We Need To Do More

This weekend just gone I was helping out on Team Dawah Manchesters dawah table in City Centre Manchester and during the course of the day I had many intresting conversations.One of the conversations that stuck out was the one where I was giving dawah to three young men who were from catholic backgrounds but were leaning towards being agnostic due to having lost faith in the teachings they had been brought up with due to the fact they found so many contradictions and statements that just made no sense at all.They believed that beliefs should be based on reason and rational and facts that made sense.
So We talked about Tawhid and they said it made perfect sense.Then we talked about the miraculous nature of The Quran and went onto talking about The Prophet Muhammad ( peace and blessings be upon him ) and then we discussed Islamic beliefs. The young men decided that they were very intrested in looking further into the teachings of Islam and took copies of The Quran as well as other litreture to read.
A short while later the young men returned with further questions which I was more than happy to answer.However what really stuck out was they asked me "do muslims keep a beard because someone in their family is ill,and do you have to be asian (brown skinned) to be a muslim".I explained why we keep a beard and that Islam is a universal religion for the whole of mankind regardless of race,creed or tongue.They again thanked me and took my number and said they would call if they had further questions and would like to look into Islam a little more before deciding on taking their shahada's.

You see what all this makes me realise is that people do not know anything about Islam. They either believe a biased media, folklore or cultural customs and rituals.
This is why we as a ummah need to do more we need to tell people about Islam and to not conceal what we know. The Qur'an also tells us that concealing the message amounts to disobedience to Allah (glorified and exalted be He),"Those who conceal the clear (signs) We have sent down, and the guidance, after We have made it clear for the people in the Book -on them shall be Allah's curse, and the curse of those entitled to curse." (Al-Qur'an 2:159)
This reminds me of another problem we have where we do not support new reverts. A few weeks ago a sister from a christian background retook her shahada with me after having left the fold of Islam due to lack of support. She told me that after becoming a muslim she had many issues and questions and so joined a sisters group at a mosque but all they ever talked about was what curry they were going to cook or which salwar kameez  is best with their shoes. She coudn't get support or be put in contact with people who could help her as she was looked upon as a stranger,she found she did not fit in.I  put her in touch with a revert sister who has experience in this field and now this sister is very happy.
So my point is we need to allso help people who do revert to Islam and invite them in to our communities, circles, gatherings, clubs, events, our homes and support them and show them the beauty of The Islamic brotherhood/sisterhood.We need to help them to fit in and answer the questions they have.We need to show them Islam in our actions, our everyday actions, our way of life according to the sunna of the prophet ( peace and blessings be upon him ). My intention is not to point fingers at anyone but to say we all, myself included need to do more for the whole of mankind.
Just Dawah