QUEZON CITY (MindaNews / 26 March) It is another case of dj vu or plain coincidence that as we talked about the subject of bayan (speech) and its grade as shown in the tradition of discourses including khutbah (preaching) last Friday, there was a report from the Arab News two days ago about a survey in several mosques in Saudi Arabia wherein 53% of those who attend do not remember the Friday sermon.

Accordingly, over half of Friday sermon listeners do not remember the subject of the sermon. This is according to the survey conducted by the King Abdulaziz National Dialogue Center (KANDC). Also, two-third of the 865 respondents picked randomly from the Kingdoms 13 regions said that sermons had impacted their lives.

But about 52.4% of respondents wanted sermons to focus on social issues, while more than 74% said they do not seek guidance from prayer leaders, indicating according to the report, a lack of personal communication between preachers and their guidance. Although about 60.4% of participants said they found the sermons appealing, around 31.6% said preachers encourage them to deal with personal and social issues in a positive manner.

According to Ismael Maritheri of the King Abdulaziz University, the significance of Friday sermons in changing society and renewing spiritual energy is undeniably important. But there is a need, he said, to train spiritual leaders to deliver more appealing sermons in order to attract people. He also said there must be an element of information and enlightenment as well as conducive methods for personal, social and family development. Finally, Maritheri said preachers who deliver sermons must be able to inform, motivate and enlighten people to achieve success in this world and in the hereafter.

We are quite sad but a bit elated with the findings of the King Abdulaziz National Dialogue Center. We had felt the same even long time ago the limitation on how discourses or khutubah are being conducted in many countries. What could be the most representative if not the case of supposedly holy sites in Saudi Arabia; yet the statistics seemingly confirmed what we had long felt?

Truth and bayan

Hence, this is not to raise our selves. Like many others, we had been, in our own simple way, trying to raise the bar of informed and enlightened discourses; wed long struggled to fully reflect the wisdom of the tradition of bayan or speech in the Holy Quran.

As we had already provided a simple frame about the relationship between bayan and truth, we just would like to reiterate that bayan, in a sense, could be considered as instrument of truth. According to the Quran, truth is from thy Lord so be not at all in doubt (Al-baqarah: 147).

Bayan then should be anchored on truth and pinpoints truth. There is supposedly no element that should interfere in the process since there is only one truth. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) reminded us: speak the truth even if it is bitter (murran). The notion of murran or bitter is something that is intended to heal the sickness of the heart that is, to refine and purify it.

You know men, unlike animals, operate in a kind of moral pendulum that sways from one point to another. There is much dynamics in the moral make-up of a person. Hence, there are times when one may develop the sickness of the heart. Truth is the way into which the heart is softened and thus be purified so that it regains its original constitution as seat of spiritual essence. What is directed, then, is actually the purification and the removal of blemishes that can incidentally develop in ones being. Hence, truth is the anchor of the whole corpus of tradition as far as discourse like khutbah is concerned.

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CRUCIBLE: Truth and Khutbah