I GOT an opportunity to hear a Friday sermon at a New York mosque last month. It was attended by a large number of Muslim faithful belonging to different nationalities and colors. Many people were found sitting outside as the mosque was overflowed with worshipers. I was told that the lines of worshipers sometimes would reach the street. The young khateeb or prayer leader began his sermon after praising the Lord in Arabic before continuing in English. He was speaking about the need to strengthen faith in Almighty Allah explaining His great creations. He pointed out that Allah has surrendered all His creations for the benefit of humanity. Up to this end the sermon was reasonable and understandable. After that the sermon took a different turn as he started narrating some unbelievable fake stories that attack the credibility of Islam and challenge the intelligence of audience. The khateeb spoke about a stranded man and his companions who were thrown in a jungle while traveling in a ship. In the meantime, a lion approached them. The man introduced himself and the lion withdrew from the place fearing that man, instead of killing and eating him. The lion then became servant of the man and his companions and showed them the right path to escape from the jungle. The lion beat the man with its tail and the man told his companions that the lion was bidding farewell to them. After that the khateeb spoke about the capabilities of auliya or pious people who establish close relationship with Allah and it lasted for 27 minutes. He narrated the story of another individual who heard a voice from the cloud: "Irrigate the garden of a person." The cloud then showered rainwater over a particular garden. The man then followed that water and found a farmer in the end. He then asked: What is your name. It was the same name he had heard from the cloud. The first story was about a companion of the Prophet (peace be upon him) named Safeena. The source of the story said Safeena reported it from the Prophet (pbuh) and we don't know the relation between the story and the Prophet (pbuh). It's obvious that the story was aimed at spreading superstitions, even if it was narrated by Muslim, the famous author of the Hadith collection. After the Friday noon prayer I waited for the khateeb to discuss about the sermon. I told him that such superstitious stories would create doubt about the credibility of Islam among its followers, especially among the Westerners who accept only the reality. I told the prayer leader that his sermon was followed by a large number of people as well as official agencies and enemies of Islam. Moreover, those who have attended the sermon would convey its message to their friends who were absent. We have to make sure the truthfulness of such stories before narrating them in our sermons. The good mannered khateeb listened to my comment completely and told me that he heard about such stories from a Tableegh (dawa) group which promotes such stories without ensuring their truthfulness and without realizing the damage it causes to Islam and Muslims. Tableegh groups do not see anything wrong in spreading such stories. Once they told me that the weakness is not in these stories but in Muslims who disbelieve them. The spread of such superstitious and unreasonable stories will have a lot of negative effects. Some of these effects would be catastrophic as it would prevent non-Muslims from accepting Islamic faith. People will also mock at Islam and Muslims for spreading such unbelievable stories. It will also lead to promote extremism among Muslims who would justify such stories at any cost. If we review certain Friday sermons in some mosques we can find that many of them deal with silly and superficial subjects that would not help spread the Islamic faith. It will only lead to the dissemination of unbelievable and imaginary stories that would not be acceptable to intelligent people.
