Do our Friday sermons really address the reality of our daily lives?
Muhammad Shirky
It is known that God Almighty has specifically mentioned Friday prayer in a surah of the Holy Qur’an, while explaining its importance in the lives of His faithful servants, and the proof of this importance is His command, Glory be to Him, the Most High, to strive for it, and to abandon selling, as the word “selling” has a connotation that includes all the different activities that This would cause one to miss this prayer, which is distinguished by its two sermons, and to perform its two rak’ahs out loud, contrary to the confidentiality of performing the daily prayers.
There is no doubt that the most important thing in this weekly prayer, which expiates the sins of the servants during the week, while the five daily prayers expiate what is between them, are the two sermons, including the guidance they contain, which the preachers provide based on the two main sources of the final message addressed to the worlds, which are: the Book of God Almighty, and the Sunnah of His Messenger. May God bless him and grant him peace, and may God Almighty bless him and grant him peace. There is no right for preachers to rely on these two sources with a kind of tight connection and good coordination between them when presenting the issues of daily life to them at a specific time, which does not exceed an hour in most cases. This requires consideration of adherence to this period of time, making optimal use of it, and experience in adapting it to… The nature and manner of dealing with those issues that are the subject of the speakers’ presentation and analysis.
Before talking about the nature of the two sermons, it is necessary to talk about the qualifications of the preachers, noting that public speaking, first and foremost, is a talent, like all the talents that God Almighty bestows upon whomever He wishes from His servants as a blessing and blessing from Him. Not everyone who rises to the Friday pulpits has talent, and it is a commanding matter in which only the arrogant are stubborn. What supports the talent of oratory is, firstly, the regional voice that is unmatched by any orator, and it is of course not natural or affective, and secondly, the eloquence of the tongue, and the eloquence of expression, and they come from knowledge and knowledge of the Arabic language that is clear in its pure form, structure, clarification, eloquence, expressions, and styles, and these are among the gains that It is acquired through learning, practice and practice. There is also no possibility for a preacher to have experience with the words of eloquent and eloquent people, such as poets, orators, writers, and messengers…which requires him to possess the skill of memorization and retrieval, for which his memory must be tamed to the forest of adulthood with the quality of a preserving, capturing memory, just as it is tamed to memorize the words of God Almighty. Glory be to Him, and the words of His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, while necessarily memorizing what is known from the texts related to the rules and controls of the Arabic language, along with poetry, proverbs, and other things, and acquiring the skill of understanding, analysis, and synthesis. Whoever does not make use of what he has deposited in his retentive memory in times of necessity and need, and in the demands of the position, such as poems, evidence, and examples…, there is no need for him to exhaust it with a reserve preserved in it that will not assist him in times of need and necessity. It is also necessary to know necessarily from the sciences of the Qur’an and the sciences of Hadith, and what is necessarily known from the rest of the various sciences required by the task of public speaking.
If these are some of the skill qualifications that are both gifted and acquired, then the preacher must have qualities and characteristics, the most important of which is fear of God Almighty, and it is required that he be honest, free of affectation, artificiality, and hypocrisy, taking into account the monitoring of the one who knows the secret and what is hidden, Glory be to Him, the Most High. To avoid the desire to attract attention, and to attract expressions of praise from people, which corrupt the nature, bring pride and arrogance, and encourage the riding of vanity, then it will be said to its companion on the Day of Resurrection: You lied, you have given a speech, so that it may be said of you that you are an articulate orator. It has been said, so enter the Fire. Sincerity in fear of God Almighty is not what is established in the heart without belief in action.
As for the two Friday sermons, the first must serve as a theoretical framework based on recalling the texts of the Holy Qur’an and the Noble Hadith, with accuracy and experience in combining them, and linking them tightly as required by the subject of the sermon, while documenting those texts with the necessary documentation, and being exposed to the sayings of the people of interpretation and the sayings of the commentators of the hadiths. Briefly, and without elaboration that would distract from the intent. This is a prelude to presenting the issues to be addressed, while disposing of them well according to a logical progression that is not denied by the mind, nor can it be doubted. After the stage of presentation comes the stage of conveying it to the living reality, so that those who hear the sermon will be aware of the link between what was brought to their hands and their living reality of texts of the Holy Qur’an, with the sayings of its commentators, and texts of the Noble Hadith with the sayings of its commentators, with the opinions of the people of knowledge and knowledge in relation to them. And in living reality. Every sermon that has no connection to people’s living reality, whether that is in the narrowest area that embraces them locally, or in the broadest part of their homelands, or in the general world, there is no need to waste sacred time on it. This gradation takes into account what the circumstances and occasions require, and what preoccupies people and they want to know the religion’s opinion on it. This prevents them from falling into confusion about something that is inherent in their living reality, and about which there are conflicting opinions, the authenticity of which cannot be certain except what is correct. The Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the opinions of the people of knowledge, experience, and knowledge agreed.
