The whole day today my mind had this long question-and-answer session concerning the Muslim Friday prayers and what should change in the way the congregation is spoken to. I had these random questions in need of perspectives, in light of the rising tension emanating from the Allah controversy: <\/p>\n
1. Why should Friday sermons put people to sleep and be used to sow the seeds of hatred and ignorance, rather than promote intercultural and inter-racial and international understanding? Have we not have been having enough of violence on the streets as a consequence of these urgings to divide and destroy? Should people boycott religious hatemongers parading themselves as pious people using house of worships as cells to promote hatred? <\/p>\n
2. Friday khutbahs will remain hypocritical if they do not talk about the hypocrisy of the ruling class in the way they spend money, consume conspicuously, breed hatred, fight endlessly over power and its insanity, the production of high-brow pornography, etc. <\/p>\n
I imagine the jemaah\/congregation will finally wake up if these are addressed, since they are the most meaningful topics relating to the reality of things and ones that place religion as a meaningful human invention to alleviate human problems based on scientific, moral and ethical solutions, grounded in radical-ecumenical tradition and not merely a showcase of human obedience . <\/p>\n
3. Imams delivering engaging khutbahs should also be postmodernists and transculturalists instead of merely becoming parrots to the dictates of the state. <\/p>\n
They should be able to craft their own speech texts true to the ability of their intelligence to share new ideas, promote multiculturalism, bring people of all faiths together, think like a cosmopolitan, well-read in comparative religion, able to extract, extrapolate, and espouse universal values of all religions, be in tune with the pressing matters of the day, speak up against gluttony especially of the rich and the 1 percent of society, and above all do not speak ill of any religion, any race, anyone professing any kind of truth meaningful to them. <\/p>\n
How can we create such imams and replace those out to damage society with them? <\/p>\n
4. Why should the jemaah\/congregation pray for the continued longevity of morally questionable rulers of empires of despots, dictators, demagogues? <\/p>\n
Why not pray that those who hath oppressed the people for generations will arrive at a moksha, a boddhisatva, a catharsis, a stage of spiritual peak performance, a personal enlightenment, an illumination, a deep and poignant realisation that they ought to resign from their ill-constructed positions and worldly matters and devote their lives to ceasing all further attempts to create wealth and sustain power for themselves and their families dynastically, so that the poor will be spared of being further used and abused under a system of tyranny sanctioned by religion that continues to blind people, maim and mutilate, and debilitate the mind, body, and soul of the very purpose of existence to connect and to liberate and to break away from all forms of demagoguery. <\/p>\n
Why cant we be made to see this picture clearly? <\/p>\n
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Excerpt from: The whole day today my mind had this long question-and-answer session concerning the Muslim Friday prayers and what should change in the way the congregation is spoken to. I had these random questions in need of perspectives, in light of the rising tension emanating from the Allah controversy: 1 Continue reading
\nOn the khutbah \/ Friday sermons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"