Over a 100 new muslims so far in just a few days, The Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) is taking a tour of East and South Africa to energise the dawah in these countries. They are visiting Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa over five weeks.

This thread will keep you in touch with their progress In sha Allah

Mission Dawah: Africa - Touchdown in Uganda!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXhEAcSqA50&list=SPzCW4FlRXWKPR7dERgKC3O14Et40eUJxH

Takbeer! #MissionAfrica
After a public debate with #Christian Pastors, FOUR people embrace Islam!

The next VLOG from our Mission Africa team is here!

Key Statement: You muslims are sleeping and these people are going to Jahanam;

Mission Dawah: Africa - Rousing Uganda!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvrWf5JSbXA&list=SPzCW4FlRXWKPR7dERgKC3O14Et40eUJxH

Are you serious, Tbaba?


Arent you in America? What is your own with this UK organisation?


Sorry for my skepticism. Hamza Tzortis and Adnan Rashid are very dubious guyz

Day 2 17 November 2012 - (Jamshed Javed) (http://www.facebook.com/DawahWithJamshed) 14 New Muslims

Yusuf and myself went to Arua, which is in north-west Uganda. Due to shortness of time, the Mission Africa team had to split up to cover as many activities as possible. Our mission brief was to engage the Christian missionaries that were operating there, and deliver the message of Islam to the people. The journey was to take 5 hours by car (the flights were fully booked), so we had to leave early.

We had to leave the hotel by 5am, so we were up at 4am. Bear in mind that we had spent all day out yesterday after only sleeping for a couple of hours upon our arrival, so we were already tired. We had returned close to midnight, and still had to eat, so by the time we got to our rooms we only had a couple of hours to sleep.

Nonetheless, we prayed Fajr together and had an early breakfast. Unfortunately, due to complications with the car and driver, we didn't get to set off until 7am. In the car was Yusuf, myself, our host, driver and a police-supplied bodyguard. It was a tight squeeze.

There are no motorways in Uganda, we had to drive along the equivalent of single lane A and B roads, littered with potholes and speed bumps that constantly slowed us down. Nonetheless, our driver was fast, alhumdulillah, so we moved quite swiftly.

We heard reports from up ahead that a bus had collided with an elephant, but details were sketchy. Eventually we came upon the scene of destruction, the bus was completely obliterated, and the elephant was being carved up. It appears, and Allah knows best, that the bus hit the elephant late in the night, and was sent spinning through the air. It appeared to have tumbled several times before coming to rest a hundred meters or so down the road from the point of impact. The elephant appeared to have stumbled to the side of the road where it collapsed and died due to internal injuries. From looking at it, you couldn't tell the elephant had been hit. However, as we got there, locals had taken to it with machetes, slicing and dicing it for their own purposes. Some were harvesting the ivory tusks, others the feet, others were taking the meat.

We passed by the very spot on the way back as I write this, not even bones have been left behind. It reminded me of many things.

Firstly, how fragile and interconnected life is. That accident resulted in many deaths; that of the elephant, and of many of the passengers on the bus. It was untimely, and a staunch reminder that the Angel of Death can visit us at any moment.

Also it showed a natural dependency that life has upon death. Many sought to gain from the death of this animal, by taking from it whilst it was powerless to defend itself. When we die, the materialistic things we accumulate will benefit us not. Rather, people will fight over them to claim their share as soon as we're gone.

Finally, considering the material (for want of a better word) the elephant was made of (bone, ivory, flesh, etc), I was reminded of the power of Allah I'm creating an animal that eats something as soft as grass, but converts it into something robust and strong enough to obliterate a bus made of metal. Subhan'Allah.

We continued on our journey, and arrived in Arua shortly after dhuhr. We had been on the road for 6 and a 1/2 hours, which in itself is very exhausting. We prayed and rested briefly before meeting the officials of the Islamic centre where our encounter was to take place. We were given a tour of the facilities, which were impressive to say the least. They have a New Muslim centre where new Muslims are given board and taught Islam in a systematic manner. Those who show aptitude are then places on a four month alim programme where they're then trained to be imaams for other communities.

In the mean time, a crowd had gathered at the centre, close to about 2000 people. The Christians had also arrived, so we began our programme after Asr. The topic was "How to know the truth", and it was supposed to be a debate of each side speaking for some time, then rebuttals, then Q&A.

Yusuf got up and spoke first, and talked how Christianity has been rejected in the West (a survey of Catholic priests showed many rejected the idea of Jesus being the son of God), and now it was being exported to the very people who were once held as slaves, by the very people who had enslaved them. It was a new kind of slavery, one that made no sense to the rational mind, and offers little by way of benefit. Yusuf recounted his own experiences in seeking the truth, and how it eventually lead him to Islam, partly due to the absurdity of the mathematical equation of 1+1+1=1, which only works for the Christians.

The Christian's turn came, and they immediately started by ridiculing and insulting Yusuf, with goading comments and posturing. They then started to misrepresent Islam, misquote the Quran, and quite literally produced a comical act of laughing on stage.

