alternarrative

I sometimes wonder if it might be a good idea to institute a rating system for khutbahs, basically as a guidance for those preparing their sermons. I can’t remember the last time I felt so awkward at jum’a that I stopped looking up at the khateeb just to avoid eye contact. Actually, I do sort of remember, but I was sorry to have to do this again today. Honestly, the last thing I ever want to hear in a khutbah is how people should remove hair from the armpits and “shave the pubic area.” And this applies to both men and women, it was promptly clarified. No clarification, however, was offered as to whether or not the same hadith’s instructions on trimming the mustache and growing the beard also applied to women. All I could think of the whole time was what was going through the mind of the pre-pubescent boy sitting in the row right in front of me. Kid probably went up to his dad afterward to ask, “do I need to shave my pubic area?” Or, more likely, “do I have a pubic area?”

Anyways, you get the idea. But whatever on earth was the context for this, you wonder? Well, the topic for the day was, apparently, the relationship between the physical and spiritual aspects of the human being. As an elaboration of the fact that Islam cares about the physical body, we were invited to ponder in good detail a well-known hadith on personal hygiene that enumerates ten things that people should do. Things like cleaning your teeth and clipping your nails. That’s right, nothing could be more religiously, socially or politically urgent for the faithful community to reflect on at their weekly congregation, than what they do in the bathroom! And I’m not even gonna say anything about the issue of circumcision, and “the debate between faqihs about the desirability of circumcision for females.” Yeah, I wonder what the sisters at the back were thinking.

Ugghhhh.