Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Noel James Coulson, “Muslim Cus-

tom and Case Law.” In Islamic Law and Legal Theory,

edited by Ian Edge, 259—270 (New York: New York 

University Press, 1996); Wazir Jahan Karim, Women and 

Culture: Between Malay Adat and Islam (Boulder, Colo.: 

Westview Press, 1992); Gideon Libson, “On the Devel-

opment of Custom as a Source of Law in Islamic Law.” 

Islamic Law and Society 4, no. 2 (1997): 131–155.

K  176  

customary law

---

177

AF

J:

daawa

 

(Arabic: invitation, religious call, 

summons) (also 

dawa, Persian dawat, or 

Indonesian/Malaysian 

dakwah)

Daawa is a term that has acquired a number of 

meanings in the history of Islam, but it is mainly 

thought of as religious outreach for purposes of 

conversion

 or bringing lapsed Muslims back into 

the faith. In the q

Uran

, it is God’s invitation to 

humans to worship and believe in him (Q 14:10; 

10:25) and humans’ calling upon God to hear 

their prayers (Q 14:33; 7:180). In the Quranic 

view, the 

prophets

 are the ones who effectively 

transmit God’s call to their peoples to sway them 

from praying to false gods or idols and to guide 

them on the monotheistic path to salvation. 

Prophets and others who undertake the challeng-

ing task of conveying God’s daawa are called dais 

(“inviters” or “summoners”). Moreover, according 

to the Quran, the whole community of believers 

is charged with “calling to goodness, commanding 

the right and forbidding the wrong” (Q 3:104). In 

other contexts, Muslims used the word daawa as 

a synonym for the call to prayer (

adhan

) and as an 

alternate name for the first chapter of the Quran, 

the  F

atiha

 (Q 1), which is a verbal prayer for 

God’s assistance, guidance, and mercy.

During the eighth century, leaders of the 

Abbasid movement in i

raq

 and i

ran

 gave daawa

an overt political meaning by making it a form of 

religious propaganda. They called upon faithful 

Muslims to help them bring the community back 

to the “true” Islam by overthrowing the U

mayyad

c

aliphate

 in s

yria

. Their efforts proved success-

ful; they ended Umayyad rule and created the 

a

bbasid

  c

aliphate

 (750–1258) in b

aghdad

. At 

about the same time as the Abbasid movement, 

early Shii groups, several of which had supported 

the Abbasids until the Abbasids turned against 

them, called upon Muslims to accept the authority 

of their imams, the descendants of Muhammad’s 

family (

ahl

 

al

-

bayt

) whom the Shia believed to be 

the divinely chosen leaders of the Muslim com-

munity. The Ismailis, a minority sect of the Shia, 

used daawa to challenge the claims of their rivals, 

the  t

Welve

-i

mam

  s

hia

, undermine Sunni rulers, 

and win support for their own leaders, whom they 

believed to be divinely guided and possessors of 

secret knowledge (

batin

) from God. The Ismaili 

rulers of the F

atimid

 

dynasty

 (909–1171) in 

North Africa and e

gypt

 organized a daawa move-

ment to promote their claims to divine authority 

and to oppose the Abbasid Caliphate with one 

of their own. Their dais (missionaries) were sent 

from  c

airo

 to far reaches of the 

dar

 

al

-i

slam

,

where they spread Ismaili doctrines publicly and 

covertly, recruiting support for the imams. The 

D

---

Nizari Ismailis in Iran, known as the a

ssassins

,

also made extensive use of daawa on behalf of 

their leaders. Today, some branches of the Ismailis 

even call themselves “the Dawat.”

In the modern period, the meaning of reli-

gious outreach has undergone further develop-

ment.  Daawa has become a keystone for many 

contemporary Islamic organizations and institu-

tions in countries with Muslim majorities and also 

in those where they are minorities. The collapse 

of the last Islamicate empires (the Ottomans, 

Safavids, and Mughals) after the 17th century, 

combined with the onset of European colonial 

domination in many Muslim lands, led Muslims 

to use religious outreach in order to achieve 

unity among themselves, to convert others, and 

to engage non-Muslims in intercultural and inter-

faith 

dialogUe

, especially in Europe and North 

America. The Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 

1876–1901) and other promoters of 

pan

-i

slamism

used  daawa in an attempt to unify all Muslims 

under his religious and political authority. The 

Ottoman Empire came to an end after World War 

I, but the task of fostering Muslim unity through 

daawa has been taken up anew by organizations 

such as the m

Uslim

 W

orld

 l

eagUe

 and the o

rga

-

nization

 

oF

 

the

 i

slamic

 c

onFerence

.

The increased Christian missions in Muslim 

lands that accompanied European colonization 

caused Muslims to organize their own mission-

ary activities in response. Since the early decades 

of the 20th century, significant effort has been 

dedicated to educating Muslims about the core 

elements of their religion so as to encourage an 

internal religious revival and help them contend 

either with Christian missionaries or with the 

influence of modern ideas and non-Islamic life-

styles and customs. The governments of s

aUdi

a

rabia

, Kuwait, Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan have 

created institutions to train imams and commu-

nity leaders, develop modern methods for propa-

gating Islam, hold conferences, and publish daawa

literature. Their outreach campaigns have been 

conducted in African countries and the newly 

independent Central Asian republics of the former 

Soviet Union, as well as the Middle East and parts 

of Asia. Activist Islamist organizations, such as the 

m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

, also regard outreach as an 

important part of their strategy for achieving their 

religious and political goals. The d

aaWa

  p

arty

oF

  i

raq

 was created by Shii religious leaders to 

oppose the spread of 

commUnism

 and secular Arab 

nationalism. After the fall of s

addam

  h

Usayn

’s 

b

aath

 p

arty

 government in 2003, it became one 

of Iraq’s leading political parties. The t

ablighi

J

amaat

, founded in 1927 in India, is a very popu-

lar nongovernmental Sunni missionary movement 

that carries its message of simple religious piety 

door-to-door in many parts of the world.

Like Christian missions, Muslim daawa orga-

nizations engage in charity and relief efforts. 

Their mission also includes building neighbor-

hood mosques, opening medical clinics, and 

establishing printing presses. Pious 

Women

, many 

of them veiled, have been increasingly visible in 

such activities. Mosque-based organizations in 

non-Muslim countries undertake daawa activities 

in their communities to attract lapsed Muslims 

and to educate non-Muslim leaders, officials, and 

the wider public about Islam. Such efforts have 

been particularly successful in pluralistic coun-

tries such as the United States. Muslim organiza-

tions have made extensive use of publications, 

electronic media, and most recently the Internet 

to conduct their outreach campaigns.

See also  a

hmadiyya

; 

almsgiving

;  c

hristianity

and

 i

slam

; 

dar

 

al

-i

slam

 

and

 

dar

 

al

-

harb

; 

dialogUe

; 

edUcation

; 

imam

; 

madrasa

; s

hiism

.