Alhumdulillah, Allah (swt) had His plan, and we remained quiet and patient. We both realised that the usual rhetoric that we generally do in the West wasn't going to fly here. Our audience were villagers, and simple people, not university students and academics we're used to addressing. They had come to see a show, a bout between Christianity and Islam, a simple contest for the truth. It was all about showmanship, not intellectual discourse. So we had to change our strategy.

The Christian continued, and alhumdulillah, Allah (swt) gave him the rope that he hung himself with. Among many of his outrageous comments, were the following:
1) Man can never understand the nature of God
2) Muslims, according to the Quran must follow the Bible
3) The Quran confirms Allah had a son in 43:81
4) Regarding trinitarian mathematics, 1x1x1=1, so it works

For the rebuttal, I took the stage and began by praising the people for being in attendance, and reminding them about death. Every single one of us will taste death. We will enter the earth, and be resurrected, and have to account to our Creator for what we believed. Thus, the matter was serious, despite the Christian's laughs and taunts on stage.

I reminded everyone that Allah (swt) had elevated mankind above all else by giving him intellect, thus we must use that intellect to come to the truth, else we're no better than animals. The audience agreed, alhumdulillah.

I responded to the Christian's first point, that man cannot understand God, and I agreed with the Christian that no-one could understand the Christian version of God as it makes no sense; God is eternal, yet is born? He is ever-living, yet can die? He has the power to create the universe, and yet he can be overcome by his own Creation, as when he was killed on the cross? This does not sound like a God that any reasonable rational person can accept.

Compare and contrast with the Islamic perspective of God, that Allah (swt) is eternal and absolute, and did not create His creation in a confused state that we cannot recognise Him. That Allah is One, and deserves to be worshipped alone, exactly as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (saw) commanded. The audience agreed with an eruption of takbirs!

I explained that Christians and Muslims believed in a Just & Merciful God, a God who would not give us intellect, and link our salvation directly to going against it. If we Muslims were punished for that, we would never feel justice had been done. But for Christians to be punished for believing that Jesus is God, that is just because it completely contradicts everything the prophets stated, and Jesus himself never uttered it. The Christians cannot defend themselves on that day because this is an invented claim.

With regards to following the Bible, I mentioned we believed in the injeel, the good news, the gospel according to Isa (as). They have the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we don't care about these. Let them produce the gospel of Isa before they ask us to follow it!

With regards to the Quran that was misquoted, I read the verses out. It says *IF* Allah had a son, that 'if' is important. It's not confirmation of a son, rather its confirmation of no son. And Allah (swt) mentions in the next ayat to leave them mocking and laughing, because their return is to Allah. This was a stark reminder of how they mocked and laughed at us on stage, now they had fallen silent.

And finally, with the Christian's ridiculous mathematics, I invited him to give me three 100,000 shilling notes, and I would return one back to him and call it even if he accepted. He declined.

In summary, on the topic of truth, I iterated the challenge from the Quran, reciting ayat 2:23-25. This is the challenge, the acid test for truthfulness the Quran offers, and if the Christians claim the Quran is falsehood, then let them prove it by showing its the work of man. Every Muslim in the audience is proof that the challenge hasn't been met as they've memorised a portion of it, and you cannot memorise that which changes. I asked the Christians to consider why it is that Muslims can memorise and preserve their book, yet Christians cannot do the same?

By now the crowd had swollen to about 3500-4000 people (the roar of the takbirs had drawn others to attend), so I invited the Christians in the audience who rejected the idea that Jesus is God, who affirmed Allah is worthy of worship alone, and Muhammad (saw) is the final messenger, to embrace Islam. I reiterated the reward of Jannah mentioned in 2:25, and invited them to come and claim it. Alhumdulillah, several stepped forward and the audience started chanting the shahada in encouragement.

Approximately 10 people arrived on stage initially, and took their shahada as a group, followed by several takbirs from the crowd, which further encouraged more to come forward. Thus, we had 14 take shahada with us on stage, but a further 9 came forward privately and accepted Islam. So in total we had 23 Shahaadahs.

Alhumdulillah, the brothers there took their details, and tomorrow they'll be taken to the New Muslim Centre where their studies will begin, bi'ithnillah.

This was my first time in such a situation, and the only way to describe it is electrifying, alhumdulillah. The crowd started to throw money on stage as sadaqa to help support the new Muslims, and Yusuf and I were greeted by several of the audience who were eager to convey their salaams.

By now, Maghrib had entered, so the crowd dispersed for salat. We prayed, and then headed out to eat. For health and safety reasons, we can only eat from selected places to ensure we don't fall ill, and we hadn't eaten since breakfast (nearly 12 hours ago), so we couldn't begin the drive back until at least having refuelled our bodies too.

Our return journey started at about 8pm, but given the darkness, it will be much slower than the initial journey. There are no street lamps, or driving aids, and wild animals can also interfere with road conditions, as a bus-load of passengers discovered last night. I'm writing this at 12:30am and we have only travelled halfway back.

