Notes from Masjid Al-Khaliel

This morning, we performed Eid prayer (Eid al-Adha) in Masjid al-Khaliel again. Although it has been my third Eid prayer in this masjid, I just realize three strange things, at least on my eyes, on how Al-Khaliel people organize their Eid prayers.

First, the khatib (a preacher) of today's Eid is also the man giving sermon in the previous Eid prayer. I recognize this man from the way he preached and from his Arabic face. This is really uncommon in my home country as the khatib (either for Friday prayer or Eid prayer) will be delivered by different people from time to time. Even if a masjid has its own imam, it usually has a committee which organizes public prayers and sermons. Does it mean that Masjid al-Khaliel does not have another people to deliver sermon or is it just coincidence (the same khatib performing more than one Eid sermon in a year)? I don’t know. I hope it’s just coincidence. Otherwise, the answer could be the first or could be because they do not want to use other preachers other than their own only resources.

Second, the khutbah (the sermon) was delivered in Arabic instead of English. I don’t know what the reason is. I reasonably know Arabic so I could understand his message. But I think it is not strategic to deliver a sermon in Arabic while the majority audiences are non-Arabic speaking people. The khatib could miss his purpose and the audiences could misunderstand or even gain nothing from the khutbah. Again, I don’t know why he delivered khutbah in Arabic. Perhaps, he does not speak English. But I don’t think so. He has been living here for a while (as I knew him in the previous sermons), so that he must know some English. Some say that it is Al-Khaliel’s custom to deliver religious sermons in Arabic. But, yeah, I am not sure whether it is the problem. If this is the problem, I think the Khatib had to write his sermon on a paper and then find a translator to translate his sermon, so he could just read the translation of the sermon in front of his audiences. What I saw in Masjid al-Khaliel was an aged man read the summary of the sermon at the end of khutbah. However, I think it was not very an effective and efficient method of delivering a message. First, non-Arabic speaking audiences did nothing during the sermon and this was wasting time. Second, just the summary read after the sermon might not represent the sermon itself as the audiences could miss some features of speaking style which might contain significant messages.

Another possible reason is the khatib believe that religious sermons should be delivered in Arabic because they are part of rituals which should exactly follow what Muhammad had done. Since the prophet delivered the sermons in Arabic, today’s sermons of Eid and Friday prayers should be delivered in Arabic too. Such a reason was applicable in some traditional Indonesian communities in my district when I was teens. However, it is not common any longer now (in this district) to perform religious sermons in Arabic because many people see it would not work. If this is the case, then traditional people in my home country is obviously more enlightened than people of Masjid al-Khaliel as the former see religious rituals in more strategic ways while the latter consider the rituals as a rigid religious doctrine. I would personally prefer to be among the first one.

Third, it seemed to me that the management of prayers in this masjid solely depended on one or two persons. This morning, I saw an aged man (I think he was this Masjid’s Imam as once I saw his face in a TV and it was mentioned that he was an Imam) organizing audiences, giving announcement, and delivering the summary of the sermon at the end. This man did the same things in the previous prayers. Nothing wrong with this man tough. However, to make a comparison to the prayer organization in my home country, such man’s duties are rarely performed by just an Imam or an aged man. The duties are usually done by a committee and, in many cases, the committee consists of people under fifties. In some places, the duties are done by the youth, which we call them “Remaja Masjid” (the youth of masjid). What I reckoned from the Masjid al-Khaliel practices was one-man show, one person did many things at the same time. To me, it did not reflect any good performance of Masjid management at all. Really sorry to tell this.