The Difference between Da’wah & Iswlah

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

“Da’wah” is when we introduce Islam to non-Muslims.  When we address Muslims, it is “iswlah”, from the same root as “swalah”.  Da’wah is about inviting.  Iswlah is about refining.  Nowadays, some people classify everything as “da’wah” and do not differentiate between the two.  How did it come to this? 

It is primarily the Wahhabi sect that classifies educating the masses of Muslim as “da’wah”.  This is because, as taken from Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.), instead of the Sunni understanding of tawhid al-ilah, the Divine Nature, the Wahhabi sect have tawhid ar-rububiyyah, the “oneness of worship” and tawhid al-uluhiyyah, “the sincerity of the acts of worship”.  The implication here is that mere testification of faith, the recitation of the shahadah, is insufficient to be considered a Muslim.  As the heretic, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, said, “Whoever does not know tawhid al-uluhiyyah, then his knowledge of tawhid ar-rububiyyah is not taken into account because the idolaters also had such knowledge.” 

According to Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab an-Najdi’s Kitab at-Tawhid, the masses of Muslims are upon kufr unless they believe as he did and accept his ‘aqidah.  And that is why the Wahhabis engage in “da’wah”, because to them, most of us are not Muslims.  We are idolaters, polytheists and unbelievers, and they want to “convert” us to their minhaj, which they seductively call “the Qur’an and sunnah”, as if the masses of Muslims are not upon it.  And that is also why Wahhabi militants such as ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and their affiliates have no problems killing Muslims.  To them, they are waging a war against the “kuffar”.  We are that “kuffar”.  It is important remember that when these people want to “da’wah” to us.