By the end of our journey, we will have spent over 16 hours travelling for the sake of a two hour event, but it was worth it to ensure that that community are not misguided by the missionaries in the future, and to have saved those sincere souls that accepted Islam will us today. And we're just the sub-team, no doubt the main team would have had their share of success also, bi'ithnillah.

Logicboy03: Are you serious, Tbaba?


Arent you in America? What is your own with this UK organisation?


Sorry for my skepticism. Hamza Tzortis and Adnan Rashid are very dubious guyz

I love my brothers, what can i say?

Quickly become a muslim and become my brother in faith too...

tbaba1234:

I love my brothers, what can i say?

Quickly become a muslim and become my brother in faith too...

Okay, look at it this way;

If even I became a muslim, I would be no different from Abdulsleek


Since you live in America, you must have seen muslims going clubbing, having boyfriend-girlfriend relationships etc.


Things are changing- there are very liberal muslims now as a result of many muslims assimilating in the West.


Sorry to derail your thread a bit.


Do you believe that I can beat Adnan Rashid or Hamza Tzortis in a debate?

Day 3 (Sunday) - 18 November 2012 10 New Muslims

On Sunday, we had a couple of different events; a debate in a park and then a Christian Muslim dialogue later at our hotel.

Yusuf, Adnan and myself went to the park where Pastor Kimera was in full swing. Armed with two big satchels of books, he took to the stage and discussed the relative merits of Christian ideology. To be honest, a lot of it was lost on us as it made no sense. He was taking Arabic works and trying to relate them to the Bible to show the Quran was forged, but it's clear to anyone who understands basic Arabic that he's clutching at straws at best.

Adnan got up and spoke about how the Bible is self-contradicting in that it mentions children (including their descendants) who are born out of wedlock will never inherit the kingdom of God in Deuteronomy 23:2, yet in Matthew 1:1, it lists the genealogy of Jesus and includes the children of Judah born from incest between him and his daughter-in-law, Tamar; the story is in Genesis 38.

The pastor got up to argue that it only refers to the first 10 generations, which Adnan then pointed out would include David, who was a king among his people. The Christians, it seemed, were intent upon hanging themselves if you give them enough rope. I experienced this in Arua, and it would happen again in Kampala.

Adnan moved on to the miracle of memorisation, that we Muslims memorise the Quran because that's how important we consider it (we realise that there are better and more intellectual points to be made in this regard, but we learned that we had to simplify our dawah a lot as the complex points were being lost on the people here). Again the pastor got up and insisted this was nothing special, and that he could recite the entire Bible from memory. Adnan took his challenge, but made it easier by asking him only to recite the first chapter of the first book, Genesis.

The pastor tried, and started off with "In the beginning..." but kept moving to the aspect of water, missing out the section of the earth being void. The pastor complained that we were reading from a 'different' Bible (whatever that is), and insisted on his own being used, so we obliged. Again, the pastor made the same mistakes and even afterwards he refused to acknowledge he got it wrong; he affirmed what he said was right, but was oblivious to the problem of the sections he skipped.

Later Yusuf got up to discuss the ridiculousness of the trinity, how the mathematics makes no sense to anyone, and why the western world was rejecting Christianity. He appealed to the fitrah of the audience, reiterating the ludicrousness of the idea that God had a son, authubillah. Yusuf also iterated the unjustifiable concept of 'Original Sin', that everyone is born in a state of sin unless they're baptised. We even had some children brought up on stage to make the point clear, that from the Christian perspective this child has already inherited sin, and only baptising it could save it. In effect, this child was in a worse position that a raping drunkard who robs people, but had accepted Jesus; it makes little sense.

Finally I took to the stage and called Christians and Muslims to come together on common terms; that we all believe in a God, death, resurrection, and that we'll be called to account. Between us we have the truth; one group will be given the eternal reward, the other will be destroyed. And we also both believe in Jesus/Isa who was sent to the Jews. This is what we all believe, it's common to both Muslims and Christians. The difference is what we consider the status of Jesus to be.

I called for people to use their intellect, this is what makes us unique above the rest of creation, and it's on this basis that we'd be judged. The truth is something that has to make sense to us, so I asked everything to choose which makes more sense to them.

The Christians claim God was born, Muslims say Allah (swt) was always there.
The Christians claim that God died, Muslims say Allah (swt) is ever Living.
The Christians claim God has a son, Muslims say Allah (swt) is unique
The Christians claim God was over-powered by man, Muslims say Allah (swt) is all powerful.
The Christians require you to believe in something that makes no sense, and is never explained anywhere in their text. Muslims say Allah (swt) is our Rabb, and this message is reiterated on every page of the Qur'an.

The truth is clear from falsehood, so I invited the Christians in the audience to reject the lies that they had been fed, and worship as Jesus said, their one true God in heaven (i.e. Allah). Alhumdulillah, we had about 10 brothers come forward to accept Islam on stage!

