What do you think is the most important quality that a person who wants to explain Islam to contemporary people should possess?

Firstly, such a person should live Islam personally and should be an exemplary person in his job, behaviors and attitudes. The most important quality of that exemplary person, in my opinion, is affection. We are the community (ummah) of a Prophet who said my community, my community when he came to the world, who said my community before saying my mother, who said my community instead of saying my children, my grandchildren.

In the my community call, the biggest portion must belong to the terrible end of time that we live in. A father loves all of his children, but he cares more about the one that is deadly ill and remembers that one more the others. His heart beats more for that one. Thus, we must make good use of this big portion out of the my community call. How? By feeling the pain of the sins and disobedience that people from His (pbuh) community commit in our hearts...

We should not confuse disobedience with kufr (disbelief, blasphemy). The words disobedience and sin are used for believers. Unbelievers are not mentioned for their disobedience or sin; they are mentioned for their kufr and shirk (idol-worship, associating anyone or anything with Allah).

Since disobedience and sin are in question for believers, a person committing them does not lose the quality of becoming a member of the community of the prophet. It is lost only by kufr.

Should we not think this way at this point? If Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were alive, how would he treat his disobedient community? Would he turn them back, or would he try to cure them? Would he refuse them, or would he give advice to them? Every Muslim, especially the ones who want to serve Islam, must be conscious of it.

Both ways of tabligh (conveying the message of Islam) telling the good news of the happiness and the promises and scaring with the torment should work together moderately. Both of them hurt the heart when one is more than the other. Scaring too much results in desperation, whereas promising too much results in laziness and sin.

In fact, the person wishing to help the people of this century should be free of the wrong mentality and destruction of the era. He should get out of the swamp so that he can give hand to other people. This task cannot be fulfilled in the mud... Maybe this task can be fulfilled without enough knowledge; we can learn the things we do not know and transmit them. Or we can take the person to an educated person. However, this task can never be performed without affection.

A person without mercy cannot help people. A person without affection is effortless. A person without mercy will not help others. We cannot breast-feed someone unless we hug him with a mothers affection. However, we can do kill him even from a long distance.