Last Friday I listened to the sermon at my neighborhood mosque, partly because I had interviewed the imam the day before and partly because the acoustics at Sehitlik Mosque, while beautiful, can make it hard for a non-native Turkish speaker sitting in the back to catch the whole thing.
Both the message delivered before Friday prayers and the hutbe, the ritual sermon delivered during the prayers, focused on respecting your parents. Essentially, your mother carried you for months, nursed you, and sacrificed so much for you that it’s a huge sin to rebel against her. Likewise, rebelling against your father, who “rises up early in the morning to work and comes home late in order to provide your material needs,” is also a very serious sin. Moreover, the preacher emphasized that disobeying your parents is the type of sin with consequences that you’ll receive in this world. He gave an example from his own childhood where he saw a young guy beating his father. He said that after ten years passed he saw the same two people and this time the father was beating the son. It’s a “reap what you sow” thing.
For the most part the sermon was just like something you’d hear on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day at a church in the U.S., although the focus on the consequences of disobedience wasn’t part of the tradition I grew up in. I also found it interesting that the sermon was so focused on the responsibilities of children to their parents when a quick look around the mosque suggested that maybe a fifth of the attendees’ parents are no longer living (just guessing by the white hair). This struck me because the imam had told me the day before that his role is to deliver a sermon that appeals to everyone, young and old. On the other hand, his discussion about the importance of obedience did send a message to all the fathers in the crowd. Yes, your kids are supposed to respect you, but you also have a responsibility to discipline them, to manifest those worldly consequences.
On a side note, there was no money collection this week like there was two weeks ago.
2 comments ↓
just a quick note (or maybe a question) - did he talk about children’s duties for parents who have passed on? such as giving donations (onlar adina hayir hasenatta bulunmak), visiting their graves and reading quran after them etc. i am not quite sure, but there are (not quite strict as namaz or such but, still) duties after your parents pass away. i am asking because you mention that one fifth of the crowd were mostly elderly people whose parents most probably were no longer alive; perhaps the imam might have mentioned these but you could not catch, or perhaps he did forget touching on these issues. if you are interested in finding out more about this, one final note, you might try finding the hadith saying 3 or 5 things that you can do to keep your good deeds journal (iyi amel defteri) open after you die (hayir/sevap defterinin devamli acik kalip sevap yazilmaya devam etmesine neden olan hayirlar). i think there are 3 or 5 deeds, one of which is hayirli bir evlat (can also be a student - bu yuzden eskiden medrese/kuran hocaligi ahiret hayati adina cok bereketli bir faaliyet olarak gorulurmus, simdi de baskasina kuran ogretmek cok sevap kazandiran bir amel olarak gorulur, zira okudugu butun sayfalarin sevabi onunki eksilmeden size de yaziliyor) yetistirmek. if he is a good muslim, s/he will pray and be obedient to allah, and his all good deeds (namaz, yardim, tasadduk etc.) are recorded as also your good deeds, without no subtractions from him/her. i think there is also another hadith which tells how to send good deeds to people you feel close to (such as parents, friends, spouses, whomever died as a believer to one god etc.) who have already gone to afterlife, but i am not sure where to find these hadith - i am sure you can ask one of the muftu’s and he will tell you. i guess i heard these hadiths during friday sermons.
good luck on your research.
best,
a.o.
Hi Abdullah,
Thanks very much for your insightful comment. It so happens that I had a chance to ask the imam yesterday about this sermon and he mentioned that it was an old one he hadn’t written himself. Today I actually found the sermon online when I Googled the phrase “anne-babaya isyan.” It turns out that the sermon wasn’t terribly old, just a couple months, and you can read it here. Of course some of the descriptions I gave in my blog post (e.g., the child beating his father) came from the more informal vaaz before prayers began.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge on this subject - I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open for mention of the topics you wrote about.
Take care,
Jim
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