Islam for Muslims
- THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
- GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
- GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
The Roles of Print and Social Media
41: THE ROLES OF PRINT & MASS MEDIA
Introduction: In this age of science, various technological innovations have made it possible to spread messages faster and wider, bringing information closer to the receiving end. This process started with the invention of the modern printing press by Gutenberg of Germany about half a millennium ago and continues through modern day audio-visual devices like the radio, television, tape recorder, computer (internet), power point etc. Now the new generation of mass media boasts greater success not only in terms of speed and coverage but also by making communication more effective through use of fun cultures. These lifeless mass media have now become very instrumental in promoting Islam, rivaling if not replacing the roles of live human preachers. Now comes more about this.
(A) Print Media: Publications & Library: Religious books (including translation and commentaries of the Quran) in general have a special way to help Islam. It is said the role of books begins where that of the preachers ends. This stands true in several situations.
(i) When oral preaching faces limitations either due to incompetence of the preachers or non-cooperation of the listeners or any physical barrier between the two, books offer hope of conveying messages to hard-to-reach target readers. This necessity was illustrated by the Prophet’s example of sending invitation letters to the heads of different states for embracing Islam.
(ii) The non-Muslims who feel shy or hesitation to attend an Islamic session due to social barriers, they can privately read books that may quietly pull their mind toward Islam. (iii) If you are not willing to take pains for attending any off-house Islamic sessions, books can be a friend to inform you about Islam, suiting your time and pace. The merit of preaching through books is that it gives the reader a chance to read carefully, repeatedly if needed and think in calm mind and quiet atmosphere. The orderly presentation of book contents slowly can form a layer of guidance upon the readers’ mind. Keeping in view the power of books, the Muslims can play twin roles described below:
(1) As a Writer/Publisher: If you are the man of the pen, try to invest bulk of your energies in writing books or articles for journals or if you are the man of the purse, try to invest money in publication enterprise. Do not forget, writing or producing Islamic books will open window to your continued blessings that remains open as long as your books are read and help guiding people. Do not make your money making (through authorship royalty or high profit in publishing business) as a primary goal and divine pleasure as secondary. You can take royalty to meet your basic minimum needs or you could use that money for religious purposes as well. As a publisher, you can accept minimum profit needed to stay in business and continue earning divine blessings.
Sharing Publications: Compared to journals, books have more durable impacts. Good books are usually saved particularly in the libraries and archives and reprinted through ages whereas people often throw away journals after reading. However, journals have advantage of meeting needs for special groups like students, women, covering special occasions like Eid festival etc., highlighting current topics and encouraging budding talents and so on. At this point, it is advisable that after you finish reading any Islamic publications (books or journals), you should pass them on to any interested readers or donate to any Islamic library for giving chance to the next readers. As an author or publisher of Islamic books, you have typically different types of responsibilities. You need to be open-minded to allow reproduction of your writings for speedier propagation of Islam. You have no good reasons to keep others from reprinting your book articles in any Islamic journal etc. as long as your writing is not deliberately distorted and the source of reproduction is duly recognized to fight off plagiarism.
Content Priorities: As an Islamic writer, you will be doing positive services to Islam by interpreting and researching pivotal themes of the Quran and Hadith in moderate light. Alongside, you will be presenting Islam to the non-Muslims by comparing and contrasting its provisions by following a modern approach. Translation of original books is also a very promising area, for feeding writing projects. If you like to diversify content areas of your writing, try to look for dark corners where very little work has been done. If, otherwise, there are too many writings on the same topic, in the same style and with almost similar contents, then such needless repetitions will help very little to enrich the body of Islamic knowledge.
Foolproof Method: When you write on Islam, not only the aim must be noble (divine pleasure), but also the method should be foolproof. For example, if you have to address any controversial issues, keep from writing something which might be wrongly interpreted. In violation, you might face storms of popular protest, your popularity and readership may decline and yet worse, legal challenges may end up banning your book from store shelves. Thus your flawed method might defeat your main purpose of pleasing God by spreading His messages. So as a responsible writer, you should never forget that any sentence you write may be taken out of context and put under microscope for review. You therefore should not write anything that you cannot defend and as a result, that may be a burden for you, with possible negative effects undermining your intended outcome.
(2) As a Reader: It is important that Muslim scholars produce multitude of Islamic books decorating the bookshelves of libraries and stores. It is nevertheless more important that there is strong reading habit among people and there are enough readers to buy or borrow books to read and seek guidance therefrom. In fact, the moral quality of a nation depends on both (i) the quantity and quality of available religious books and (ii) the number of readers and daily average hours they read and their propensity to apply knowledge.
