Khutba Juma Arabic

[Irati Klute]

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Opinion2: Of course I will. But let us also keep in mind the purpose of the Khutbah. The goal of the Khutbah is to remind and educate the people. We also have to understand the context of the statements by the Imams or their schools. They lived at a time where Arabic was the language of the day (just like English is today), where Islam was the superpower. This is totally different from today where even Arabic speaking Muslims cannot guarantee that their children will speak Arabic, and where learning the language is not readily accessible to many.

He [the Prophet] disliked that people gather before the Friday prayer for the purpose of seeking knowledge and studying. Rather, he ordered us to busy ourselves with voluntary prayer and to listen to the Khutbah (The Chapter of the Play of Iblis with the People of Hadith)

Born and raised in Lebanon, Hlayhel began attending study circles at his local mosque when he was ten. He came to the United States at 17 and studied electrical engineering at the University of Houston. At its MSA, he met Sh Yasir Qadhi and worked together to raise Islamic awareness on campus. Hlayhel studied traditional sciences of Aqeedah (Islamic creed), Fiqh (Islamic law) and Nahw (Arabic grammar) under Sh Waleed Basyouni and Sh Waleed Idriss Meneese among others. After settling in Phoenix AZ, he worked tirelessly, in the capacity of a board member then a chairman, to revive the then dead AZ chapter of CAIR in order to face the growing Islamophobia in that state and to address the resulting civil right violations. Today, he's considered the second founder of a strong CAIR-AZ. In addition, Hlayhel is a part-time imam at the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley in Phoenix, husband and father of four. His current topics of interest include positive Islam, youth coaching, and countering Islamophobia.

I completely disagree. #1 Quran are the words of Allah. #2. Khutbah is not the words of Allah although it contains ayats and hadith of Rasulullah (SAW). Most of the talk is conversational arabic language. The 2 are not the same.

Actually the sunnah is to pray whatever Allah has written for you until the Imam goes to give a speech. There is nothing that says that it must be four. One can do as many as one wishes. Shaykh Albaani use to do that due to the hadith:

Communities could start coming up with creative ways to gradually phase folks into understanding the khutba in Arabic. The Arabic khutbas could start off really simple (and from what I understand, the ideal khutba is short and clear, not long and elaborate), with word for word translations printed out and distributed. There could even be classes at the masjid to help understand the upcoming khutbah in Arabic! (though not right before the jumuah prayer as explained in the article)

When people abandon the language of the Quran than ignorance spreads. Now a days all these countries like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other minority muslims outside Arab world muslims do not work on getting there children and themselves educated in Arabic. They will send them happily to a course for English language but when it comes to Arabic language nobody wants to do anything at all because it does not earn you dollars.

Is there a problem? are you questioning the title or the effort of the person who is spending 4 or 6 years of his time? I understand your intention was not to belittle anyone, but lets appreciate the sacrifice and effort our brothers and sisters are putting to learn deen and spread inshaAllah.

No Alim or Mufti claims to be a no it all of Islam after the time period within which they go to a proper madrasah to learn the deen as no doctor or lawyer claims to know all of medicine or law by going to their respective schools. These schools give these individuals the proper tools to understand the primary texts better than the lay person and thats why we learn from them and go to them for advice. And Alim or Mufti is a degree they get just like you got a degree from whatever school you graduated from.

And the point is right, Arabic as a language has no significance in and of itself. Like modern day Arabic of _____ dialect is very different from Quranic Arabic.
Rather the prestige it holds is due to Islam and it being the religion of Allah.

I am not talking about Khutbah or Arab people, I am talking about Arabic language, and it is indeed superior because Allah has chosen it (for whatever reason). Which means that its not that arabic was superior, hence Allah choose it, instead since Allah choose it, so it has become superior.

I think you are missing something very important which is how to differentiate between things that are cultural and between things that are part of Islam. Arabic food and clothes are cultural and not related to Islam, while the khutbah is part of Islam and has nothing to do with culture. See the difference.

The issue here brother Mezba is not your overall opinion that the khutbah should be in a language that the people can understand, because many of us agree with you on that, but the problem is the way you are dealing with this issue and the irrational arguments which you are trying to use to prove that point.

Learning Arabic is compulsory for every Muslim? Where is that written? Someone who writes such thing should ask himself how committed he is to understanding Islam. So, a grad student considers Islam as a way of life. Continues his or her studies, learns how to make salah properly along with the every day demands of work, school and family life. This person, or a carpenter, nurse or postal worker is not negligent if they do not pursue learning Arabic. I must share with you the example of a man from my community. His Arabic was not very good. However, he was a excellent husband and father. Every member of the community respected him. A professional businessman, he constantly donated his services to members of the community. He died at the age of 55. Although our community had less than 50 regular members, more than 400 people attended his janazah. His generosity, excellent manners and steadfastness was known by all. He exemplified what it meant to be a good Muslim.

This issue is not a new one. When the Sahabaa and there successors went to different non-Arabic speaking regions when Islam spread, what did they practice? I remember reading that they always stuck to Arabic and this encouraged the locals to learn Arabic. When one learns Arabic Quran will be understood and mor important will move the hearts not just te brains. The translation can never capture the essence of Quran.

You are right we need to stop discussing this fiqhi issues with disputes and learn the deen more. And anyways we are not faqih so we do not know jack about this issue from the fiqhi point of view. So why waste our time discussing this when scholars are there to discuss this issue.

The earlier scholars and current day scholars have spent there life learning various madhabs and allhamdullilah are very God fearing people. Even if they are mistaken in there Ijtihad still they have devoted there lifes in the service of this deen.

Suddenly you have some tinpot idiot coming onto the internet calling them stupid for upholding an opinion while he himself does not know jack about Islam. Forget Islam they do not even know how to read the Quran correctly.

If I may help steer the conversation back to its original intent :) The purpose was not to create an atmosphere of dispute!! Indeed, our religion has prohibited that we indulge in vain arguments and useless debates. Rather, the purpose was to shed light on this matter by providing some background and some reasoning behind those opinions. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I was approached several times after khutbas and i would always decline arguing about this topic. But this time was different since I immediately noticed that the brother was open-minded.

The way things are going, it looks more like a permanent or at least a long-term situation. Off course, things can change. And once they do, we should be ready to switch back to Arabic. Also, reverting back to Arabic could be done surgically (if a community learns Arabic then it can be done in their Masjid).

But people who have directly dealt with this issue know this is NOT easy. One time I gave the Eid Khutba about the importance of Arabic (the khutba was in English off course, otherwise only few would have understood the importance of Arabic!!). Few weeks after Eid we started an Arabic class which had meager participation (though I had people come after the khutba and ask me if the Masjid had an Arabic program!!).

Unless you spent time and watch this. It will be futile to keep blogging. People who are responsible like you when they write something should be careful. I see a lot of bashing going on and this is not healthy.

I think that if the khateeb does his intro in Arabic by starting out the first khutbah with khutbat Al-Hajah which is the sunnah, and then switch to English. Then in the second khutbah he would do the same by starting out with Arabic and switching to English, so this way he gives part of the khutbah in Arabic and he also conveys the message to the people who would be able to understand him in most of the khutbah which is in English. This is what I personally do when I give the khutbah, and it seems to be the best approach, because in reality, both khutbahs would have contained verses in Arabic to make it qualify as a khutbah for those who say it is a requirement, and it is also in English so that people can understand. I also mention the verses and hadiths in Arabic and then say their translation in English, so that would qualify as using Arabic, and then people would still understand when I translate the verse or hadith, and this also might help them, with time, to learn Arabic bit by bit during the khutbahs.

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