The propagation of Islam is the duty of all Muslims. The name tabligh means conveying the message of Islam. Hence, the idea of this organization is sound. To go from one place to another in order to explain Islam to people and to call on Muslims to be more conscious in the fulfillment of their Islamic duties is commendable. However, to say such activity is done in practice by some people leaves much to be desired.

The system followed by the Tabligh organization is to ask its members to devote a certain portion of their time to the propagation of Islam. A member is expected to devote one hour a day, or one day a week, or one week every month or two, or one month a year, when he would go out and call on people to attend more conscientiously to their Islamic duties. At times, some missions spend four months with the sole purpose of conveying Allah's message. Members who go out on these missions are supposed to pay for their transport and their living expenses. Members who are well off can support those who are not, when the latter intend to go on a mission.

The strongest emphasis is based on prayers because the society believes that when a Muslim attends regularly to his prayers, he is set on the way to be a better Muslim and his prayers will have a positive effect on his behavior making him a better person.

All this is sound in theory, when people take an active part in the propagation of Islam, they feel that they themselves must be more diligent in observing their Islamic duties. It is true that some people may think, after completing a task in the service of Islam, that they have done their duty and may become a little lax in their observance of Islamic duties or in doing what they need to do in order to improve their own understanding of Islam and work better for it. What is important is to follow a successful mission with actions which are calculated to enhance one's commitment to the cause of Islam, and to make the next mission even more successful. Furthermore, important as it is to remind Muslims that they must attend regularly to their prayers, it is not sufficient. People must learn what while prayer is the cornerstone of Islam, building an Islamic community requires much more than a cornerstone.

Going on extended mission of four months or so raises a few questions. It may be that the leaders of the society have made in clear it their guidelines that anyone who wants to go on such a mission must meet certain conditions, such as having acquired a minimum standard of understanding Islam, having provided well for his family during his absence, and not allowing equally or more important duties to be neglected during his absence. Take, for example, a man who has a young family, with two or three children still at school and a young wife. He may leave his wife enough money to look after the family for the whole period of his absence, and he may ask a close relative, such as a brother, to look after his family, but I do not think that such a prolonged absence in such case is justified, especially when we consider the fact that there is much to be done within the local Muslim community. The man will render a better service to Islam if he concentrates his efforts on bringing up his children as good Muslims and using his spare time to help his local Muslim community understand Islam better.

When people decide to change their attitude to life and give a higher priority to religion, devoting much of their time to it, they frequently forget a most important fact about the Islamic faith. That fact is that Islam has been revealed by God in order to be implemented in human life. Its implementation does not require that people abandon their careers or livelihood in order to devote themselves totally to serving Islam. When the Prophet, peace be upon him, was told of a man who spends all his time in the mosque, he asked who gives him food to eat. When he learned that the man's brother supported him, the Prophet, peace be upon him, commented that the brother was a better believer.

This fact was clearly understood and acted upon by the Prophet's companions and the early generations of Muslims. Indeed that is why Islam was able to build a great civilization in a very short period of time. People were keen to know enough about their religion so that they could fulfill their duties properly. At the same time they tried to excel in their respective fields so that the Islamic state could rely on its own people for all the services, scientific knowledge and technical expertise it needed. Moreover, vast areas of the [present day] Muslim world converted to Islam when they came in close contact with Muslim businessmen who conducted their business in accordance with Islamic values and had enough knowledge about Islam to explain it to people. At the same time these were keen to do their jobs and earn their living.

Among the Prophet's companions there were people who did all types of jobs. Many of the Ansar had their own farm land to look after. They attended to all the needs of the farms so that they could have good harvests and the Muslim community could have enough food and provisions. Had they not done so, their land would have become barren, and it would have been easy for the enemies of Islam to impose an economic boycott on the Islamic state in Madinah. Famous Ansari people like Sa'ad ibn Mu'ath and Sa'ad ibn Ubadah and Abu Talhah had their farms, while leading Mujahedeen figures like Abu Bakr, Usman and Abdurrahman ibn Awf were businessmen.

Even those who decided to devote much of their time to Islamic scholarship were keen to do their jobs properly so that they could earn a comfortable living. Imam Abu Hanifah, for example, was a merchant dealing in ready-made clothes. Those scholars who concentrated on learning and teaching the Qur'an had different careers. Thus we find the top Qur'an scholar and teacher in Makkah in the second century doing a very unusual job for a scholar. The man was Qunbul and he was the chief of the police force, while Hafs, the Qur'anic teacher whose method of recitation is the one in use today in all Muslim countries in Asia sold suits.

On the other hand Islam does not ask anyone to devote all his time to preaching its message. Indeed the idea of missionary work is alien to Islamic thinking. It has never been taught by the Prophet, peace be upon him, that anyone would earn greater acceptance by God if he abandoned everything and devoted his life entirely to propagating Islam. What Islam wants of its followers is to conduct their lives in the normal way and at the same time show how they can be much better people and much more successful as a result of following Islamic teachings.