Just to give you an idea of some of the problems we have to deal with, giving dawah isn't about sensationalist talks or getting shahadas. Those are easy. There's nothing glamorous or special about it in reality. One of the brothers approached us a short while later, and informed us that someone in the audience phoned his family to tell them he had accepted Islam, and they'd warned him not to come home. He'd been disowned, and had nothing, because he accepted the Islam. This is where the real impact of dawah needs to be made, supporting new Muslims.

At the same time as this event was going on, Abdurraheem Green and Nasser Khan were busy giving talks at another event in the hotel, where we were also due to talk. We made our way back, as did Pastor Kimera. Alhumdulillah, the talks were very beneficial and well received. I wasn't able to spend too much time there because it was then that I'd just received the message that my mother had been taken to hospital, so naturally I was focussed on that and left the event.

Towards the end of the evening, I returned to see Abdurraheem Green and the Pastor engaged in dialogue about Islam being the truth. The Pastor wanted proof from revelation, but found nothing forthcoming. After the event I took the opportunity to speak to him, and alhumdulillah he obliged me with time.

In brief, I explain the miracle of the preservation of the Qur'an, that the Qur'an is the only example of intrusive text in the history of mankind that challenged mankind to replicate it, a challenge that still stands, it must demonstrate it's not the work of man and must be the work of the Creator, exactly as the Qur'an claims (for the Pastor though, I broke it down in a much simpler form, this is the basic crux of my argument, and I'll explain it further later insha'Allah as a separate post/video).

Unfortunately, this example was completely lost on the Pastor. Don't get me wrong, he's an intelligent guy, and I believe him to be sincere too (especially since in his talk he was saying that the Muslims should fund more dawah activities to call more people to Islam), but he couldn't understand what I meant by replication of Arabic balagha. From his perspective, Surah Al-Baqarah was similar to many stories in the Bible, thus it shows similarity there - challenge met. Obviously, this isn't valid, but it was at this point I realised two things; firstly I now understood why the Pastor complained earlier that he did quote the Bible correctly, and secondly the general level of intelligence.

Regarding the first point, it seems the Pastor regards similar statements as identical. So long as you get the general gist across, it's fine. Thus, he sees no issues between multiple versions/variants as they're all the same. The specific word and grammatical structure and order is inconsequential and of no importance, and try as I might, he couldn't (or wouldn't) understand.

Secondly, given this was an example of someone who was quite learned, I realised even more-so that the general rhetoric we use in the UK wasn't going to work here; I had to come up with someone very simple. Basically, Ahmed Deedat style, which isn't something I'm a fan of in the UK, but I can see how and why he gave dawah like that; it's because that's the most effective way in (South) Africa.

And maybe lessons learned here can be translated and practised in the UK? Sometimes we do go too deep into our arguments, where people on the fitrah (as most, if not all, people in Africa seem to be; atheism is practically non-existent here), it's completely unnecessary. The dawah needs to be simpler, and more straight-forward. The simplest ideas and arguments are the ones that stick, so this trip has definitely helped me realise possible problems in our dawah methods, and forcing me to develop newer, more concise styles. And insha'Allah I'll share them with you in due course.

Logicboy03: Do you believe that I can beat Adnan Rashid or Hamza Tzortis in a debate?

No

tbaba1234:

No

Challenge accepted

Mission Dawah: Africa - Elephant in Arua!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UwukGXcHe4&feature=share

The Pastor challenged us that even the Bible can be memorised. See how far he gets.

(The aim is not to make fun of Christianity but to show the nature of the Qur'an that it has been memorised cover to cover by millions of people - a living miracle - AllahuAkbar!)

Mission Dawah: Africa - Major FAIL - Pastor tries to recite the Bible


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHEBW84ZLX8&list=SPzCW4FlRXWKPR7dERgKC3O14Et40eUJxH

Day 4 (Monday) - 19 November 2012

On Monday, we had a meeting with the major duaat organisations of Uganda. Masha'Allah, these guys are very organised, even more so than us in the UK.

Just to give you an idea, these guys have already formed a joint-council among themselves so that they can co-ordinate dawah efforts around the country. They're also active in several areas, and have set up a few New Muslim Centres around the country.

Masha'Allah, the people here are also very sincere for the dawah also; when we were getting shahadas in Arua and Kampala, people were throwing money on stage to help support their education process. When a person here takes shahada, they're immediately whisked away to a New Muslim Centre for education. There are a variety of programmes, ranging from a single month to several months; everyone is put on the basic programme to begin with to learn the foundations of Islam, and those who show aptitude are put on the more elite programmes where they're trained to be alims and sent out to rural areas themselves. The centres themselves are very basic, as you may have seen from some of the pictures, and the residents just live off beans.

That said, they all have circumcision clinics also. Whilst this is something I never mention in the UK to anyone who takes shahada with me or my team II let them find out themselves later, it's not one of the pillars of Islam and you're not placed outside the fold of Islam for not having it done; it's also not a good idea to start placing barriers in the way of someone accepting Islam, and circumcision is a very sensitive topic), it's a very common topic here. Apparently, it's the sign of your Islam; when the guys see themselves as uncircumcised, they don't feel like they're Muslim, so it's something that they themselves want to do, subhan'Allah. So each centre has a circumcision clinic, though the snip isn't performed by doctors or surgeons, rather it's done by lay-people, which is a little bit of a concern, but beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, we sat and spent the morning with them, and put together plans and ideas to sustain the dawah movement in Africa. Alhumdulillah, all the organisations seemed to be united in their purpose, so insha'Allah some interesting things may happen in the future.

