History: Da’wah Training (2003-2015)

Our Direct Link: http://www.theBuildingBlocks.org/dawahtraining

For Dawah Trainees, click here for next meeting’s info

What is this forum
This forum addresses the important need of bringing those who want to learn Islam and share its teaching with others in the Twin Cities area.  We are currently focusing on preparing for speaking assignments in educational institutes where information is shared in a casual environment

What is the goal:

  • Fill the void about information on Islam without compromising on the authenticity of islam
  • Be able to discuss any topic in an effective and convincing way
  • Be able to provide resources related to Islam

Items pertaining to training:

  • Knowing your audience and preparing accordingly
  • Having Quran/books and other resources as needed
  • Having business cards for further contact

 Some Topics for training eventually:

  1. Human Rights in Islam
  2. Women’s Rights in Islam
  3. Islamic Art and Architecture
  4. What is Shariah & Islamic Legal system
  5. Explaining Jihad
  6. Abraham [as] and Islam: What’s the Connection?

Our past efforts which led us to current structure, Alhamdulillah:

 

Scheduled Trainings and Current Action Plan
{slide=Show/Hide MeetingNotes}

  1. Our Milestone Meeting Notes: Training will be centered around 11 discussion topics.  Details are here
  2. 11/17/2009 & 11/22/2009 @ MCC:  Introductions and concept of Islamic celebrations discussed.  Motivation for our work.
  3. Sunday 12/06/2009 @ 5 PM at MCC (Topic: Concept of God in Islam)
  4. Sunday 12/20/2009 @ 5 PM at MCC (Topic: What do Muslims believe in)
  5. Sunday 1/10/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC (presenting with confidence Concept of God in Islam & What do Muslims believe in)
  6. Sunday 1/24/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC (Presenting The Prophets, The Hereafter & the concept of God in Islam)
  7. Sunday 2/7/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC (Presenting The Prophets, The Hereafter to a younger audience & the concept of God in Islam)
  8. Sunday 2/21/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC – same topics as before
  9. Sunday 3/7/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC – (Presenting Hereafter and articles of faith)
  10. Sunday 3/21/2010 @ 5 PM at MCC – Finishing rest of the presentations
  11. Sunday April 4th @ 5 PM at MCC: Presenting all pillars of faith and discussions related to them
  12. Sunday May 16th & Sunday May 23rd @ 5 PM at MCC – Agenda
    1. Preparing for county fairs – Fielding PR and questions at a table
    2. Questions from Holy Angels school
  13. Sunday, June 6th & June 13th @ 5 PM at MCC – Preparation for fair, understanding the visitors, their expectation, their Q/A, relating our knowledge with them and planning for the logistics
  14. June 17th till 20th: Our first fieldwork experience in Hennepin County Fair.  Photos of dawah booth in Fair, Videos of dawah booth in Fair
  15. Sunday June 27th @ 5 PM at MCC – we reviewed the fair and important lessons learnt are all listed here
  16. Sunday July 11th @ 5 PM at MCC – We discussed our wider role for dawah team and We prepared for the Ramsey County Fair held on July 14th till July 20th.  Video & Pics coming soon
  17. Thursday July 22nd – appreciation dinner for all dawah booth volunteers
  18. Sunday, August 1st @ 5 PM at MCC – We formed our BB Dawah team (Alhamdulillah).  BB Dawah team Details
  19. Sunday, August 22nd @ 5 PM at MCC (Agenda below) – New Topics List decided, discussed our role with ICNA-MN & introduced MCC Dawah Team
    1. Topics – Women’s/Human Rights in Islam; Drugs, Alcohol, and Gambling; Economic System; Prayer and Zakat; Problem of Poverty; What is Shariah?; Muslim and Non-Muslim Relations; What is the Qur’an?
  20. Sunday, September 19th @ 5 PM at MCC
    1. Topic presented: Women in Islam, 10 minutes

     

