K͟HUT̤BAH (خطبة). The sermon or oration delivered on Fridays at the time of z̤uhr, or meridian prayer. It is also recited on the two great festivals in the morning after sunrise. [[ʿIDU ʾL-FITR], [ʿIDU ʾL-AZHA].] The Friday prayer and sermon are established by an injunction in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah lxii. 9]: “O ye who believe! when the call to prayer is made upon the congregation day (yaumu ʾl-jumʿah), then hasten to the remembrance of God, and leave off traffic.” By the words “remembrance of God,” most commentators understand the k͟hut̤bah or sermon.
From the Traditions, it appears that Muḥammad used frequently to deliver a k͟hut̤bah, and that it was not the studied and formal oration which it has become in more recent times.
Jābir says: “When the Prophet delivered the k͟hut̤bah, his eyes used to be red, and his voice high, and his anger raged so that you would say he was warning a tribe of the approach of a hostile army, and frightening them with apprehensions of its arrival thus: It is at hand! In the evening or morning it will come down upon you and plunder you! And the Prophet would say, I have been sent, and the Resurrection is like these two fingers, and he used to join his fore-finger with the next to it, as an explanation of the semblance that the Resurrection was not farther off than the difference of length in the two fingers.” (Mishkāt, book iv. ch. xlvi.)
On Fridays, after the usual ablutions, the four Sunnah prayers are recited, and the preacher, or k͟hat̤īb, then seats himself on the pulpit, or mimbar, whilst the Muʾaẕẕin proclaims aẕān; after which he stands up on the second step and delivers the k͟hut̤bah. It must be in Arabic, and must include prayers for Muḥammad, the Companions, and the king, but its composition and general structure is left to the discretion of the preacher. In some countries, Egypt for example (Lane’s Egyptians, vol. i. p. 107), the k͟hat̤īb holds a wooden sword in his hand, whilst he delivers the exhortation. The k͟hut̤bah is divided into two sections, the k͟hut̤batu ʾl-waʿz̤, and the k͟hut̤batu ʾn-naʿt, supplications being made between the two sections. The following is a translation of a k͟hut̤bah, as delivered in India in the present day, from which the name and titles of the reigning monarch are omitted. It is the third of a series of sermons published at Lucknow in a volume entitled Majmaʿu K͟hut̤ab:—
“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
“Praised be God. Praised be that God who hath shown us the way in this religion. If He had not guided us into the path we should not have found it.
“I bear witness that there is no deity but God. He is one. He has no associate. I bear witness that Muḥammad is, of a truth, His servant and His Apostle. May God have mercy upon him, and upon his descendants, and upon his companions, and give them peace.
“Fear God, O ye people, and fear that day, the Day of Judgment, when a father will not be able to answer for his son, nor the son for the father. Of a truth God’s promises are true. Let not this present life make you proud. Let not the deceiver (Satan) lead you astray.
“O ye people who have believed, turn ye to God, as Naṣūh[114] did turn to God. Verily God doth forgive all sin, verily He is the merciful, the forgiver of sins. Verily He is the most munificent, and bountiful, the King, the Holy One, the Clement, the Most Merciful.”
(The preacher then descends from the pulpit, and sitting on the floor of the mosque, offers up a silent prayer. He then again ascends the mimbar, as before, and proceeds.)