Dawat-e-Islami is involved in various religious activities to promote Islam. The main objective is to guide people to practice the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The aim of Dawat-e-Islami is "I MUST RECTIFY MYSELF AND ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD".
According to Ashok K. Behuria in Many Pakistans within Pakistan: The Case of Sectarian Conflicts in a Talibanised Context.
Dawat-e-Islami is more of a mystic order than a political organisation that revolves around the personality of its founder. It has no motive other than to cleanse the spirits of its cadres and propagate its belief system. Its cadres do not overtly indulge in political or sectarian issues and its peaceful style of preaching on the pattern of a mystic order has won it a large number of followers. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 million Muslims, who have given Bayah (Islamic spiritual oath of allegiance) to the founder of DawateIslami, Allama Ilyas Attar Qadri. ...the DawateIslami chief wants his followers to be a model of the traditions of the Prophet, as interpreted and personified by Qadri himself. Dawat probably has the broadest popular base of all other Ahle Sunnat organisations. The lower and lower-middle classes form the bulk of its cadres. The number of madrassa-educated cadres, however, is rapidly increasingly. Dawat-e-Islami is said to run nearly 200 madrassas only in Karachi.[2]
[edit] Annual Congregations
- The annual international congregation is held every October in Multan, Pakistan where hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all over the World attend.[3][1]
- The Dawat-e-Islami held the first-ever congregation for deaf, dumb and blind students at its central headquarters Faizan-e-Madina. Hundreds of students between 16 and 18 years of age attended the programme. They were given a revision session on how to pray, and character building.[4]
[edit] Islamic courses
Dawat-e-Islami offers Islamic courses at different levels. The professional courses include Darse-Nizami (Islamic studies, towards becoming a qualified Islamic scolar), Mufti course, Qari course (Tajweed, science of Quran recitation) and Hifz (complete memorization of the the Holy Quran).
For those who can commit only a short period time because of career or family commitment, Dawat-e-Islami offers Qafila course (40 days), Islamic Dawah and propagation course (can be completed in either 1 yr, 30 days, 7 days or 3 days, with the shorter duration courses being less demanding and more basic). The Islamic Dawah courses are very practical in nature, whereby the students travel to a different mosque (usually the one located in nearby town or city), and stay in that mosque for the duration of the course. During this duration, the students indulge themselves in learning about Islam, and at the same time, give Dawah to the Muslim attending the mosque.
While the professional courses can be completed in only a select number of countries where Dawat-e-Islami has a stronger base like Pakistan, the shorter courses are offered in all the countries where Dawat-e-Islami has operation.
Dawat-e-Islami also runs Madrassa (Islamic kindergarten/ school) for young children to teach students about the basic of Islamic Fiqh, history and Quran. An evening madrassa is also run during the evening/ weekend for working adults.