  21. Sunday, Octover 3rd @ 5pm at MCC, Clinic building
    1. Br Waleed and Sr Sarah both presented on the topic of Women’s Rights in Islam
    2. Going forward, our topics will be Human Rights in Islam and Muslim/Non-Muslim Relations.
      1. Resource: Maududi’s book Human Rights in Islam. Can be found here
    3. Dawah Meeting scheduled at 7pm. Talked about dawah tables at the U and how to address the missionaries that are coming to the Somali mall.
  22. Sunday, October 17th @5pm, Building Blocks Office
    1. Br. Tareq presented on Human Rights in Islam
    2. Dawah Meeting at 7pm
  23. Sunday, October 31st @4pm, MCC, Masjid Building
    1. Dawah Meeting started at 4pm. Future event with Yusha Evans at the U of M and dawah tables at local colleges were discussed
    2. Sr. Shannen and Br. Tareq presented on Human Rights in Islam
  24. Sunday, November 14th @4pm

    1. Presentation Topics:
      1. – Human Rights in Islam
        – Muslim/Non-Muslim Relations
    2. Dawah Meeting scheduled at 4pm. Training to start at 5pm sharp.
  25. Sunday, November 21st @4pm, MCC
  26. Feb. 13th, 2011 @ MCC
  27. Feb. 27th, 2011 @ Building Blocks Office
    1. Topics discussed: Jihad in Islam, Apostates in Islam
    2. Meeting Items: Spring Event at U of M, Sh. Hatem’s idea about responding to Star Trib comments
  28. Mar. 13th, 2011 @ MCC
    1. Topics discussed: Muslim Brotherhood, Muslim/Non-Muslim relations
    2. Meeting items: Vision for Dawah group, updates from each group
  29. Mar. 27th, 2011 @ MCC
  30. April 10th @4pm, MCC, Clinic Building
    1. Topics to discuss/present: Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, Shariah, Apostates
  31. May 8th @4pm, MCC, Clinic Building
    1. Discuss Misconceptions about Islam, status with blog response group, shahadah party, and resources
  32. May 22nd 2011 @4pm, MCC, Clinic Building
    1. Discuss status with blog response group, shahadah party, what the banning of Sharia means to us
    2. Cover the items that need to be discussed with presenting Sharia to a non-Muslim audience
    3. Present a preliminary presentation on Sharia
  33. June 12th 2011 @4pm, MCC, Clinic Building
    1. Learned what it means to ban Sharia
    2. Training from CAIR on how to interact with the media
    3. Discuss the upcoming fairs
    4. Discuss important points to touch on when talking about Sharia
  34. June 26th 2011 @ 4pm, MCC, Clinic Building
    1. Presentations:
      – Waleed: How Sharia protects religion for both Muslims and non-Muslims
      – Masood: How Sharia protects the right to life
      – Farooq: How Sharia protects property
      – Tareq: How Sharia protects the right of mind/reason
      – Sarah: How Sharia protects honor
  35. July 9th 2011 @5pm, Building Blocks office, Minneapolis
    1. We will train the new signup (30+) and will not lose our current momentum
    2. We must keep learning to present Islam using presentation model as it allows thoughts to be organized and modulizes the topic of presentation in logical part
    3. Team environment is our strength and we must foster it.  Having trust in the capability and being able to complement colleagues is important for many occasions and provides good support for each other
  36. July 30th 2011 @ 4pm, Masjid Al-Huda
    1. New volunteers meet and “debrief”. Again, discuss experiences and interactions that happened at the fair. Learn from each other.  Survey & Comments
    2. Introduce training format, a demo presentation, a group activity (concept of God in Islam vs Christianity)
    3. Talk about importance of dawah
  37. August 21st 2011 @ 5:30pm, Masjid Al-Huda
    1. Presentations were given by 6 dedicated volunteers with feedback on each item.
    2. Panel discussion group activity with Q & A surrounding the topics of The Concept of God in Islam and The Prophets
    3. Hot Topic group activity
    4. Iftar together as a group

     

