A mobile telephone service with specialist preachers to encourage non-Muslims to embrace Islam has so far helped 5,480 persons become Muslims. The “Bring me to Islam” service by the Cooperative Bureau for Call and Awareness in Communities in Al-Badee'a in the capital has on its books 18 full-time staff and 50 others, covering between them 12 languages. Each one has on average received around 300 messages informing them of the telephone numbers and details of potential Muslims, and they have so far helped 5,480 persons embrace Islam through some 800,000 telephone calls lasting an average of seven minutes each. The “Bring me to Islam” scheme aims to inform people of Islam by receiving information from anyone who wishes to help a non-Muslim learn about Islam by sending in details of their telephone number, nationality, religion and language, which the Bureau then analyzes and subsequently assigns an appropriate preacher to contact them. If the person embraces Islam, the original provider of the individual's information is informed by the Bureau. According to Bureau policy, the identity and number of the information provider and the number of the preacher who makes contact with the potential Muslim both remain confidential. A Filipino in Al-Qariyat who embraced Islam nine months ago, meanwhile, has reportedly convinced the rest of his family to do the same via the Internet. Shortly after entering Islam, the man reportedly set up a camera on his home computer to teach his wife and five children about the benefits of Islam, leading to them eventually saying the Shahada, and his wife changing her name to Fatima. The man said his happiness was “indescribable” after he entered Islam, which, he said, “has a spirituality absent in other religions”.
