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The Khutba

A Few Reminders for the Khateeb so we may all benefit

By Sh. Ad-Duwaish

More attention needs to be paid to the subject of the khutba and it should be discussed more because of its importance:
(1) It is ordered in the Qur'an
(2) Besides the people, the angels are listening, and more importantly Allah is listening. Care must be taken to avoid saying anything which is not pleasing to Allah.
(3) More people listen to it than any other medium of Islamic education. They are obligated to be silent too. In contrast, other means, such as the audio cassettes, which are listened to by a group of people, who fit into some category. For most people, the khutba is the only source of Islamic information.

CONTENTS OF KHUTBA

In order to deliver an effective khutba, it is recommended to pick the topic early on. Sometimes it is difficult to come up with a topic, perhaps you can sit down and make a list of topics and refer to it when you need one.
Your goal should not be to say what the people want to hear, but your duty is to say what they need to hear.
There needs to be a variation in subject matter. For example, talk about the Akhira on some khutba, Raqaaiq (softeners of the heart, i.e. mercy of Allah, reward awaiting, etc.) on others, then there is shirk (polytheism), judging by other than what Allah revealed, social problems (marriage, divorce...), pertinent events (e.g.. Bosnia, Iraq), historic events with a moral to them, issues relating to the commonly found problems of saint worship, usury etc.
The khutba needs good preparation. If it is a half hour khutba you're giving, that time is not for you. It is a trust for the listeners, and you need to respect them. Sometimes the khateebs prepare the topic an hour before the khutba, this should not be. It needs to have beneficial knowledge and that requires some research (e.g.. checking hadith authenticity, medical facts, statistics, etc. if possible). You don't want to say something about medicine that some of your audience knows is wrong because that takes away from your overall credibility.
Pick an appropriate topic with regard to your audience, taking into considerations the time, place, and the background of the audience. You definitely wouldn't want to be teaching a bunch of illiterate farmers about the follies of Darwinism.
You don't need to talk about everything at once. You can address one or a few topics at a time. Being too general assumes the audience has some background knowledge which they may not.
Respect your audience, there maybe more knowledgeable people than you in the audience, so don't command saying "do this, don't do that." Give the reason why something should or should not be done as well.
People are in need of the cure more than the blame, so instead of saying "You folks don't care about sins, you look at women as if Allah does not see you, you stare at this part of the body and that part of the body...", it is wiser to address the issue by talking about it from a positive angle, such as "Today, I'll talk about the merits of lowering the gaze." People will understand what you're intending and the same point will be made without hurting their feelings.
Give issues their proper place. Don't over generalize, and be careful not to get carried away. For example, one of the people wanted to encourage people to repent so he said, "Allah did not create us to be perfect. He did not say don't sin, but he said when you sin seek forgiveness." Clearly his intent was good, but he used a wrong line of reasoning and was too lenient on sinning. [Sometimes you find people such as Farakhan, who think that selling alcohol is worse than the polytheism they commit. They say what means, "Before you foreign Muslims come to us to teach us, take care of your own who are selling all these bad things to the black neighborhoods. Then there are those who come to people who have not prayed for 5 or 10 years and the first thing they talk to them about is the beard. As if that is going to be the determining factor between paradise and hell. Fidel Castro has a beard to his chest and it will not help him if he dies a kafir].
Some khateebs always talk about mistakes. Change the approach and don't be like a fly, which comes around a person wearing the best clothing and if there be on it one speck of dirt, it focuses in on that one spot.
Read some books on public speaking.
Set goals for the khutba. What is the main message of this khutba?

Jazakumullahu khair, wassalamu alaikum warahmatullah.