Most of the Friday sermons these days address issues of little concern. Those who deliver the sermons seem to concentrate on distancing themselves from issues of public interest and focusing instead on topics that put people to sleep. People go to Friday prayers and listen to the sermon in order to learn something useful but most of the time, they come out of the mosque without even remembering what was said. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether the sermon was prepared yesterday or copied from a text several hundred years old. Some sermons are so boring that people find themselves struggling to keep their eyes and minds open rather than nodding off from boredom in a sacred place on a blessed day.
Given this situation, I would like to direct a few questions to his excellency the minister of Islamic affairs under whose supervision the mosques operate. It is time the Friday sermon played its intended role as a powerful means for educating Muslims and making them aware of their roles as active members of society.
My first question is whether we have the right to ask what has become of the traditional roles that the sermons have played in Muslim society. We want to know why Friday sermons are no longer addressing issues of direct concern to the public? Why do people leave the mosque without benefiting from what they have heard? Which is more important — a sermon about the general state of international Muslim affairs or one relevant to the neighborhood and its problems?
Should the sermon call our attention to acts of bravery by our brothers, the mujahideen, in distant lands or discuss problems such as the theft of public money, drug abuse, bribery, juvenile delinquency, traffic accidents and all the other things which plague our society?
People feel discouraged and uninterested when the entire subject of the sermon deals with things which are of no immediate concern to them.
We ask these questions of the ministry because it is the body directly responsible and capable of addressing this matter.
It is the ministry which controls the mosques and it is the ministry that selects the sermon topics for Friday prayers.
Arab News From the Local Press 13 May 2003
