Greatest Da'awah Event in Modern History

I'm 51 years old, and I have never watched a football match until Morocco versus France. I couldn't help but get caught up in the sentiment. This year's World Cup was a significant event, not just as a showcase of athletic skill and talent, but as a showcase of Muslim fraternity and the rise of the global South. For anyone who thought, and there's a lot of Muslims who think this way, for anyone who thought that the Khalejis do not care about Islam, say istak for Allah. Other could easily have genuflected to the altar of wokeness, allowed the rainbow flag, allowed same sex couples, the whole LGBT agenda.

They could have compromised all of their rules, but they didn't. Fans from all around the world came to Doha or watched on television or on the Internet, and they saw images of dignity, of honor, of respect, of morality, and of decency that they will never forget. And these images were juxtaposed against the blatantly biased politicization of the World Cup by bigoted Western media outlets that wanted to portray Muslims and Arabs as backwards and primitive, which even Westerners started to see as hypocritical and tasteless. Qatar spent way more money on the World Cup than they earned from it. And at the end of the day, what that means is that they just spent billions of dollars on the single greatest PR Dawah event in modern history.

This was just breathtakingly brilliant PR, not just for Qatar, but for Islam, for our values, for our culture, for our people, for our societies. This year's World Cup will eventually be mentioned as one of the landmark events that signaled the pivot of history back to Muslim ascendancy. Because finally, we represented ourselves on our own turf and on our own terms. And everyone could see for themselves the reality versus the propaganda. Now we have our own issues and grievances with the Khaleid, with Qatar, with UAE, with Saudi Arabia.

That's between us as Muslims. But we have to acknowledge, recognize, and appreciate the tremendous effort that Qatar just made.