  38. August 21st 2011 @ 5:30 pm, Masjid Al-Huda
    1. Reviewed a presentation from the repository for ideas and discussion
    2. Discussed the role of Paul in modern Christianity and history of Christianity from a sect of Judaism to what it is today
    3. Worked in groups to present how we would discuss the Hereafter with a 6th grader
  39. August 21st 2011 @ 5:30 pm, Masjid Al-Huda
  40. September 11th 2011 @ 5:30 pm, Masjid Al-Huda
  41. September 25th 2011 @ 5:30 pm, Masjid Al-Huda
  42. October 8th 2011 @ 5:30 pm, Masjid Al-Huda
  43. October 22nd 2011 & 23rd All day, Da’wah Boot Camp
  44. Nov 5th 2011 @ Masjid Al Huda – New Boot camp Daee joined in
  45. Mostly Admin and restructuring meetings took place on Nov. 12th, Nov 23rd, Dec. 10th, Dec. 24th, Dec 31st{/slide}
  46. Jan 13th 2012: Worked on Misconception 1 (Concept of Tauheed in Islam) with Br Samir
  47. Jan 29th 2012: Review of New Team Structure, planning for alMaghrib (Fiqh of Dawah with Sh. Makki), Importance of Speakers training & bringing back presentation based training insha-Allah
  48. Feb. 11th: Worked on Misconeption 2 (Islam is a new religion) & Sr. Shannen presented “Shariah”
  49. Feb 2012 till Dec 2012:
    1. We worked on topic on and off as Da’wah team got really busy with about 60 dawah requests.
    2. Sr Saido made major achievements in presentations during this timeframe
    3. Br Yusha Evans held a major Da’wah bootcamp part 2 in April 2012 with an excellent book
  50. Cancelled trainings in Feb 2013 and late Jan 2013
  51. Jan 12th 2013, March 9th and March 24th trainings had Sr Ifrah, Br Ilyas, Br Haroon, Br Asif and Sr Safi making important progress on 3 topics so far.
  52. May 15 2013, June 24th 2013, July 20th 2013 – We had 6 presentations on each of these days, Masha-Allah!
  53. July 2013: All speakers completed the 4 foundational topic presentations, Alhamdulillah.  State Fair table demos also took place
    1. Is Islam not tolerant of other faiths
    2. Are Muslim Women Oppressed
    3. Will Christians be allowed to propagate Christianity in Muslim countries
    4. Islam’s positions on homosexuality
  54. August 2013 focused on State Fair 2013 training and certification for volunteers
  55. Next Scheduled Trainings – 2nd Saturday of the Month 4th Sunday of the Month @ 4 pm at AFYFC  in Bloomington

    1. Present assigned topics including The Concept of God in Islam, The Hereafter, and Prophets in Islam
    2. Understanding Shariah and Human Rights
    3. Email Hot Topic discussions to dawah.training@thebuildingblocks.org

Future meetings agenda

  1. In near future: New batch of speakers comes in while previous speakers will apply their skills to dawah opportunities and keep getting trained at newer topics.
  2. Our delivery: We will meet and use Br Kemal’s worksheet to improve our presentation styles and delivery.  He will be with us sometimes in August/September so we need to do our homework ahead of time.
  3. Updates about our powerpoint presentations repository
  4. Future topics: Drugs, Alcohol, and Gambling; Economic System; Prayer and Zakat; Problem of Poverty; What is Shariah?; Muslim and Non-Muslim Relations; What is the Qur’an?

 

Our resources:

  • Local Da’ees
    • Our Trainers: Br Samir Saikali, Br Arafat AlBakri, Br Ghazali Thompson, Br Saeed Purcell
    • Br Yusha Evans, Br Julian Chippendale, Br Jamal Omar
  • Local Scholars: Sheikh Hatem al Haj, Sheikh Jamel Ben Amer, Sheikh Waleed
  • Visiting Scholars: Sheikh Mamdouh Mahmoud
  • Visiting Da’ees: Br Soussi

 

 I need Quran and Literature

Reimbursements

  • Gas Expense
  • Resources bought in reasonable amounts

When someone comes to Islam

Resources

  1. Islamic Architecture
  2. Yusuf Estes sites
  3. Guide US TV