KHUTAB IV: 20. KHUTBAH IN OTHER THAN ARABIC LANGUAGE

20. KHUTBAH IN OTHER THAN ARABIC LANGUAGE

(ANUMA 5 MARCH 2010)

Brothers in Islam,

          All of you are aware that the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. delivered his khut.bah on the Jum’ah prayers in Arabic language, and I have mentioned earlier that his khut.bahs were not recorded as they contained mostly Qur’anic verses. This is with the exception of his farewell sermons where he delivered on the top of Mt. Rahmah witness by approximately one hundred thousand people.

          After the death of the Prophet the companions kept delivering the Jum’ah khut.bahs in Arabic, their language, even in the land of non-Arabs. This tradition kept going on in Indonesia until the turn of the 20the century. After the country’s independence 1945 the government of Indonesia formed a cabinet including a ministry of religious affairs with its statement that the khut.bah could be delivered in other than Arabic with the exception of the h.amdalah (saying al-h.amdu lillāh), shahādah (bearing witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) and s.alawāt to the Prophet (asking Allah’s blessing for the Prophet).

          This process of transition was very slow in rural areas, but in cities it was highly accepted, even by using local languages rather than Indonesian, the official language of Indonesia. For example, in 1957 the khat.īb in the mosque of Surakarta, one of the centres of learning in Central Java, instead of using the Indonesian language, he used the local Javanese language.

This issue of using non-Arabic in the khut.bah is not new, but has been dealt with by the fuqahā’ (Muslim jurists) long time ago. They have three different views on the possibility of delivering the khut.bah in other than Arabic language, as follows:

a.     It has to be in Arabic language for the person who is able to do it, except if the whole members of the congregation do not understand Arabic, then he should deliver it in their language (until they learn Arabic). This is the right view according to the Shāfi‘ī school and some of the jurists of the H.anbalī school.

The argument of this view is as follows: 

(1) It has to be in Arabic for the person who is able to do it is through qiyās (analogy) with reciting the Qur’an where there will be no reward unless it is read in Arabic. (The weakness of this argument is that the Qur’an without being recited in Arabic would not become an evidence of the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. (mu‘jizah), whereas the purpose of the khut.bah is to give advices, to remind people of their Islamic duties, to praise Allah and to ask blessings to Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., the consideration here is the meaning rather then the wording, and therefore there would be reward in delivering in other than Arabic).

      (2) It is possible in other than Arabic language if he is unable to speak it, as the khut.bah is advice and reminder to people and therefore should be delivered in their language. (The weakness of this argument is that if it is so, then he does not have to deliver it in Arabic, although he speaks it).

b.       The second view is that has to be in Arabic, although the congregation does not understand it. This is the view of the Mālikī school, and the prevalent view in the H.anbalī school.  The argument is based on the sunnah, athar, and ma‘qūl (what is logical, reasonable), as follows:

  (1) The Prophets.a.w. said    « صَلُّوا كَمَا رَأَيْتُمُونِي أُصَلِّي »(“Pray the way you see me praying’) (Reported by Mālik ibn al-H.uwayrith). As the Prophet delivered the khut.bah in Arabic, we also have to do the same. (The weakness of this argument is:   the khut.bah is not part of the prayer. The Prophet did not say, “Deliver the khut.bah the way you see me doing it.”).

  (2) The s.ah.ābah (companions of the Prophet delivered the khut.bah in Arabic, and we should follow them. (The weakness of this argument is that Arabic was their language and perhaps the only language they knew).

  (3) The khut.bah is an obligatory citation and has to be in Arabic, such as the tashahud, and takbīrat al-ih.rām. (The weakness of this argument is that there is difference between the khut.bah and the prayer itself; unlike the tashahhud and takbīrat al-ih.rām there is no specified formula for the khut.bah, as the purpose it is to give advice with any language.)

c.       The third view, it is recommended to be in Arabic language. This is apparently the view of the H.anafī school which allows the khut.bah to be delivered in other than Arabic, and this is also the other view among the Shāfi‘ī school. The argument of this view is that the purpose of the khut.bah is to give advice, and therefore can be delivered in any language (Delivering in Arabic is better, as it is the language chosen by Allah for His Book and spoken by His Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and his companions).

          According to the fatwa (personal legal opinion) of the late Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm  Āl al-Shaykh and اللَّجْنَةُ الدَّائِمَةُ لِلْبُحُوْثِ الْعِلْمِيَّةِ وَاْلإفْتَاءِ فِي اْلمَمْلَكَةِ اْلعَرَبِيَّةِ السُّعُوْدِيَّة (the Saudi Arabian Permanent Board of Scientific Research and Fatāwā) which is chosen by Shaykh Muhammad ibn S.ālih. al-‘Uthaymīn, the khut.bah should be delivered in Arabic, unless the whole congregation does not understand it, then it should be delivered also in another language after Arabic. In some mosques such as Omar mosque in Melbourne and Canberra Mosque in Yarralumla the first khut.bah is in Arabic, the second in English. This was also what we did in Edmonton, Canada, where the majority of the members of the congregation were Arabs from Lebanon and Egypt, whereas others from Indian sub-continent and Turkey.

This is the most common in many mosques in Australia: the Arabic language or the ethnic language of the organisers of the mosques in the first khut.bah then the English language in the second. In the Turkish or Albanian mosque, the first khut.bah is in Turkish or Albanian, then in English in the second. In some others, the English translation of the khut.bah is delivered either before or after the Jum’ah prayer, and therefore this English translation is not considered part of the khut.bah. Whether we are following   the H.anafī school where the khut.bah is delivered in non-Arabic, or with dual languages, Arabic and English, or even in Arabic only, there should be no problem.

The H.anafī madhhab (school of Islamic jurisprudence) is in general more accepted in many issues, such as the possibility of paying zakat al-fit.r with its value, money, so that it would be easy to carry and to distribute to the poor. Otherwise, we have to carry bags of flour or rice to the mosque to be distributed to the poor who need something else than rice and flour. They have to sell it to buy something else. Imagine if thousands of people each of them bring a bag of flour or rice to the mosque as zakat al-fit.r, we shall have problem in storing them. We would need a storehouse just for that day, and we have to distribute them to the needy on the same day.

Allah knows best. May this short essay give some light on the position of the Jum‘ah prayer among Muslims.  

Brothers in Islam,

There is a very important short story which gives a moral lesson, especially for us in these days, as follows:

An Arabic reading book used in elementary schools in Egypt in the early 1940s, was etitled  القِرَاءَةُ الرَّشِيْدَةُ لِلْمَدَاِرسِ اْلإبْتِدَائِية  (“The Proper Reading for Elementary Schools”), I do not remember which volume. It contains an interesting story, but I do not remember the title of the story. There were two pictures in the story. In one picture two rams (goats) were fighting, and in the other picture one ram was laying down, and the other ram was stepping on it. Without reading the story you would make a conclusion that one of the two fighting rams won the fight and stepped its legs on the defeated one.

After reading the story we found out that what we have thought was wrong. Actually, there were two separate stories about the two rams. In both pictures the two rams met in the middle of a very narrow footbridge (a pathway), so that they could not pass each other. As none of them would yield, they fought until both of them fell into the narrow valley (canyon, ravine, gorge, chasm) and perished.

As for the second picture, one of the ram yielded, lay down, and let the other ram pass by stepping on it. Both rams were safe. A good story, but who would be like be like the ram that yielded? Here lies the problem.