Later, we went to visit some Somali brothers who had invited us to their house for lunch. In actual fact, it was the imaam of the Somali masjid who had invited us, but Allah (swt) sent him his invitation to return a few days before we arrived, so we were greeted by the rest of the family. Today was supposed to be our R&R day (as you can imagine, travelling from event to event in itself is exhausting), but we chose to go to pay our respects.

We made time to visit Lake Victoria where I managed to get time to have a one-on-one with Abdurraheem, masha'Allah he's a fountain of knowledge. Every daee, as they go through the phases of experience in dawah, they start formulating different ideas, etc. Alhumdulillah, I was able to talk these over with the Sheikh who gave me a lot of valuable insight from his experience.

One of the concepts I wanted to discuss was whether Christians actually worshipped God. Given the rhetoric I'd started to use (i.e. comparing the belief of Muslims and Christians), it's strikingly clear that Christians don't believe in a 'God', just something man-made that they call 'God'. For example, how can they believe in a God that has attributes that are completely un-God-like (e.g. birth, death, weakness in strength and mind, etc). Thus, they're not believing in God, but rather some made up concept and they've attached a 'God' label to it.

The Sheikh said he went through the exact same phase I'm going through, and it's not a good argument for several reasons; ultimately they believe in a Creator of the universe the same as Muslims do, they use the same arguments for creation as we do, they just get confused by their doctrine as to the nature of that Creator at a later point.

Then we discussed descriptions of Jannah, the linguistic style of the Qur'an, Nouman Ali Khan's work, and a few other topics (we also saw a monkey in one of the trees) before we were interrupted and told it was time to go.

We made our way back to town to the Somali masjid for Isha where ARG was scheduled to do a talk, after which we returned to our hotel to have a final meal in Kampala together and discuss various issues that were raised during our meetings.

For me, the highlight of the day was Robert's announcement. As you will have seen from the videos, we were supplied with three body-guards to look after us. Robert had accompanied Yusuf and myself on the first couple of days (i.e. to Jinja, and Arua) but we didn't speak to him about Islam. Obviously Yusuf and myself had discussions in the back of the car, fairly basic ones as to what we were going to say at each event, and various points we could raise but it wasn't with the intention of giving dawah to Robert, though we were careful of the language we used as not to offend him.

Anyway, at the gathering at the Somali brother's house, everyone introduced themselves, and Richard (one of the other body-guards who was also a Muslim) was announced to have been considering Islam. The other team had been actively giving him dawah. When we introduced Robert, he said himself that he too was seriously considering Islam, alhumdulillah. That made me over the moon, because masha'Allah he's such a nice guy.

May Allah (swt) guide him and Richard to the truth, ameen.

25 more new muslims (May Allah keep them on the straight path)

Assalamu alaikum brothers and sisters, apologies for the late updates, we had difficulties with internet access. We, having travelled through Uganda and Rwanda, are now in Burundi and yesterday 25 people in total came to Islam. We simply cannot put our feelings into words and are speechless. The total number of shahadas has now reached nearly 60. The people of Burundi are amazing and their response to our presence was mind-blowing. We cannot possibly describe the reception we had here today. People were all lined up to receive us and were shouting takbeers all the way. This was a very inspiring, Iman boosting and empowering experience for all of us as well as the people of Burundi. They have never had a dawah team support them on this level. When people (including some young sisters with children hanging on their backs) were lining up to take their shahadas, there were tears in the eyes of some of us. We have never witnessed an event like this before, as people kept coming forward to join Islam until the number had reached 22 (excluding infants with their mothers). Some of the videos and pictures of these events will be released very soon. We will be travelling to the capital this morning to attend few mosques and public events there and a lot more is coming inshaAllah. We will also be leaving Burundi today and heading out to Rwanda inshaAllah.

Day 5 (Tuesday) - 20 November 2012

On Tuesday, we were due to travel to Rwanda. We were supposed to leave by about 8 or 9am, but due to problems (again) with one of the cars, we were forced to hire a vehicle that was fit for the road, which took time. We eventually left at around 12:30pm.

Whilst we were waiting, the hotel we were staying at was hosting some kind of a Christian conference. I took a picture of a jeep with the licence plate 'JC IS LORD', it transpired that that car belonged to the Head Bishop of Uganda, because as we were leaving, so too were they. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to interact much.

The journey was supposed to be around 7 hours, at least that's what we thought. It appeared that the state of the roads had changed significantly since Adnan's previous visit, and this extended our journey time considerably, but alhumdulillah, it gave us a lot of time to think, reflect and discuss. Just being in the car with ARG, Yusuf Chambers, and Adnan was a privilege in itself. Yusuf, I have to say, is a complete comedy genius, masha'Allah, and if I ever get the opportunity to travel with him again, I'd jump straight at it!