Reading for learning Islam is considered an act of high level piety for its role in promoting good deeds. Everyone may benefit from reading the right kind of books. Even writers also need to read to be a better writer. As a reader if you read multiple books written from different angles on the same subject, you can gain a balanced view in addition to extra information to be stored on your mind.
It is an undeniable fact that the more you read, the more you learn. You also have to be careful to make sure that you are learning the right thing. For that you need to apply common sense to tell the wrong from the right and if your confusion still remains on anything, you should check that against Quranic provision or “ask of those who possess the Message (knowledge) if you do not understand this” (21:7). Anyway, you should give as many hours to reading as you can. You can borrow books from the library or you may continue to buy, read and save books with a plan to build a family library.
(B) Mass Media: Value of News Agency: Newspaper is another publication media that usually has a powerful role in shaping public opinion. By way of delivering a mix of a different variety of news, the bias of the newspaper professionals (journalists, reporters, writers, editors, correspondents etc.) can bend public opinion to a positive or negative direction. In the news media industry, the Muslims are gravely underrepresented particularly when it comes to world class newspapers and news agencies. It is therefore an overriding priority for the Muslim nations to invest heavily in the media industry and so is for talented Muslims to gravitate toward journalistic professions, for presenting unbiased news to the world community. Some Muslim intellectuals should start pro-Islamic newspapers on their own. Yet others should contribute Islamic articles, features etc. to existing secular and Islamic newspapers to reach out to the wider circles.
Publication Varieties: Besides books and newspapers, publication efforts for familiarizing Islam may be diversified through printing of booklet, bulletin, leaflet, handbill etc. containing Islamic messages and having them distributed through numerous volunteers at public places. Some other religious groups (e.g. Jehovah Witness) have found this technique very fruitful in connecting with common people. Similarly, big posters, billboards, signboards, stone pillars bearing Quranic quotations or key Islamic messages may be displayed at busy places to bring them closer to public eye.
Digital Mass Media: Relative to printing based publication media like newspaper etc., audio-visual electronic devices like television, documentary films, computer, power point presentations etc. tend to be more public-oriented. While monetary and educational qualifications are required for buying and reading books, publications etc., most people can easily learn from mosaic programs of free public goods like radio, TV, YouTube etc., often without paying extra money. The latter exempts you from any boredom of reading by sweetening programs with entertainments. What is more, there are enormous potentials for producing documentaries based on Quranic contents like the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and Flood, Solomon and Queen Bilquis, Joseph and Zulaikha, God’s destruction of elephant mount forces of Abraha and so forth.
Appliance Software may be Blameworthy but not Hardware: Now is the time to clarify the point that the electronic devices, as neutral means of communication, are not themselves bad, but it is the software programs run by their managers that are subject to rating as good or bad. If you broadcast harmless programs or as a viewer, if you watch only good programs through screening process, then there cannot be any question of legality. Propagation of Islam may be on fast-track if you make proper use of these audio-visual appliances. For example, you can buy air time in TV or post in YouTube Islamic programs like Quranic messages, ‘sharia’ based questions & answers, organize intellectual debates on Islamic issues etc., or you can be an audience to benefit from this. Thus Islam can enter the living room for everyone: Muslims or non-Muslims.
Islamic Use of Appliances: In modern era, science has gifted our society a series of devices that successively tend to improve upon the previous ones (such as radio, television, computer, smartphone etc.), revolutionizing communication across the world. All these appliances should be brought into maximum possible and desirable use, both for sending/uploading and receiving/downloading info for promotion of Islam. Currently, online contents are dominated with immoral and undesirable contents like pornography, fighting, gun violence, addiction etc. In order to crowd these out, the Muslim groups can post numerous pro-Islamic products in YouTube or similar online channel. You also can benefit from various similar sites or facilities already built-in there.
Likewise, other social media facilities including Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn etc. can be used for networking in promotion of Islam. For presentation of Islamic contents, smart board technology, webinar method etc. often show a clear advantage over traditional lecture method. Likewise, any future innovations of audio-visual devices and opening of new front of social media deserve your strong consideration for their rational use in Islamic propagation.
Conclusion: Obviously, various forms of print and mass media can play powerful roles in promotion of Islam and therefore Muslim preachers should make maximum possible use of them.