UNKO ELAMA VAIN LEKKIA? (Is Life Just a Game)

The Tampere, Finland 🇫🇮 YC dawah tour Blog

The word agnosticism was first publicly coined in 1869 at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in London by T.H. Huxley, a British biologist and champion of the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Quite how this belief ‘system’ trickle down to the friendly and simple people of Tampere, Finland is another area of enquiry.

I chose to start my Finland dawah blog with this because most of the people that the team speak to on the streets and even I engaged with claim this. “ I don’t know, maybe” was the constant answer when asked about belief in a creator.

In 2019, Usman Iftikhar, a Lahore born and bred brother contacted me for two reasons. He wanted to donate to YC & had a question on how to speak to someone with doubts. As usually happens, I keep in touch with people and build upon initial enquiries. I want people who read this blog to inculcate this habit.

During our connection we organised weekly dawah training classes online in 2020/2021.

A while later we organised an online lecture with YC speaker Mohammad Ali which went very well and on the back of that we decided to organise a mini tour of Tampere. In the 3 days I was there:

⁃ Masjid Hervanta lecture: Muslim identity. Around 120+ people attended. This was apparently the first time someone International attended this masjid for a lecture!

⁃ Tampere University : Lecture: Secrets of success. 65-70 attended.

⁃ Multiple meetings about YC vision and mission with local brothers.

⁃ Dawah training. To the local team plus new members. The 3/4 man team have been constant in street dawah for last 2 years. I’m very inspired by their patience and commitment. Duas for this small team.

⁃ Street dawah. First time in the city of Tampere! Very quite style. Spoke to 3/4 people although English levels were varied. Most profess agnosticism or a ‘I don’t know approach’. Gave out plenty of flyers including:

UNKO ELAMA VAIN LEKKIA. The brothers translated the Famous dawah initiation dawah flyer : Is life just a game into the Finnish language.

⁃ General observation & lessons

The tours objective was establish YC style dawah here. The most important move we made was to establish a weekly halaqah with Br Imran. He’s a very learned young brother Masha’Allah.

Plan is to plan another visit later in the year insha’Allah.

Other than that, the bidet / Muslim shower is installed everywhere! Almost Every building block has a ‘common room’ which is free to use for residents. Halal takeaway is very hard to find, so for now home cooked food! No Halal abattoirs, it’s against regulations. The Finns are a clean and quite people. They like to keep things simple. The local lakes in the winter are all frozen! And normal in the few summer months. It’s always minute temperature here, almost all year round. I was kept being informed that minus -10 is nice, this is nothing! But the homes have been built in a way to keep the cold out, solid builds! Lastly, the main Kosovan brother who established Hervanta masjid is the cause for lovely brotherhood and atmosphere with the masjid. He speaks to everyone, young and old. He has own unique story of how he used to be a boxer in his early days and how he arrived in Finland. Masha’Allah.

Although it’s a small knit Muslim community, everyone gets on with each, cosy masjid.. the issue is that everyone is comfortable now. What this could mean is that unless the next generation is not inculcated deeply into the Islamic belief and have confidence, then they could be impressed by the local easy life and move away from Islam. The dawah needs to go to the next level..

Watch this space ..

May Allah reward and Br Usman and all other volunteers who worked and looked after me for the few days I was there. Allah accept their hosting and company.