in this presentation alone. We all say things that we could have said in a better way. We all have those moments where we just weren't in the right state of mind, and ended up not doing a good job. Sometimes we have opinions that are incorrect. Sometimes our strategies are way off. You can't know this, unless you are open to Naseeha. So you should have people in your life mentors, colleagues,

studs, teachers, who advise you and you must be open to receiving that advice. Naseeha is necessary for accountability in the dollar. And we're going to talk a lot about accountability when it comes to that chapter. Because that's something I feel is lacking in the Dawa. Today, people lack accountability, people just do what they want. And they don't want anyone to correct them. This is very dangerous.

Finally, we have to our working together,

work together for the sake of Allah in righteousness do not work together in evil. And in this chapter, we will break down the levels of who you can work with and why you should or shouldn't work with them. And we will also break down

issues related to dealing with differences of opinion unity in the OMA, all of these issues. It's important for us to understand the principles and the limits in these areas because they are limits as well, right? As a Muslim involved in Dawa, you shouldn't be working together with others for the sake of Allah. But there may be people out there who are preaching falsehood, there may be people out there who you know, are doing this for fame, you know, they're doing it for money, because you've spoken to them, and they made the intentions very clear to you, you shouldn't be judging people and assuming this about them. But if they spoke to you, and they made the intentions clear,

then you should need to think twice about it about that partnership. So we'll talk about this in details right in what will be video number 13? What, what are the areas in which we should be working with others? What should be the limits of this? How do you deal with differences? What is the boundaries of who you should be working with? What kind of people is it unacceptable to work with. We'll cover all of this in details in the final two second last session of this video series. So to conclude this introduction, I believe this is a very necessary series. And I ended one last anecdote from my own life and why I believe this scene is so important.

When I was in my 20s, I was a teacher at an Islamic University.

And I noticed that many of the graduates from the university were not representing Islam properly. The management of the character was often that wisdom that that compassion, the lack most of the stuff that we spoke about today.

So I propose to the management of the university to add a obligatory course in the first semester on the etiquettes of seeking knowledge. And in this course, we would teach them all these principles.

And hamdulillah the university accepted, and I was initially the teacher of the course for many years. And what that would mean was that anytime someone joined the Islamic University

He, in their first semester, I will teach them all of these principles. And slowly over time, I noticed a difference in the caliber of graduates. Because when you start with this foundation when you start your study of Islam or your Dawa, with this foundation, understanding the importance of sincerity and knowledge and wisdom and compassion and manners and character, and teamwork, and unrighteous company, and purification of the soul, when you understand all of these things from day one,

as you grow in knowledge, you know, you will inshallah grow in the right direction.

But if any of these fundamentals are missing, it is very easy for shaytan to come from that direction, and to lead you astray.

He can catch you from the direction of lack of sincerity, he can catch you from the direction of lack of compassion, he can catch you from the direction of working with the wrong people or not working with anyone, he can catch you from the direction of not purifying your soul of having bad character manners.

shaytaan wants to lead the Duat astray. Because when he die, or a chef goes astray, it doesn't just affect them. It has a ripple effect on the community. Think about it. Every year, there's some scandal online about some shape or some die somewhere in the world. And every time this happens, every time this happens, they are people who have following that person who sought to lose their fate. Why because the fate was in the person of Allah subhanho wa taala.

So understand that shaytan wants to mislead the dye or the shell, because that means misleading a lot of people.

He's not just misleading one person. And so he will come for us in every direction, from every manner, looking for the slightest weakness, so he can lead us astray. By by studying these principles, by studying these fundamentals, by applying them by living by them, then Insha Allah, we can protect ourselves from the traps of shaytan we can do a Dawa, that is pleasing to Allah and beneficial to the OMA. And there will be Baraka in our work and be rewarded for it insha Allah on the last day and by the way, that is the result of Dawa correctly. The Allah will accept it from you, and reward you for it on the Day of Judgment. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will have

followers in this world, it doesn't necessarily mean that a million people will watch your videos or 10,000 people will buy your book or anything like that. No.

Worldly success is never guaranteed in anything that we do.

And we look at the power of the prophets. Many of the prophets didn't even have followers. Right? The entire community rejected them. But their Dawa was successful because it was for Allah

to the real success is on the day of judgment. And so we should do this for the sake of Allah, aiming for Jana, being aware of the traps of shaytan. And that's what this program is all about. I hope that you stick with us for the full 14 videos, read the book, internalize it, live by it, maybe teach it to others as well. I really hope that this becomes a turning point for the Dawa, to help us all to do things in a way that is pleasing to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah does offer us a very your time intention. In our next video, you will discuss the importance of a philosopher Nia and how to maintain our class especially when dealing with fitness. They can cause us to lose it. Right there

are certain fitness they can cause us to lose our intention. So how do we deal with those type of fitna? How do we deal with those kinds of situations? We will discuss all of that in the next video, which is aka later on. We'll often do that one out and you'll hamdulillahi rabbil aalameen