A stoRy to shaRE

Assalamualaikum,
What a busy week it has been..i haven't even got time to 'blog' something out here. Sorry guys..hmm actually i have loads of stories to tell, just don't know which one to start with. Maybe i'll tell u this one..
last 2 weeks i went to this talk by Zakir Naik, he's a brilliant man, he can explain Islam with such simplicity that u'll be caught wondering why ur so scared of telling people about our wonderful religion, why u've been ashamed of ur practices when in fact Islam is something u should be proud of. Islam will definitely be appealing to anyone as long as u know how to go about it.
Zakir was telling us how he left the US just a few days before Sept 11th, thankfully cause he said if not he'd definitely be in trouble..having a beard and everything..they'd totally think he's a terrorist.(btw the talk was about Jihad n Terrorism) Then he came over to Australia, arriving at Sydney airport. He had a cassette of one of his talks on Jihad in his bag,, and guess what's on the cover?? It was a picture of a gun! So when an officer saw that, he was shocked and asked Zakir if he is into Jihad.. Zakir immediately responded by saying that he's not a terrorist just because there's a picture of a gun on his cassette...then he asked that man, who was wearing a gun, what if he was in a middle of a crowd with that gun and nobody knows that he's an officer? People would think that he was a terrorist, won't they? Therefore, even the officer may be suspected of terror or "jihad" , depending on the situation..thus Muslims are just like that, caught in a situation where people are assuming that we're into terrorism just cause 0.02% of Muslims are doing it (that's just my rough estimate..hehe)
Anyways, Zakir went on telling that officer what jihad is all about..explaining to him that 'jihad' simply means 'to strive'..it does not promote terrorism or such..so in other words anyone on this earth maybe practising 'jihad' if they're striving or working hard to achieve something. He told that man that even he can be in 'jihad'. That man was absolutely astounded by that..the only difference to muslims is that we have 'jihad fii-sabilillah'- striving in the way of Allah. Hmm..wonder how the concept of Jihad in Islam has been manipulated to be parallel with terrorism when in reality that's what we do everyday- striving for whatever we want to achieve. Now don't get me started about the media- CNN,Time etc...
:( it's so frustrating!to think of how people are led to believe these misleading informations.
Anyway, back to Zakir, while he was explaining this to the officer, some of the other officers heard it and decided to listen..and u know what?!? Zakir ended up having this mini-talk with them, telling them stuff about Islam- how Islam promotes peace and despises violence etc etc..
Howszat?!? totally magnificent...if ur confident in Allah's guidance, nothing can stop u from spreading the word about Islam..a person who was earlier suspected to be a terrorist, ended up being listened to instead..that's just one example we can look up to.
We often neglect the chances we have everyday to spread the truth about Islam,, there are so many opportunities, it's just our own effort that's lacking. but always, da'wah in 'hikmah', not force or punishment..emphasize the positives, not the negatives...encourage, not frighten...portray them in ur behaviour, don't be ashamed...
and for the rest,, we must hope for Allah's hidayah...
The truth is out there..but not everyone knows...and for us who know,,it's a task we should challenge ourselves to commit to- to spread the wonderful wonders of Islam!
Wallahu'alam...