“I am not saying Muslims should not be “nice.”
And I am not saying civility is not a virtue.
In fact Islam is all about being “nice” and kind and merciful and saying and doing “nice” things as much as you can.
But, at the same time, don’t beguile yourself into thinking that your being “nice” will automatically melt every non-Muslim or unbelieving heart and will necessarily lead to everybody accepting Islam.
If that were true, some of the arch-foes of Islam and Muslims, during the time of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, like Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab, would have been among the first to embrace Islam.
For, they knew first hand, and only too well, what a kind, compassionate, loving, generous and “nice” man Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, was.
The fact is that it takes more than a “nice” word or a kind gesture for people to see the truth of Islam and come forward to embrace it.
It happens when the doors of a human being’s heart are opened by God Almighty.
That is why no one, other than God, can take credit for “guiding” people.
People find “guidance” – Hidaayat as the Qur’an calls it – when the divine mercy smiles down at them. Not when someone – a human source for example – wants to “guide” them and not when they want to “discover” the truth for themselves.
That is why blessed and fortunate indeed are those who are guided. For, they receive guidance from above – and not from any other source.
This is not to say others – an identifiable human source – do not play a helpful role in either bringing people closer to Islam or in driving people away from Islam.
We are all perfectly capable of doing that, and we indeed do both those things all the time: helping people to open their eyes to the beauty of Islam or giving them cause to dislike Islam even more than before.
But the “guidance” part that puts people over the top positively or negatively in the form of either accepting or rejecting Islam? That comes from God and no one else.” (Dr. Pasha)
