I recently attended Friday prayers at a village mosque. The imam devoted the entire sermon to lecturing the worshippers. It is good to admonish people, but villagers usually have more pressing problems that are seldom addressed in Friday sermons.
People living in the countryside complain of unique problems. There is the injustice being done to women who, under local traditions, find themselves forced to accept whatever is dictated to them. They are sometimes denied their inheritance, which is a right guaranteed to them under Islam, and their property is taken away from them by parents and husbands who rob them even of their meager salaries. Women are forced into marriages and young girls obliged to take husbands older than their fathers. There are also conditions of abject poverty, rampant unemployment among the young and other social problems typical of rural life.
In rural areas people lack a forum to discuss their problems. Not all people here spend time reading newspapers and watching television. The mosque is the most convenient place to debate these issues.
When I told a friend of these observations, he said he once attended Friday prayers at a mosque where 90 percent of the worshippers were expatriate laborers. The entire sermon was devoted to vacationing, with the imam advising people how to spend the long summer months.
The mosque could play a major role as a place for people to debate their daily affairs, especially pressing problems. These need to be discussed by involving every one. Imams must be aware of people’s concerns, and work to expose and seek solutions to problems.
It is an effort that requires qualified imams capable of doing their job very well. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs must be commended for its recent moves aimed at reforming the mosques by sacking the unqualified imams and rehabilitating others. It is a continuous process aimed at restoring the genuine role of the mosque as an institution for enlightening and educating people.
In many rural areas the mosque continues to serve as the only available media organ capable of educating a people plagued with problems that have been allowed to build up over the years as a result of local customs and traditions.
Arab News From the Local Press 16 July 2003
