The call before the system

In the sixth part of the cycle “Towards a sociology of prophecy”, Rudian Zekthi moves from the conceptual frames of the earlier lectures (the groups, the generations, the categories) to the sharpest practical question of all: what happens when Muslims come up against the system that surrounds them? He draws a fundamental distinction between “horizontal dawah” — the call among Muslims and within the religious community — and “vertical dawah”, the one addressed to the structures of power, to the authorities and to the system that runs society.

Zekthi argues that the prophetic method of Muhammad and of the prophets before him was exactly this — the direct challenge to the system of its day — and that this essential component is missing from the contemporary Albanian Muslim call. When we fail to carry out dawah as the prophets did, he argues, we produce justifying answers for our own shortcoming instead of facing reality.

In the second half, Zekthi shifts the analysis to the level of the argument: the system can answer the prophetic call in only two ways — with a counter-argument, or with force. When we keep dawah at the level of argument and doctrine, and not at the level of emotion or personal reaction, the system is left with nothing but to accept the truth or to use force in order to silence it. That, he says, is the challenge set before Albanian Muslims today in Albania and in Kosovo.

Some of the points covered: 📌 Horizontal dawah (among Muslims) against vertical dawah (towards the system) 📌 The prophetic method as a direct challenge to the structures of power 📌 The justifying answers we produce when we do not carry out prophetic dawah 📌 Why the call has to confront the system, not only teach Muslims 📌 The history of the Prophet Muhammad as a model of doctrinal confrontation 📌 Moving the confrontation onto the level of the argument 📌 The system can answer only with a counter-argument or with force 📌 Applying it to Albanian Muslims in Albania and in Kosovo

📍 Prishtina Talks