Being on this trip also gave me a lot of time to personally reflect on a lot of things we take for granted. I started keeping note of everything and I'll post them up as a separate post insha'Allah. Subhan'Allah, missions like this really do help open your eyes as to how pampered we actually are in the UK.

41 New Muslims

Allahu Akbar 41 people Embraced Islam in One event after a Debate with a Christian Pastor in Burundi. The total number of Shahadas on Mission Africa has now exceeded 100. Insha Allah, tomorrow we will be in the Capital of Burundi, Bujumbura and there we will address an audience of thousands of People and insha Allah a lot more Shahadas will be accepted. There will also be Debate with Christian preachers in the Capital. Watch this space...A lot more to come InshaAllah!

"And you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes," (110:2)

Day 5 (Tuesday) - 20 November 2012 - Part 2:

Among the things we saw and did on the way, was:
- being forced to use a toilet that was nothing more than a hole in the ground
- eating roasted bananas (surprisingly nice)
- seeing wild zebras next to the road in the wildlife sanctuary
- driving through narrow roads with huge ditches on either side, through zero visibility due to extreme mist (we were up in the mountains)
- playing chicken with huge buses coming the other way on those very roads, in the middle of the night.

We also passed through the equator, so we stopped to take pictures (it's my thing).

About half-way to the border of Rwanda, we stopped at a small cafe for some food. Just to give you an idea of how open people are to Islam, the cafe was being run by young people (i.e. in their twenties). Yusuf (who's been the biggest dawah machine on this mission thus far) started speaking to them, and alhumdulillah two of the guys took shahada! There was a girl there also, and whilst she accepted everything about Islam, she feared accepting Islam because of her father, who was a bishop. But she did say herself that Jesus wasn't God, so we left her with food for thought.

I have to tell you as well, the general manners of people in Uganda is something else; the people are so polite to one another. When the guys were giving dawah to the girl, I stayed back a bit. I was listening and filming for our daily video blogs, and giving advice to one of the local duaat, but didn't get involved myself. I felt she was being overwhelmed by so many people preaching to her at once, and no-one seemed to take the time to ask her what she thought or what she believed (which is a very common thing among rookies). You should also be conscious of what the other person is thinking and feeling as you're giving dawah to them, and if they don't want to take their shahada, it's fine to ask them why. In fact, it's best to ask why, rather than continue to barrage of arguments.

But, just to give you an idea of politeness, the others guys tried and eventually gave up because she was just too scared of her father (though what she actually said was that she'd accept "next time", and they left to start packing their gear away in the car. I stayed where I was and she approached me and said that I didn't look too happy, and what could she do to put a smile on my face (easy guys!!) OK, so I wasn't in the chirpiest of moods because I'd just spoken to my mother on the phone, and was finding it difficult to now understand her, given that her recent illness has left her unable to speak clearly, but I tried to disguise that as much as I could.

I spoke to the girl about how fragile life was, and that she was saying "next time", yet she couldn't even guarantee her next breath. Given that she knows the truth, there's no excuse for her to not accept, and she didn't have to tell her family (believe it or not, one of the guys who took shahada was actually her brother). Still, she remained firm on not yet, and asked me to forgive her (response: it's not a crime against me, it's a crime against Allah, she needs to ask Him for forgiveness, which she can't do if she doesn't acknowledge Him in the first instance).

In a way it's good that she was firm in her decision, because it shows her level of maturity in that she was thinking about everything that goes with the shahada. These guys know about Islam, they know what 'alhumdulillah' means, etc, so they entered with eyes open. Her reluctance meant that she was aware of what she was doing, and didn't want to change her beliefs on a whim, or just because of peer pressure, or make some random customers happy. The shahada was a serious statement, and if she was going to do it, she was going to do it with full sincerity.

The time came for us to leave, but due to slow progress on the roads, we eventually had to stop just before the border at a hotel. It was a very short visit, we arrived close to 1am, and were out by 9am. Apparently we were staying in the very area where there was a recent Eboli outbreak, only a couple of weeks back. This disease was a fast killer, so the team wanted to move on ASAP. We even skipped breakfast that had been prepared for us.

To protect ourselves against malaria, we have to take a tablet daily in the morning, but it has to be taken with food and water. Of course, skipping breakfast meant we had to skip that bit, so I took it on an empty stomach. Big mistake! The bumpy ride just aggravated my situation and by the time we got to the border, I was feeling physically sick. We got some emergency snacks to settle my stomach, and alhumdulillah, all was well with the world again... apart from some funny looks from some of the team who were waiting to see if my eyes started bleeding from Eboli (0.0)

The border crossing was fairly uneventful, and within a few hours we were through into Rwanda, which I have to say is a beautiful country. It's agricultural land, and they're growing lots of different crops. We went past acres of tea plantations, etc, but seeing the mountains and scenery all green with life was extraordinary. They also take great efforts to keep it clean, you're not allowed to take plastic bags in out of fear you may throw them away inappropriately.

