Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Shlomo Deshen and Walter P. Zenner, 

eds.,  Jews among Muslims: Communities in the Precolo-

nial Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 

1996); Daniel J. Elazar, The Other Jews: The Sephardim 

Today (New York: Basic Books, 1989); Jane S. Gerber, 

The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience

(New York: The Free Press, 1992); Norman A. Stillman, 

The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (New York: Jew-

ish Publication Society, 1991).

scripture

  See 

holy

 

books

.

sermon

Islam developed three homiletic traditions: the 

khutba (sermon), pious exhortation (mawiza, waaz,

or tadhkir), and homiletic storytelling (qasas).

The khutba belongs to a larger genre of public 

oratory that predates i

slam

 and was performed 

in a variety of ceremonial contexts, including 

official receptions, war declarations, and wedding 

speeches. In Islam, the canonical or liturgical 

sermon (khutba shariyya) forms a prescribed part 

of ritual observances, notably the Friday congre-

gational 

prayer

, the two feast days, and communal 

rogations for rainfall. It also became customary to 

perform liturgical sermons during other festivals 

and to exhort 

Jihad

.

Islamic legal sources stipulate that the canoni-

cal sermon comply with the liturgical condi-

tions that m

Uhammad

 reportedly instituted in the 

seventh century. For example, on Fridays, the 

khutba must precede the communal prayer, but 

in all other rituals the prayer comes first. After 

the call to prayer, the preacher (khatib) should 

arise, grasp a sword or staff (pre-Islamic symbols 

of authority), and ascend the pulpit steps right 

foot first. He pronounces two sermons standing, 

K  612  

scripture

---

but must sit and pause briefly in between them. 

He should initiate both sermons with liturgical 

formulae of praise to God, the Muslim profession 

of faith, and invocations of blessings upon the 

Prophet. The first sermon should contain admo-

nitions and counsel relevant to the occasion, 

while the second “qualifying” sermon features 

prayers on behalf of the Prophet, the ruler, and 

the community. The khutba is often delivered in 

rhymed prose, believed to enhance its affective 

and persuasive power. Today, in most Islamic 

countries, the state determines the content of the 

“official” Friday and festival khutbas.

Exhortatory preaching assemblies (majlis or 

maqamat al-waaz) varied in performance styles 

and ritual environments and were not subject to 

the same liturgical conditions as the canonical 

sermon. Exhortatory preachers crafted their ser-

mons from scriptural recitation, 

hadith

 sayings, 

Sufi ceremonial litanies praising God, personal 

admonitions, and preexisting homiletic litera-

ture. Morality, the remembrance of 

death

, and 

J

Udgment

  d

ay

  were the most common themes. 

Preachers delivered exhortatory sermons during 

Sufi ceremonies, as erudite homilies in 

madrasa

s,

as part of feast day celebrations and funerals, and 

as regular public moral instruction. Itinerant and 

“free” preachers coexisted uneasily with those 

appointed by the authorities to preach.

Religious storytelling (qasas) developed from 

quranic tales of the prophets and the People of 

Israel and from the so-called stories of the prophets 

genre of exegetical narratives embellishing the scrip-

tural stories. Liturgical and exhortatory preachers 

sometimes incorporated them into their sermons. 

Independent storytellers preached on roadsides 

and in cemeteries and held storytelling assemblies 

in mosques, where they read stories to the public. 

Socially, storytelling served to edify and exhort the 

faithful to imitate the prophets’ moral examples. 

The religious authorities sometimes censured the 

storytellers as a public nuisance for narrating fraud-

ulent hadith to an unsuspecting audience.

See also 

cemetery

; 

dhikr

; 

prophets

 

and

 

prophecy

.

Linda G. Jones