AMMAN — A section about “obedience to
rulers” repeated by several different imams during the unified Friday sermons
stirred up activists, who took to social media to protest the selection of the
topic.
اضافة اعلان
Several imams quoted a hadith, or saying of
Prophet Mohammad, whose authenticity is questionable, that calls for people to
obey their rulers ‘even if they take your money or flog your back’ during the
Friday sermon.
“The Friday sermon called for obedience to
the ruler, which is purely Sharia-based; however using the phrase ‘even if he takes
your money or flogs your back’ by many imams was what provoked anger about the
prayer,” an imam based in Zarqa, who preferred to be anonymous, told
Jordan
News over the phone.
“Given the present circumstances, including
high prices and unemployment, some political parties contested the controversial
phrase,” said the imam.
The Preaching and Guidance Directorate of
the
Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs transmits the unified Friday sermon
script to Imams on a weekly basis via WhatsApp. Imams receive the script on Wednesday
evening or Thursday morning, according to the source from Zarqa.
It is customary that the Ministry chooses
the topic of each Friday sermon, but the quoted phrase was not included in the
script the imams received, he added. Nonetheless, several imams quoted the same
hadith anyway.
The hadith in question comes from Sahih
Muslim, one of the six major collections of hadith. According to Hudhaifa Bin Al-Yaman, Prophet
Mohammad said: “There will come leaders who will not follow my guidance and
will not follow my Sunnah. There will be amongst them men who will have the hearts
of devils in the bodies of human.”
Hudhaifa asked: “What shall I do if I reach
that?” The
Prophet replied: “You should obey the rulers even if they flogged
your back and took your wealth; listen and obey.”
Mohammad Alazzam, an activist with 16.3K
followers on Twitter, tweeted on Saturday: “Unprecedented, the Friday sermon in
question has raised controversy and provoked negative comments in Jordan. We
call on the Awqaf minister and officials to resign for such a performance that
does not serve the country’s interests.”
On its part, the Ministry of Awqaf issued a
statement on Friday claiming that the unified sermon did not contain the text
of the controversial hadith and threatened to take legal action against who claimed
it did.
Not all those who heard the controversial
sermon were bothered by the phrase. Mahmoud Saleh, a Muslim man who regularly attends
the Friday prayer, said that as long as the delivered hadith is genuinely true,
“we as Muslims should abide by it.”
The said hadith, although listed in the second
most authentic book in Islam, has historically raised controversy over its
authenticity, and due to different interpretations by scholars across ages.
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