Discover Islam Bahrain is pleased to announce a new workshop to be held in Bahrain titled “From Darkness to Light”; the first of its kind to be held by Discover Islam or even any other Da’wah organization in the region.

Over the last 30 years, Discover Islam has accumulated a wealth of experience in the fields of Da’wah, New Muslim Care, fundraising, and other Administrative tasks that it undertakes for its day to day function. There was a key paradigm shift in 2014, when all of this experience and knowledge was brought to the drawing board, scrutinized, and from it, emerged some semblance of a possible system that came into clearer view. This system was refined and implemented and has undergone several changes to the point where it has, seemingly, become a well oiled workflow. Discover Islam feels that it has developed a seamless system that permeates every facet of any Charitable Da’wah organization, and this information could benefit other organizations and people around the world.

This course has been designed to share Discover Islam’s success story and ideas with Organizations around the world. We have seen a phenomenal growth in numbers of people taking Shahadah and satisfaction amongst New Muslims on how we look after them.

The Aim, Mission, and Vision of Discover Islam clearly outline the main function of Discover Islam. It endeavors

➢      to invite every person in Bahrain to Islam;

➢     and provide Care, assistance, support and education to all who accept Islam

In order to justify our due diligence to this aim, it became imperative that we looked at the entire process in perfect, logical sequence. This meant that we needed to understand and categorize our market; and to draw a line from the point wherein one takes the life changing decision of accepting Islam to the part wherein they become elements of the greater Muslim community and everything in between, and this has been aptly named, From Darkness to Light.

Discover Islam is now, at a point, wherein it wishes to spread this knowledge and technical know-how far and wide amongst Da’wah Organizations and Da’ees to the benefit of spreading the message of Islam effectively.  

This session is the culmination of the entire workshop. It will be based on the skills, principles and learnings one would gather in the course of the workshop, coupled with a task that was given early on in the course. The session will provide a tangible way forward for all of the participants and a list of goals and plans for the same.

INTRODUCTION AND BEST PRACTICES

This session is an opportunity to introduce all the players involved in the workshop. From the Discover Islam end, all of the Presenters, Organizers, Technicians and Audience members will be introduced. The delegates will also be given expected to brief everyone participating in the workshop on their own profile and areas of expertise.

The session also outlines the rules, regulations and expectations from both the presenters and the delegates and explains the required mindset from either party in order for the sessions to be successful.

END IN MIND

This session entails a detailed explanation on how the sessions have been designed and what to expect with each of the sessions and their learning outcomes. This session intends to familiarize the audience with the curriculum.

MIND EXPERIMENT

In order to set the right mindset of the delegates that they need to maintain throughout the workshop, this interactive session will open new avenues of thought processes and instill out of box thinking for all of tasks that are performed by an Islamic Organization. This would revolutionize the way every topic, issue, problem or challenge is handled and how a fresh perspective helps better understand the situation at hand.

DA’WAH – A MARKETING APPROACH & SWOT

This will deal with looking at changing mindsets with regards to how we look at Da’wah as a function and a core operation of an Islamic Organization, introduce a paradigm shift in how we measure success and set short- and long-term goals for the same. If the expectations from our Da’wah endeavors take on the professionalism observed in the Corporate world, our mindset in dealing with the tasks needs to be on the same wavelength. This session tells us how that could be achieved. In order to achieve that understanding of the goals, current processes need to be measured. This is done through a generic analysis of all of the goals.

Based on these ideas, a task is given to the delegates to run specific analyses and come up with ideas on how their processes, tasks and goals could be fine-tuned to achieve higher productivity.

CHALLENGES FACED BY AN ISLAMIC ORGANIZATION

This session is an interactive one, that helps identify the various challenges that people who work for Islamic Organizations face. Every problem that the organization faces could be broadly classified into categories, and once that is done, a generic solution could be found for each of these categories. This session helps unravel that mode of classification.

