Feeling Guilty

Assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu everyone!

Long time no chat! School's been great, Alhamdulillah, but I've been quite busy (it's my senior year, and I'm really sad about having to leave). My Eid al-Fitr was lovely, Alhamdulillah; it was perfect weather, I went to the masjid for prayers with my schoolmates, and then afterwards we enjoyed a delicious lunch at a Palestinian coffeehouse. I wore a gorgeous cream and blue baju kurung that a friend gave me, my dark blue maghneh, and new black Mary Janes; it's amazing how wearing clothes that you like can put you in such a good mood.

I was just reading this one blog by someone (I don't "know" her very well), a recent convert, and she is very serious in giving her parents dawah. She says they were overall open to her conversion, and they are actually listening to what she has to say about Islam and doing some research themselves. Alhamdulillah, this is great to hear, and Insha'Allah they will decide one day in their hearts to accept Islam. However, after reading this, I couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. My dawah to my family has been basically nonexistent. They know that I consider myself Muslim, but they are still unaware of the fact that I actually practice it (with the exception of my sister, who has seen me pray and wear hijab in public). My sister is a little curious, and if she asks questions about Islam, I'll answer them for her the best I can, but I've never initiated any discussions or tried to persuade her to do any research. I don't think my parents would listen to me if I tried to talk to them about it, and it would just make them very upset, even angry, so I avoid it to keep the peace.

I'm unsure how to approach this. On the one hand, I know that it's important that other people learn about Islam, but on the other hand, I don't want to make my family hate me. I know a lot of people would say, "Oh, but you shouldn't care what they think, you only need to fear ALLAH); I do fear ALLAH, but I do care about their feelings, and I think that if I tried to push it on them it would only make myself and Islam look bad. Is this just being lazy/negligent? I can't tell.

I have very strong feelings about dawah in general. Obviously I think it's important, but there absolutely must be some guidelines in how to approach it. In the USA, there is a very negative stigma towards any religious proselytizing unless people specifically ask for it, and I wholeheartedly agree with this. I HATE seeing people randomly give out pamphlets; this just conjures up images of certain evangelical Christian groups aggressively handing out brochures that demand that people convert immediately. People just ignore these, and it will make the group look overbearing. Going door-to-door is even worse, because it completely invades people's privacy and will make them even more unwilling to listen to what you have to say. I also don't like randomly bringing up Islam in conversations unless it's relevant. For example, I might be talking with a group of friends about fashion, and then I would talk about certain pieces of clothes that are hijabi-friendly. On the night before Eid, I make it a tradition to go around to all of my friends' rooms at college and put homemade Eid cards (and a piece of candy) on their doors, to spread the joyful Eid spirit. If we're discussing certain current events or ethical issues, I will talk about Islam's position on them and why we believe what we do. However, I won't be like, "Let me tell you about Islam!" in the middle of a conversation about a movie.

My approach to dawah is relatively simple: live life according to Islam as best as I can, mention Islam or Islamic teachings where appropriate, and be willing to answer any questions or inquiries that people may have to the best of my ability. Last year, I attended a terrific lecture by Usama Canon, and he said something to the extent of "make dawah so natural that you don't even realize you're doing it". It really bothers me when people say, "Let's go volunteer at the soup kitchen, it will be good dawah", or "go help that old lady cross the street, think of it as a dawah opportunity"; it just makes it seem like people are only doing good deeds with the intention of trying to convert people. What about doing good deeds because Islam commands us to, without any "hidden agenda" to make people want to become Muslim? Sometimes it's easy to forget, but when I'm about to do a good thing for someone else, I just try to think of it as, "ALLAH wants us to be good neighbors" rather than "If I show them how great Muslims are, they'll convert too!"

What do you all think? Should I, or any Muslim, be more "aggressive" in telling people about Islam, even though I think it will just alienate them even more, or should I just keep doing what I'm doing now?