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Assalamualaikum
Some of u may or may not have noticed that i have been away for a while.
I have been mainly in South America for the past 5 months. I was involved in an effort of deen over there i was in Suriname which is next to Brazil , also went to Argentina and Brazil. The first country we went to was brazil , there was 8 of us all from uk , Brazil is a massive massive country we saw many many muslims who are unfortunately very far from deen. we were visiting mainly the shanty town where the majority of the muslims were situated. The muslims there dont know anything about islam , most cant recite the kalimah. they say they are muslims bcoz their forefathers were muslims. many hundreds and thousands are leaving islam over there , not knowingly but just slowly deen just coming out. In brazil we saw many old masjids which were closed down and locked up. we managed to open us many masjids and revived salat there with the help off allah , argentina was a simalar situation , i remember walking for days and days in argentina and not meeting a single human. its a massive country , when we did meet a person , we found out he was muslim and spoke portugese. one of the brothers in our group was an experienced speaker, alhumdulillah he took on board the concern we came with and started doing the effort of deen in argentina reminding muslims about islam.
Last stop was surinam port mountanious forest , jungly country , deen very weak there amongs the muslims , majority of the familes will have 3 or 4 religions in their family , dad muslim , mum hindu , daughter christian , son jew , the was the case in many families.
Alhumduliallah i have learnt alot , and i will slowly write more when i remeber more , i am ready to answer ur questions if u want
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Bismillah
as salam alykom
Mash a Allah brother Suhail. May Allah accept. Brazil, I visited this country back in the 80th. Sobhan Allah so much away from religion and even the moral standards are totally different.
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Assalamu alaikum
MashaAllah brother - that sounds like a very good project for the sake of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. May He reward you and the others for your efforts, ameen.
May He guide those that is meant to be guided, ameen.
Sis Muslimah - I too have visited Brazil, lived there for 6 months. But that was in the 70th a while back subhanAllah. Time flies.
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Bismillah
as salam alykom Suhail
I hope u had a nice Eid.
Now I have questions:
1. What was the criteria for targeting those countries in particular?
2. Was it a preplanned trip, i mean how did you choose the locations, how did you find muslims,..etc?
3. Was there a place prepared for you to stay in certain locations?
4. Who made the pre studies to select those locations?
Are these questions much?? should I stop? Alright till you come and talk to me will hold on Insh a Allah.
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Assalamualaikum
Email me or PM me the same questions and i will answer them for you thank you.
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Asalaamu alikum brother Suhail,
Sounds like a very interesting experiance, and educational insha Allah both for them and for you. May Allah reward your efforts and put it in the scale of your good deeds. Ameen.
Thanks for sharing here, if you continue to do so I think it would be interesting. :)
Jazak Allah khairn
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Assalamulaikum
I think it is only right that because i have been on this board a while, i have a duty to share my experience with u guys , ill try to post 1 story a day or week .
Story 1 - Meet The Sao Paolo Gangsters
When we came to Brazil to sao paolo we were satying mainly in the shanty towns in the heart of all the gang territory. we located a few masjids which were locked and closed for many many years probably 80 90 years , and started living there after we cleaned it. I was surprised the people didnt take over it or start using it (they had some respect for places of worship ) as they knew this place was used my their grandfathers to pray in. the first evening we were there after isha we were doing taleem and reading from riyad us saliheen , and 6 guys with guns came poin"who are we ? what are we doing here? etc etc " so obvious;y the guy who has reading from the book stopped reading out off shock, so he got told off from our amir and was told to continue reading , and we were told to look at the reader or look down. the gang were shocked and amazed and they went away , they came back following day and sat with us and asked the same questions , so we answered them , and we found out that there ancestors great grandfathers were muslims and they knew that to some extent that they were also muslims, so they learned and prayed the kalimah again , and started helping to continue our efforts, many people re-converted to islam i emphasise "RE" as they were muslims b4 but by not knowing about islam anymore they brought christian religion in their life .
So thats Brazil.
Im gonna stop there bcoz i tend to go on and on.
p.s forgive me for not putting loads of detail in , but i thought short stories would be better with main points....
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Suhail that was really very touching, how you didnt react in terror seeing the guns, probably they felt some awe for the whole situation and Majles. Certainly you know angles attend Majles of knowledge. May Allah always Assit you all. ameen.
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Brother Suhail,
Asalaamu alikum. Did you have any difficulties with language? I assume that all who went are fluent spanish speakers. I know sometimes discussing deep subjects in one's native language can be a challenge, did you encounter any problems in relating ideas in a second language or you all have good command of Spanish language?
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Assalamualaikum
Its only when people think they are intelligent and know everything about deen, that u end up having these "deep" conversations and ideas etc , alhumdulillah they were very good and just wanted to learn. besides me everyone else was fluent in putugeses/spanish , i only know a little .