VOLUNTEERISM

This session is interactive, and it explains the underlying principles of volunteerism and how to attract and retain volunteers. It delves deep into the psyche of human behavior and bring out simple concepts that motivate volunteers. It outlines the importance of a key behavioral theory, and how it could be used to explain the people’s attitudes to volunteerism as an idea.

FUNDRAISING

This session is an interactive one and it explains the underlying principles of Fundraising and what motivates donors to donate to a cause.

• What goes on in the mind of a donor when a proposal is presented?
• Why would a donor agree to a proposal?
• Why would it be rejected?

This session includes a simulation to illustrate these principles.

CONVEY OR CONVERT

This is a groundbreaking session in terms of breaking stereotypes on how Islamic organizations think and work. These ideas will revolutionize the question asked in the topic and how one should answer it. The subtle changes in the way we think about this subject will help improve quality and productivity in our endeavors.

STRATEGIC THINKING

This session incorporates ideas on how changing the way one thinks in general, will affect all aspects of one’s life and productivity.

• What are such necessary changes?
• What kind of analysis is required to see if those changes are needed?
• Do these changes really work?

This session will answer those questions and more.

TYPICAL DA’WAH CONVERSATION

This session will take the delegates through a journey on what constitute the important elements of a typical Da’wah conversation. It will bring to light the flow of what Da’ees use when speaking to Non-Muslims and how it affects the listeners to change their world view and life.

SPOF (SPEAKING TO PEOPLE OF FAITHS) – ATHEISM, CHRISTIANITY

These are carefully planned breakout sessions designed to provide information relevant to specific groups and regions. The delegates will be divided into smaller groups, and each of these groups will get an opportunity to sit with Da’ees who have some experience dealing with these faith persuasions. They will get the opportunity to have discussions and share ideas, thoughts, and common tactics used by Da’ees at Discover Islam and around the world.

PRINCIPLES OF NEW MUSLIM CARE

This session will shed light on the journey Discover Islam took to define and provide effective New Muslim Care to New Muslims. This was a long and arduous journey, and the end result was excellent. The principles that underline that system could be adapted anywhere in the world to suit any situation or circumstance.

DISCOVER ISLAM NEW MUSLIM CARE SYSTEM

The entire process of How New Muslim Care works in Discover Islam will be outlined and explained in this session. This will provide a baseline for how NMC systems could be devised in various countries.

POINT OF SHAHADAH

This is an interactive session that describes the happenings around a point that a person takes Shahadah and the psychology of a New Muslim.

ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGES

This is also a fun interactive, activity-based session that allows delegates to learn a key skill that is an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of one who works in an Islamic Organization. The activity will drive home this skill perfectly, and you will be able to gather the thought processes that are essential to this skill.

The course has been designed to give information on:

1. How to do Da’wah to non-Muslims of various persuasions and the flow one needs to adopt
2. How to handle people at the point of Shahadah, and to reassure the New Muslims
3. How to look after New Muslims and basic Convert Psychology
4. How to deliver effective care and education to New Muslims and to draw an overall New Muslim Timeline
5. How to establish administrative units in an organization for each function of the Organization
6. How to raise and maintain funds for the Organization
7. How to knit all this together to establish a long-term Charity and Educational Organization

We hope to achieve the following through this course. The course has been designed to give information on

1. Share our knowledge on Da’wah and New Muslim Care with the world
2. To understand the way your organization works and look for ways to improve our processes
3.  Establish strong ties with Da’wah organizations around the world
4. Exchange methodology, know-how, and experiences
5.  Setup strong network in looking after New Muslims wherever they go
6. Understanding your local culture and mindset and improving our Da’wah techniques and New Muslim Care processes

1. The applicant must be between the age of 22 - 45 years
2. The applicant must be an active member of an Islamic Organization
3. The applicant must be fluent in English language (reading & writing)
4. The applicant must know basic Computer Skills (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
5. The applicant must be willing to do a project for Discover Islam Bahrain and for their respective Organizations