Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
1- Muslims everywhere should try their best to utilize their time wisely.
2- Islamic youth organizations, especially in this part of the world, should initiate useful youth programs in which they apply the Islamic teachings and the Islamic spirit permeates youth gatherings.
3- Muslim youth in the West are in a real need for such lawful activities to provide permissible alternatives to free mixing, moral laxity, etc.
4- Youth can enhance certain dawah activities so as to enable Muslim youth to find a lawful outlet to utilize their time and energy in the best way.
Responding to the question, Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustapha, Professor of Jurisprudence and Its Principles at the International Islamic University, Malaysia, states:
Useful Tips
As for dawah activities, I recommend you as well as other Muslim youth in the West to make use of the following:
1- Be good ambassadors of Islam wherever you go. As an ambassador, you should introduce the right and wonderful teachings of your religion to others. As an ambassador, you should correct the wrong and false image and feelings of hatred towards Islam.
2- Fear Allah your Lord wherever you are. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Fear Allah wherever you are, follow a bad deed with a good one and behave yourself in good manner.” (At-Tirmidhi)
Indeed, fearing Allah means to observe Islamic teachings by doing all the obligatory acts, and avoiding all the prohibited ones. Vacation times should add more and more benefit to the life of the Muslim. In holiday times, we should do our best to increase our religious awareness.
3- Be keen to recite the Quran from time to time and enhance your good relationship with it. Try to memorize few extra verses and get to know new Prophetic Hadiths. The Prophet (PBUH) used to pray to Allah to make the Quran as a spring for his heart, solutions to his problems and difficulties. Try to do the same thing and specify some of your time for reading and learning its meaning.
4- Try to accompany those who are righteous and honest all the time. Being alone will give Satan a chance to push you to commit evil activities.
Therefore, you should try your best to be with righteous people who always remind you and protect you from Satan and his partisans.
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Finally, I insist that the image of Islam in the West needs to be corrected peacefully and quickly. You should take part in this noble and urgent mission by disassociating our beloved religion with all evils and violations.
Different communities could be your target of correcting the wrong image. May Allah bless your efforts.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.