You say that your son has joined the Tabligh movement, which is an organization that dedicates itself to the propagation of Islam. I have written in the past about this movement pointing out that its members do much beneficial work, and that the concept on which it is founded has its merits. I also criticized some aspects of what some of its member do in practice. This movement suffers from a number of shortcomings that have befallen contemporary Islamic organizations. Because of these shortcomings many of these organizations are responsible for conformity to an image that shows Islam to be rigid and narrow of vision. This is a totally wrong image, but unfortunately it is the one that is being often reflected today. Take the example of wearing a beard. Many well-meaning Islamic advocates make it sound as if shaving is a cardinal sin. Even when we take the view of these scholars who insist that wearing a beard is a duty, which is by no means a unanimous view, omitting such a duty is no more than a minor offense. Moreover, they insist that a beard must not be trimmed, which is totally mistaken.

What is worse, such people are often guilty of neglecting such duties that are of much importance. Let me take the case mentioned by this mother who is complaining of her son's behavior. If the same problem was put to her son himself by another person and he was told of a young man that he is giving his parents much pain by his behavior, he would criticize that behavior in a very clear term. He would tell that person of the Hadith when a young man came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and sought his permission to join a campaign of jihad. The Prophet, peace be upon him, asked him whether either of his parents was alive. When the man said that both were, the Prophet, peace be upon him, told him to go back and make dutifulness to them his jihad. That shows the importance the Prophet, peace be upon him, attached to dutifulness to parents. Yet many young advocates of Islam are, in their enthusiasm for the cause, prepared to upset their parents for telling them that they are wrong in this or that. How can they do that when God Himself makes it clear in the Qur'an that a Muslim must not use even the slightest expression of displeasure when talking to parents?

Again the question of dress is fraught with misconceptions. Islam does not make any special requirements of how people should dress, but it outlines certain values. Every Muslim should take care to cover the awrah, which is the Islamic term denoting the part of the body which must not be exposed before other people. In the case of a man, this is only the genitals. The other value is that there must be no trace of conceit in the way a person dresses. Yet people try to implement these values in a very rigid manner, insisting on Arabian garments when there is nothing in the Prophet's teaching to show any preference for these. They also insist on certain length when the only consideration associated with that in the Hadith is the avoidance of showing conceit. It is all a question of understanding the statement that lies at its core. This is the work of scholars. In the period of Islamic vitality, scholars advanced a very proactive understanding. Hence implementation of Islamic teachings was very easy indeed. In our days of rigidity and narrowness, people make Islam appear highly impractical, when God wants it to be put into practice. By so doing, they do Islam a disservice.

In answer to your specific questions I say that your son would do much better if he takes up a career and attains a highly professional standard in it, trying at the same time to put his knowledge in the service of the Muslim community. He could at the same time work on his study of Islam trying to acquire a good understanding of it and explaining it to people. This will enable him to be useful to the Muslim community in more ways than one.

It is not wrong if he wears the normal clothes that people in the country where he lives wear. If these are of the Western style, then so be it. Nor is it wrong for him to trim his beard. Indeed he should do so, because the Prophet, peace be upon him, is quoted to have said that a person who has hair should take good care of it. That does not fit with the image some people try to advance suggesting that a beard should be left unkempt [wild] or disheveled.

The two terms are used in the study of the Qur'an and its interpretation. The term tafseer means, in its original linguistic sense, "explanation, clarification, interpretation, etc." However, in an Islamic context it refers to the explanation and interpretation of the Qur'an.

Since the Qur'an is God's final message to mankind, revealed by Him and preserved in its original form, it is only natural that Muslims should give much attention to the study of the Qur'an and understanding its meaning. This has developed into a major branch of Islamic studies, known as tafseer. Any course of study leading to a university degree in the Islamic studies is bound to have tafseer as an integral and major component. It is indeed a branch in which many scholars specialize. Over the centuries, many scholars have written new commentaries on the Qur'an, trying to explain its meaning. These often have new contributions to make to the study of the Qur'an. In the 20th century, two very eminent scholars have written invaluable commentaries in Arabic. These are Sheikh Rasheed Reda and Sayyid Qutb. Also Maulana Maudoodi wrote Tafheem Al Qur'an which is a commentary running in several volumes in Urdu. Other scholars have written books, or pieces of research, or articles which also contribute to the explanation of the Qur'an. Indeed, the efforts to explain and interpret the meaning of the Qur'an date back to the early days of Islam, with the Prophet explaining to his companions, and to Muslims in general the meaning of numerous verses. Abdullah ibn Abbas is perhaps the most famous commentator on the Qur'an among the companions of the Prophet. He achieved that position of eminence in fulfillment of the Prophet's prayer when he held him as a newborn baby and prayed close to the Ka'aba: "My Lord, make him highly conversant in Islam and teach him in interpretation (of the Qur'an)". Other scholarly companions of the Prophet were known to explain the meaning of surahs and verses.

The study of the trends and the development of interpreting the Qur'an comes under the heading Tareekh Al tafseer, or "History of Qur'anic interpretations."

As there is a continuous process of studying the Qur'an and explaining its meaning, certain rules and principles are bound to be developed for such studies. For example, scholars agree that the best interpretation of the Qur'an is that which uses the Qur'an itself. This refers to the fact that certain ideas are expressed in the Qur'an in a general way at one point, but elaborated upon later. This elaboration provides the best interpretation of the earlier general statement. Secondly, the Hadith is to be taken as a major basis for interpreting the Qur'an. The third source is statements and comments made by the Prophet's companions. But there are other rules and principles that have been developed by scholars over the centuries. These are studied under the heading Ussul Al tafseer, which may be translated as "Principles of the Qur'anic Interpretation."