It is inevitable that those who attend the sermon will leave in a state other than the one they were in before hearing it, affected, benefited, knowledgeable, knowledgeable, admonishing, considerate, upright, and well-mannered…, and there is no benefit to be expected from a sermon if someone who hears it leaves empty-handed.
After what we mentioned, we pose a question that imposes itself, which is: Do our Friday sermons really address our living reality locally, nationally, nationally, and globally? It is a question that requires related questions that branch out from it: Do we have preachers at the level of rhetoric, and with the required specifications of piety, talent, science, knowledge, and know-how? Does it provide them with the due amount of freedom to address the issues of living reality in a timely manner, and without restrictions, conditions or pressure? Are the interests and concerns of mosque-goers really taken into account, or are they forced to listen to what has no connection to their living reality, as if they were on isolated islands? Is it not in the issues of living reality that the authorities in charge of Friday pulpits prohibit preachers from using them in their sermons, or do they classify some of them as prohibited, while permitting others? Do these parties really take into account the conditions of living reality, or are they keen to force preachers to address issues only on known occasions, and then throw the ropes in the dark? Do these parties know that many of the sermons delivered to the gathering by a wide segment of preachers are neither satisfactory nor satisfactory? If she denies or lies about this, then she has a challenge to face, or a bet if she so desires, by surveying national public opinion in the manner at her disposal through questionnaires distributed to representative samples or interviews with some of them, and I am certain that I will win the bet if I accept it.
I will give an example that is not intended to be exhaustive. The matter relates to a Friday sermon I attended last week, the topic of which was to talk about the virtue of Friday, and among the things mentioned in it was the encouragement to arrive early to the mosque to arrive at the five hours early: the hour of offering a camel, the hour of offering a cow, the hour of offering a sheep, and the hour of offering a chicken. And the hour of offering the egg. The reality of the situation is that the delay in opening the mosques today, in most cases only permits the offering of chicken or eggs, and then peace be upon receiving the reward for the camel, cow, and sheep. Those who decided to close the doors of the mosques until less than an hour before the appointed time may be justified. Friday prayer, because they did so out of caution against violations that might occur according to their estimates, noting that some of those who want the reward of camels, cows, and sheep, and they are mostly elderly people, come early to it, and they sit in its vicinity with their camels, cows, and sheep until the time when others join them with their chickens and eggs for an hour. He opened it. What prevents the reward for coming early to the mosques to gather is that the desire of most people is for the holiday to be there, and this is still their demand, waiting for it to be fulfilled one day instead of a holiday on the Jewish Sabbath and on a Christian Sunday.
Due to studying on Friday, the majority of educated young people are deprived of attending her sermon and prayers, and at the time of its arrival, they are either returning from their educational institutions to their homes to pour whatever couscous they can find – which is all that Friday has come to mean to them – or they are returning to their institutions in order to attend classes. Evening periods. Is this timing, which prevents the presence of the majority of educated young people from attending, the preachers’ encouragement for them to arrive early to arrive? The situation is as it is today. Have you taken into account the participation and role of mosques in raising religious education in addition to the formal upbringing and education carried out by educational institutions, which includes little religious upbringing and a lot of secular upbringing? This is the segment that is supposed to be more targeted. What is presented in Friday sermons?
Among the preacher’s sermon last Friday was the encouragement to sit in the first rows, considering them the best rows, and the encouragement to stay away from the last rows, considering them the worst rows. Note that the encouragement to stay away from the last rows no longer has any motive, and now women have floors in mosques that prevent them from mingling with men, which is It did not impose hatred on the rows close to them.
Finally, it remains to point out that those who attend Friday sermons are not homogeneous in terms of their levels of knowledge, which is why we find them, and in many abbreviations, two segments: a segment that is hostage to illiteracy, and does not benefit from any of the sermons delivered to it, especially if it is devoid of colloquialism, which is not It is good for preachers to resort to it, even if its preachers dislike it. An educated segment spends time sermonizing if the subject matter is poor, there is no connection or connection between it and the urgent issues of the living reality, and it is weak in performance, interspersed with linguistic, expressive, and stylistic shortcomings, and becomes increasingly bored with it by stuffing speech and unnecessary repetition. Benefit or need for it… and other things that people talk about and criticize the sermons at their tables after finishing prayer.
We note that the authorities responsible for these sermons have dismissed a number of preachers from the pulpit, and they are mostly from the education family. They volunteered to perform this religious duty in addition to their educational duty, in order to address topics that they consider prohibited for preachers, even if they are imposed by the reality of life, and this is what It harms the platforms.
These are questions that perhaps national public opinion would like to hear from the authorities in charge of the Friday pulpits, convincing answers to them, God willing. Otherwise, Luqman’s house will remain as it is until God decrees something that was already in effect.