Well, it’s a very wide subject, in fact. I have been speaking on this here and there, on various aspects of this question. For instance, the whole of my address to the ladies in Lajna Maula was devoted to this particular question. And I think it lasted about an hour and a half or so, and yet it was impossible to exhaust this subject. So, I think from time to time, if you remind me, I can speak a few words now and a few words then, because it would take me too long to discuss this whole issue at one sitting. Now, this is something which you have just mentioned, I want to explain it further. When we preach to people, first of all we must realize a situation in which people are preaching to us.
If somebody comes and knocks at your door and gives you a pamphlet telling you that you should become Buddhist, or you should become Krishna, you know what are they called? Hare Krishna followers and so on. What would be your reaction? If they give you a pamphlet, either you throw it away after they leave, or if you read it scheduling, you say, what now, hocus pocus and nonsense, and you leave it alone. So, you won’t listen to him, you won’t pay any attention to him. He would appear to be too small, an insignificant something to be able to change you and your views on religion and so on. But suppose you pick up a friendship with somebody from among the Hare Krishna people, begins to know you, and loves you, and loves your children, and helps you from time to time, and seems to be extremely interested in you.
Maybe it is you yourself then who broaches upon this subject and tells him, tell me what are your views on life and this and that. So, this is a completely different approach from the previous one. So, what I wanted them to do was to be interested in others. They will not be interested in you or your message. You try to make them interested first. This is psychologically a total failure. Why should they become interested in you? They care a hoot for who you are. But if you are interested in them because they are interested in themselves, there you find a thing of common interest. That is he, not you. So, starting from that platform you can build up.
So, it is a humanitarian approach which is highly important and fundamental. The second thing which I mentioned was logistic support. By that I meant a declaration which should be shaking and awakening. Like the Holy Qur’an says, Al qariyatu mal qariyat There are things, declarations which are just shaking. And they make people think and see what is happening. The Messiah Muhammad s.a.w. has mentioned that short pamphlets, very short, which could be read at one sitting, just going and when you have nothing to do, you can read the pamphlet both ways.
So, that type of pamphlet should be written and published in millions. Everywhere they should be in the nation. Every house should get them. And then they begin talking. The subject and the approach should be such, as should be agitating, should be concerning such questions as are already agitating the minds of these people.
For instance, the threat of atomic bomb, the threat of destruction of the world. If your initial pamphlets are of such a nature which already are agitating the minds of the people and they are ready to receive something on that, or in fact some of them are searching for such a thing, then that would be the ideal thing to do. Or give even the message of the Messiah having come, but in a manner that should be awakening, it should be out of the ordinary, it should be just in harmony with the people in the sense that they should not take notice of it. It should be something, we should wake them up and shake them up. That has to be in genuinely thought and conceived, of course.
So, that is the sort of logistic support which we could give to the individual Ahmadi. But it is the individual Ahmadi who has to first make inroads into the society. Unless he makes inroads into the society, our preaching cannot bear fruit. Or, if it will, the ratio of our success as against the labour which we put in would be so large that it may be 1 to 100. 99 is wasted and just 1 is successful. But if you go about it sensibly and with more wisdom as the Holy Quran tells us, then that ratio, that the comparison can decrease and ratio can increase. Instead of being 1 to 100, maybe you can raise it to 10 to 100 and so on and so forth. But anyway, the personal contact is highly important and one of the most important things you should bear in mind is that you become interested in people.
Even when you write to them, try to make them interested in that through letters. Be interested in them. I quoted, if you remember, an incident which took place in Germany in this very field. An Ahmadi from Germany once told me that you say you should preach, although I don’t know much German, but I go on as I can. I keep on shifting. But unfortunately, nobody is interested. So I told him, look here, why don’t you become interested in them if they are not interested in you? Tell them that I am doing it for your sake, it’s up to you. I am not interested. What should I gain by you becoming an Ahmadi? The point is that I know you are restless and you are not happy.
So that makes me sad. You are being restless and unhappy, having everything that life could offer you, still you are not satisfied. And I said, this is my general study of the Europeans. If you peep into them, they are not happy. They are dissatisfied with all their achievements and they are looking for something, some content of the soul. So tell him this. And he was, his boss in fact, he was the proprietor of the factory in which he was working. He was just a small fry in that factory. So next time he wrote to me, it was a very exciting letter. He said, I told him, I am not very sure whether it was in his very factory that he was working, because he was a big man, owner of a factory, and this was a labourer, just an ordinary labourer.
So he said that once I met him and I told him, look here, you have not been listening to me, but this is the reason why I was interested in you. I see you are a happy man and you are not content. And I wanted to make you happy and you are not interested, it’s up to you. He says that after a few days, or maybe two, three days, he received a telephone call from him and said, look here boy, what you said to me that day, that has worked.
And I contacted your missionary in Frankfurt and I have got all the literature they have in German and I am very seriously studying this literature now. So that is the trick. People will not be interested in you unless you are interested in them. And this is the greatest force which a prophet enjoys. Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is called rahmatul lil’alameen. That is to say, because he was to be the prophet of the whole world, he had to love the whole world otherwise the whole world would not pay any attention to him. It is initially your love which works magic, which works wonders.
If you do not get interested in others, why should they become interested in your message? And that shows that Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was given a nature from Allah that made him interested in the whole universe, in the whole world, even in insects, in life in any form. He was their benefactor and they were vicious. So he overpowered the greatest amount of hostility that could be witnessed by any prophet. Because of that overpowering love which exceeded the hostility, offset the hostility. So this is highly important. The most important thing I can tell you about preaching is that you must become interested in others. And truly so, not hypocritically, because that hypocrisy doesn’t work.
Bring yourself up in a manner, teach yourself, educate yourself, that you have to be interested in others, you must love the humanity, and you must love your neighbours and friends. And if you look at yourself from this angle, then you will realise that previously you were hypocrite and not now. Previously you would find that you had many friends. While you yourself believe that it is highly essential to believe in Masih Maud a.s. to gain favour of Allah, yet you had your friends and you never told them this. So the hypocritic phase was the previous one, not the new one. Once you wake up within you and realise that what you love most you have not been telling you to the loved ones. So what is that love? So the whole attitude in life will change.
So those who are already interested you or in whom you are interested, they should be the first to be naturally. But as far as the strangers are concerned, first get interested truly and honestly and then inshallah you will see a very different result from your previous efforts if there were any.
