Having grown up with a huge share of 19^th century European thought which has been heavily affected by the story of “the disenchantment of the world” during which the God of monotheism had taken a couple of heavy knocks, I recently became interested in Islamic religious thought.

I soon found out that people who are not born Muslim rarely embrace Islam without having been invited to. When I began to take a closer look at the procedure of this invitation, I assumed that I would look for the equivalent of the Christian “mission.” I thought of friendly elderly humanitarian workers walking around the community handing out donations and preaching about their faith. But what I found was da’wa, which can be translated as “call” or “invitation” but differs considerably from proselytizing efforts like the ones I described.