Critical listening to preaching

Also published in Daily Trust

As usual towards the beginning and during the month of Ramadan, there have been calls on Muslim clerics to employ wisdom in delivering their Ramadan preaching, which further emphasize the need for government to, preferably in coordination with the Office of the Sultan, regulate preaching in the country as obtained elsewhere. This is in order to among other things address the unnecessary confusion that fuels disunity among Nigerian Muslim community, and indeed tackle the security implication of unregulated preaching, which is largely responsible for the current security crises particularly in the north.

However, since this isn’t realistically possible in Nigeria, where unfortunately every barely Arabic speaking chap can claim expertise in Islamic scholarship, take on preaching and indeed get audience, it’s high time that the increasingly informed Muslim community in the country adopted a critical approach to assess the quality of any particular preacher hence accept or reject his assertions accordingly.

Though this admittedly requires reasonable amount knowledge of, at least, the basics of Islamic jurisprudence and general Islamic knowledge, yet I believe, with a bit of critical listening skill, the average Muslims in, particularly, some major Muslim-dominated cities in northern Nigeria, where this phenomenon is rampant, can easily separate the wheat from the chaff in most of what their preachers tell them.

For instance, since all the seriously divisive issues raised by such controversial preachers aren’t actually part of the religion, any preacher who raises such issues should be required to substantiate his assertions with unambiguous evidences from the noble Qur’an and the authentic narrations of the Prophetic traditions, of course according to the perception of the first Muslim generation who, by virtue of having accepted the religion directly from the Messenger of Allah and practiced it accordingly, were, and still are, undoubtedly the yardsticks of determining the correct understanding of Islamic religion and its tenets, which necessarily means that any understanding contrary to their is automatically invalid.

Besides, since such divisive clerics often cite some unconfirmed narrations intentionally or unintentionally attributed to noble Prophet, members of his progeny or his companions, there is always need to thoroughly subject all their narrations to the scientific procedures of the science of Hadith (i.e. Mustaluhul-Hadith) to ensure their narrative authenticity before discussing them in the first place. This is because it’s pointless to waste time in discussing any purported evidence that doesn’t meet the technical standards of narrative authenticity to either the Prophet, any of his righteous progeny or companions. 

  

Moreover, no matter how much any particular divisive cleric tries to skirt around, beat about the bush or manipulate things through unnecessary digression and deduction; he should still be challenged to bring clear-cut evidences to support his claims from the aforementioned sources only.

Likewise, he should be encouraged or rather challenged to take on regular public lecture sessions to teach the reference books of the particular sect he belongs to, so that the public could realize the actual source of his belief and the extent (if any) of its compliance with Islamic religion.

Obviously he can hardly, if at all, have the gut to oblige or take up the challenge, for the simple fact that, a great deal of the contents of such reference books is simply irreconcilable with the fundamentals of Islamic religion, and no logic can accept it either. After all, these are the reasons why he always seeks to promote his delusions under the pretext of preaching and interpreting the noble Qur’an.

In any case, no matter who he quotes as his reference in any particular issue, the fact is that, in Islamic philosophy, the only absolutely infallible person whose words, actions and endorsements must be wholly and unconditionally accepted by all Muslims is the noble Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him. And any other person’s words, actions or endorsements are subject to scrutiny to determine their legitimacy and validity according to the extent of their compliance with his teachings.

Through the foregoing, I believe the Islamic scholarship and missionary circle in Nigeria would be sanitized and consequently Nigerian Muslim clerics would come to fully imbibe the culture of treating issues based on their intellectual and logical merits away from prejudice, which would also, as a matter of course, inspire them to focus more on conducting in-depth research and perhaps coming up with quality written works. As it would also lead to the emergence of the culture of public debate, where they would engage each other in debate publically over any religious issue considered too controversial, as obtained elsewhere.

In short, the culture of critical reasoning and listening skills is what generally guarantees the transformation of a society from cultural and intellectual primitiveness into an enlightened and civilized society, which can’t be easily brainwashed or misled. Needless to say, this is particularly imperative in Islamic religious issues, so as to prevent and address confusion, disagreement and disunity among Muslims.

Furthermore, even though, Muslim disunity is an old global phenomenon, and Muslims were not only warned against it by Allah the Almighty and His noble Messenger but were also given specific instructions on how to maintain unity and address any disagreement that may arise among them as in verse 59 of chapter 4 of noble Qur’an, yet without critical reasoning and listening skills, Muslims can’t comprehend the essence of such divine instructions let alone implement them.