We went to the capital and had lunch (though it was supposed to be breakfast) and then went to visit the representative of the Mufti of Rwanda to secure his support for future missions and activities, and then we went to the masjid to pray before heading off to the other end of the country. We were to enter Burundi!

Again, border control took a while. Yusuf passed the time speaking to some locals, and again within a few minutes they were taking their shahada. Subhan'Allah, the land really was fertile for Islam. It was raining slightly though, so we didn't get that on our main camera, but I did record it on my phone.

Day 6 (Wednesday) - 21 November 2012 :

After crossing the border, we spent the day travelling to our next destination in Burundi. The contrast with Rwanda is quite startling, Rwanda is very big on no pollution and no corruption, in Burundi they couldn't care less. In fact, right at the border crossing we saw people tossing rubbish from their car, and the police couldn't care less, and they also tried to stop us for a bribe too

Travel tip: If you have to go as a convey anywhere in a corrupt country, hire a nice vehicle. The police will assume it's yours, and you're rich and powerful, and won't try to stop you to harass you!

Eventually, we reached our event just before maghrib (after two days on the road). Masha'Allah, the crowd waited patiently in the rain for our arrival, and we had the best reception ever.

Ok, I'll be honest, it felt a little pop-star like, but the buzz was amazing, alhumdulillah. I did capture a tiny bit on video, which should be released soon, bi'ithnillah.

Due to lack of time, we only did short speeches of about 3-5 minutes each, nothing major. The sun was starting to set, and there's no street-lighting here. Once the sun goes down, it's very dark out.

Thereafter, we went to our 'hotel', and this is where some definitions changed. This hotel was allegedly a 5* hotel, however it had:
- no running water (toilet and shower via buckets)
- no lights in some of the rooms (mine included, iPhone torch to the rescue)
- no food, kitchen or dining facilities
- no pillows... so I had to wrap my quilt around me, and pull the excess into a roll under my head to make a makeshift pillow
- no mobile reception (so you can forget internet access)

All in all, it was just a building with bare rooms, and beds, and bathrooms with a big bucket of water. Lovely! But khair, it had to do. Next task, find some food.

Bear in mind now, we're in the middle of nowhere. It's a teeny tiny village somewhere, and there's no shops open at night, or anything like that. The only thing we were left with was a single shop that just sold odd bits, including snacks, so we stocked up on whatever we could get our hands on. And weirdly enough, a guy came walking by with boiled eggs, so we bought those too.

Thus our dinner that night consisted of bread rolls, with tinned sardines, pringles (well, something like pringles), boiled eggs and some other snacks.

Day 7 (Thursday) - 22 November 2012 -:

Because we arrived at the event late yesterday, we decided to do it again. But we were also due at an event in another location, so we decided to split the team up again. Yusuf and myself travelled to Gitega, whilst the others stayed in Muyinga.

The crowd in Gitega were a lot more subdued than Muyinga. Yusuf gave a few different speeches about Christianity (video coming soon), and a few people accepted Islam later in the evening. There was a Christian Pastor there as well, who got up to respond to a few things, but got shot down and destroyed by an ex-Pastor turned Muslim.

And we're not talking about intellectually deep arguments here, it's very basic sensationalist stuff. The Pastor claimed Jesus was a Christian, the Muslim asked him to show him where in the Bible that, or anything else he's saying, is stated. And then he was shown the verse that confirms Jesus is a Muslim (John 5:30, he submits to the Father, which is the definition of a Muslim, one who submits to Allah).

The other guys had a better day. They had some street debate with a Pastor who was rude and aggressive, so ARG turned it against him by saying "What happened to the Christian principle of 'love thy enemy', and even smiling?" The Pastor wasn't amused, but alhumdulillah, they got 22 shahadas, before joining us in Gitega.

We were supposed to have dinner together, at least that was the plan. Unfortunately a lot of people came to discover where we were staying, so invited themselves to dinner with us. Not that we mind company, but as a team it was important to sit, recap and just unwind. Being on the road so much is very stressful, you're putting your body through a lot and you need some downtime, especially if you're going to be doing this for several weeks on end.

This is also another aspect of giving dawah. Many a time when people see a well-known personality, it's hard to resist the urge to go up to them and start talking to them. I know, I used to do it myself. But being on the other side is fascinating, especially when you're already wiped out from the events of the day. It takes an incredible amount of patience to still remain calm, polite and smiling, even when you're trying to have your dinner and people are insisting on engaging in idle conversation.

So, next time you see a known figure out in the real world, and they're not at an event... please remember that they're human too, and need their own personal time to themselves. They won't tell you that, they'll just hope that you'll be smart enough to work out that when they're in the middle of their dinner, it's not a good idea to join their table and start discussing every topic under the sun.

Day 8 (Friday) - 23 November 2012 -:

Today we were due in the capital city of Bujumbura. We were supposed to leave by 8am, but unfortunately due to problems with our car, we ended up leaving quite late. Still, it gave us time to have a relaxed breakfast, during which time we got interrupted again, though this was a little more welcome (in a manner).

