Balancing Secrecy and Daʿwah

A lot of what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was doing at that stage was secret. He was doing it in secret to preserve Islam and the Muslims. But then there needs to be a balance between secrecy and daʿwah. Daʿwah, by nature, is a public, outward act. So how does one balance between giving daʿwah and at the same time protecting the organization, protecting Islam and the Muslims? In hijrah there are examples of both.

As for examples of secrecy: Ibn Ḥazm says, and as he has been told, no one knew of the departure of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) except ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Abū Bakr and his family. These were the only people who knew about the hijrah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So this shows that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wanted to keep it secret. And, for example, when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and Abū Bakr were traveling, and they would meet some people, Anas ibn Mālik would say that Abū Bakr was a known man, while the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was not known, in terms of people outside of Makkah knowing him, because Abū Bakr was a man who traveled a lot. He did business, so he knew a lot of people in all of these villages and towns, because of his traveling. While the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not travel outside of Makkah in the time of daʿwah, except to al-Ṭāʾif; the rest of the time he spent it giving daʿwah.

So people would come and meet Abū Bakr and talk to him. Now they would ask Abū Bakr, after they would greet him and ask him how he was doing, they would ask him, "Who is this man with you?" Abū Bakr would say, "This man is a guide, he is showing me the path. This man is a guide, and he is showing me the path." Now, what these people would understand is that he is a guide guiding him in the desert, but what Abū Bakr really meant is that this man is guiding him toward Allah. But he put it in this statement to protect the identity of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), because now there was a bounty on the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), a hundred camels, so he wanted to protect his identity, and the way he did it was by making this statement, so that they understood something different than what he meant. This is what is called tawriyah.

Now, when it comes to daʿwah, the identity would need to be exposed for daʿwah. So when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) met Buraydah al-Aslamī, he did tell him that he was Muḥammad (peace be upon him), and he did give him daʿwah, and Buraydah became Muslim, and he joined the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in sixteen out of his nineteen battles, and he was ahead of his people. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) also met two thieves, and he gave them daʿwah, and they became Muslim. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "What is your name?" They said, "Our name is al-Muhannaʾ." Al-Muhannaʾ means the dishonored ones — the people used to call them the dishonored ones, so the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them, "No, you are the honored ones."

Another example of daʿwah: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) met a shepherd, so he asked him, "Can you give us some milk?" The shepherd said, "None of my goats has milk at the moment." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) chose one of them and said, "Would you allow me to milk it?" The shepherd said, "Go ahead." And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did milk it, and a lot of milk started flowing out. And then he gave the shepherd to drink first, and then he and Abū Bakr drank. So the shepherd asked Muḥammad (peace be upon him), he said, "For heaven's sake, who are you? I never saw the like of you." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) responded, "Do you think you could keep it secret if I told you?" So the man said, "Yes." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "I am Muḥammad, the messenger of Allah." The shepherd said, "You mean you are the one Quraysh say claims to be a Ṣābiʾ?" Ṣābiʾ was a degrading accusation that the people of Quraysh would level toward the Muslims — they would call them al-Ṣābiʾūn rather than call them Muslim. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "Yes, they do say that." The man said, "Well, I bear witness that you bring the truth, and that only a prophet could do as you have done. I am your follower now." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "You cannot be that right now. Come and join us when you hear I have declared myself openly." This does not mean he cannot follow the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in terms of becoming Muslim; it means he cannot join now, but he did accept his Islam. He could not join the Jamāʿah at that moment and follow the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was still at that secretive stage.

So this shows the balance between giving daʿwah and protecting the identity of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and being secret. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did declare his identity to people whom he thought would be responsive to the daʿwah, but he did not give daʿwah to every single person he met in hijrah, because all of those people Abū Bakr would meet, and Abū Bakr would tell them, "This is a guide," the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not give them daʿwah, he did not invite them to Islam. So it shows that there is a balance between the two.