The Ministry of Religious Endowments published this Friday’s unified sermon, which is titled “cleanliness is civilised behaviour”, amid continued resistance and criticism from a significant number of preachers.
The sermon was published in full paragraphs, as opposed to previous weeks when the ministry just published guidelines for the preachers to follow.
The sermon argued that Islam has ordered and preached cleanliness as a behaviour that should be followed by all those who are faithful. The text calls on listeners to work on the cleanliness of their body, dress, and place of education or work, and to be “a clean civilised society that translates its faith into practical action”.
Deputy Minister Gaber Tayee said that the idea of unifying the sermon was accepted by about 50% of the community of preachers which extends nationwide and comprise different, varied backgrounds.
He told Daily News Egypt that a delegation, including a preacher who refused the idea, met the minister and reached a consensus.
“The text is still not obligatory as of yet,” Tayee said.
This past Friday was the second to feature the unified sermon since its announcement. The sermon addressed chastity and purity. On 14 July, Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa announced the implementation of the written unified Friday sermon in all mosques across the country after several meetings with scholars over the past few weeks.
Since September 2013, the ministry has launched a number of guidelines that aim to limit “radical preaching” in mosques and crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric, which back then started to mobilise by using mosques after Friday prayers to call on people to resist what they called the “3 July coup”.
