IN his recent Friday (August 4) khutbah (sermon) in Morgan Hill, California, imam Ilyas Anwar commented on the current and fast-spreading practice of rating khutbah. We are all familiar with the rating of lectures and professors, now the norm in American campuses, with the results scrutinised not just by would-be students but more importantly, faculty review committees.

In my profession, such evaluations are standard practice. To secure one’s Continuing Medical Education (CME) certificates, one has to complete those evaluations. Among the questions asked are whether the speaker had fully disclosed all possible conflicts of interests (monetary as well as professional, as being paid for or employed by a drug company), and how effective the presentation was, and the extent to which it would improve one’s current practice and understanding of the subject matter. 

It would be illuminating if we were to apply this practice to the Malaysian ulama. Imagine if they were to begin with: “Assalamualaikum! I am Hadi Awang, leader of the opposition Islamist party PAS and recipient of funds from 1MDB!” Or, “I am mufti Albakri and I was paid full-time by the Muhyiddin administration.” Yet another, “I am Dr Abu Bakar and I am well compensated by Citibank to certify its banking products as Islamic and meeting maqasid shariah.” That would certainly help their listeners’ clarify the speakers’ perspectives and then judge their presentations accordingly.

As for rating khutbah, imam Ilyas had this to say: The khutbah is an integral part of the Friday congregational zohor (noon) prayer. The regular zohor prayer has four rakaat (parts) but the Friday congregational prayer is truncated to only two, with the khutbah given before the prayer proper in lieu of the first two rakaat.

Thus the khutbah being part of the prayer, the essence then becomes how does one evaluate the impact or value of prayer? With lectures, listeners’ evaluations are appropriate, and those valuations could be useful to potential advertisers and sponsors. Or in the case with Malaysian YouTube ulama and lecturers (as well as Christian television evangelists), donations from their listeners.

Evaluating a sermon could be seen as that of a prayer, with the focus shifting to the listener or “prayee”, the one performing the prayer. As with my CME courses, the pertinent question should be how does the sermon impact us as listeners, and how would we then be changed in our approach to solving our problems of daily living or dealing with our fellow human beings.

Thus when the khatib (person who delivers a sermon) quotes a particular Quranic verse, that should prompt us to ponder such questions as when, where and under what circumstances it was revealed. The ensuing enquiry should also lead us to extrapolate the verse’s relevance to our current challenges and everyday lives. In what ways are our current conditions similar to those existing during the Prophet’s time and in what way are they different? If the former, then the verse could be directly applicable. If not, then we would have to use our intellect and treat verses as being only metaphorical or illustrative, and then expend our intellectual efforts to use the verse only as the basis (qiyas) and not precedential. Ancient scholars did precisely that; blind imitators or literal followers they were not. Hence their often vigorous differences in views as illustrated by imam Al Ghazzali’s excoriating criticisms of Ibn Sina.

The khutbah should be the beginning or stimulus for one’s subsequent journey of enquiry. Treated as such we would less likely to fall asleep during the sermon and apt to pay more attention as well as stimulate us to pursue the topic further.

Consider the so-called “sword verse” (9:5) revealed soon after the Prophet’s migration to Medina and was striving to build the first Muslim community in an already well-established plural one that remained hostile and threatening to him and the new faith, “…[T]hen fight the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize and beleaguer them…” Compare that verse to the earlier Meccan one, 2:256: “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” Such contrast if not outright contradiction! The former commands us not to turn the other cheek when someone threatens to decapitate you; the latter, to be more tolerant and inclusive.

Ancient scholars used the concept of abrogation to reconcile such differences, as with later Medina verses “abrogating” earlier Meccan ones. Though well-established and accepted, such an approach would not comport with our concept of Allah as all-knowing and all-perfect. Allah does not need any subsequent “editing” of His revelations!

More fruitful would be to ponder why Allah would reveal such seemingly contradictory messages. Since Allah is all-wise and all-perfect, such discrepancies must be apparent, not real. It is for us to use our intellect endowed by Him to discern those differences. That would be much more fruitful than merely and mindlessly reciting a verse or hadith. Granted, when a Quranic verse is recited beautifully with faithful rendition of its exquisite tajweed (linguistic rules), that can bring tears of joy and exaltation to believers, akin to a well-executed aria to opera-goers.

By all means rate a sermon but do so on its impact on us. It should lead us to better ourselves, for that indeed is Allah’s command. – August 9, 2023.

* M. Bakri Musa reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.