We were approached by a Christian Pastor who asked if we were people of faith, we said we were. Then he asked if we were preachers, we said we were. And he said he was too, so we asked him what he preached, and he responded quick as a flash "I preach the gospel". Abdurraheem asked which gospel, to which he replied "the gospel of Jesus". Abdurraheem told him immediately there's no such thing, the gospel of Jesus isn't in the Bible, so the Pastor is preaching something made up. I thought he was going to respond with something, but surprisingly he went quiet immediately and had nothing else to say. Then he jumped in his jeep and was chauffeur driven away. I've no idea what he was doing at the hotel and whether he came to see us specifically, but it certainly seemed like it.

We headed off, and eventually arrived in Bujumbura a few hours later. As it's the capital city, there were several masajid we needed to be present at, so we split up into two groups again. Yusuf and Adnan stayed at one, whereas the rest of the team (Abdurraheem, Nasser, Jamal and myself) headed off to the other masjid, which is the biggest in Burundi.

Then our hosts decided to try and split us up further to get maximum exposure for their event the next day. Jamal and myself had to stay with Abdurraheem as we were filming him, so they put Nasser in the big masjid. We assumed, since Nasser was there, we were going to a bigger one, thus were a little surprised that we ended up in a back-street masjid somewhere. Khair, he did his talk anyway, and afterwards we were greeted by many brothers who recognised Abdurraheem from Peace TV, including one brother named Abdul-Majid.

After we were done, we headed back to the big masjid to pick up Nasser, and Abdurraheem did another brief talk there. And then we headed to the local dawah centre for a meeting to discuss the event the next day. As we're in the capital city, we were expecting something major to be planned.

After the meeting, we went for lunch, and then headed off to Rumonge. The route took us down the coast, alongside Lake Tanganyika, which looked more like a sea. On the other side we could see the mountains of the Congo, covered in mist and cloud. On the Burundi side, the coast was filled with palm trees, beaches and some residential areas consisting of very modest houses. We saw groups of young children running along the roadside in unison, keeping fit, and we also saw some waterfalls and rockslides along the way. All in all, very beautiful scenery.

Eventually we arrived in Rumonge. The gathering was in a small field, but there were a lot of people there, masha'Allah. We thought we had an amazing reception the first night in Burundi, but this was about to dwarf that completely. The crowd here gave us a fantastic reception, which was a real buzz. They were clearly very excited to see us.

Now, before I go further, I just want to explain what the situation here is like, because I know that, without context, a lot of people will be confused. The situation here is nothing like what we're used to in the UK. The Muslims tell us that the Christians have been coming and harassing them regularly about how they're disbelievers, and they need to worship Jesus, etc. There's a lot of propaganda going on, and they're simple people; they don't know how to handle it or how to respond. So when they see us, it's almost like seeing the cavalry coming to the rescue. We have the questions that the Christians can't answer, and we are able to expose the flaws in their ideology. Hence the people are excited to see us, and this also forms the setting for many of the gatherings where the Pastors attend also.

This gathering in Rumonge was no different. There was a Pastor there, ready to answer for Christianity, so Adnan asked a few basic questions just to start him off, such as whether he can demonstrate that the Bible he has was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Pastor had no answers, and Abdurraheem taunted him a little by reminding him that his (the Pastor's) belief is that the Holy Spirit would guide him to all truth, so he should pray that the answer comes. Yes, we know in the UK this probably isn't the best thing to do, but in Africa it's what's expected and standard practise. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

The Pastor could only respond with a vague answer about knowing Jesus and having peace in your heart, and if you don't know Jesus, then you'll fall back to logic which is the Achilles heel of religious belief. Adnan quickly straightened him out, and exposed Christianity for what it really was, and then he invited the non-Muslims to accepted Islam...

And then it happened...

Subhan'Allah, many many people came forward, and the crowd kept chanting. Seriously, the buzz was amazing. The video will be released very soon on the Mission Dawah page insha'Allah, but even that will not describe the atmosphere. We had 44 people step forward to embrace Islam, they kept coming, one after another. It was electrifying seeing them all. Abdurraheem and Adnan were greeting everyone (brothers only, obviously), and then Abdurraheem took them through the shahada.

This whole process took at least an hour in itself, because more and more people kept coming forward, as did the main crowd. The locals started fund-raising too, so everyone came forward to donate, and the whole area became a little chaotic.

Even as we made our way back to the jeep, we were still getting shahadas. We were sat in the jeep giving shahada to people. By far and away, this was the best evening.

That evening, we headed to our hotel in Rumonge to relax. Again, there was no internet. We'd been without for several days now (though in fairness, the night before there was internet, but it was too slow to be useful, which is why there's been a lack of updates and videos).

As a team we had dinner together (almost everyone had the fish), and discussed a few random topics, as you'd expect. For some reason, jinn appeared to be the subject of choice, so we were swapping scare stories... Abdurraheem has some interesting ones, but you'll have to ask him to share those if you want to know what they are.

And then we hit the sack... to say we were drained would be an understatement.