CHITRAL: It was an unexpected and pleasant surprise in last Friday prayer congregation when the prayer leader who by routine practice delivers a talk before the prayer, mentioned a bit about social responsibilities of the prayer goers, beside the prayer ritual. He said it was more important to attend to social responsibilities than the nafal (optional) prayers. The unexpected words from the prayer imam lit up the faces of many a prayer goer who by default are used to listening to same stories and episodes of hundreds of years ago delivered repeatedly to fill the time.

Just as the prayer goers started blooming to hear more, the maulana switched to the importance of standing in the first row of the congregation behind the imam and reverted to usual narratives regarding the prayer ritual and spent the rest 80 percent time on explaining about it, something which every prayer goer knows since childhood.

Any sensible person would wish if the preacher had dedicated 80 percent of the time to social behavior and 20 percent to standing in the front row, it would do much more good to the followers and the society. What needs to be emphasized in religious preachings is the element  missing from our lives- honesty and responsibility. Allah Almighty has ordained in the Holy Quran the importance of honesty in no less words than saying “Curse of Allah be upon the liers”- Al Imraran, Ayat 61. Yet no sermon on honesty is delivered, while sermons of the do’s and dont’s inside the mosque are the epicenter of most sermons that we hear from clerics.

It is time we Muslims relate our worship to the world outside the mosque and in the society we are living day and night, otherwise we will continue sinking deeper and deeper in the quagmire of degeneration. .. CN report, 13 July 2026