Friday Khutba & Fundraising

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Permalink Reply by Imran Randhawa on March 1, 2010 at 4:06pm

I totally agree with you. Some of us can only make it to the masjid during Jumah. I think most of us can agree that we come to the masjid to learn, to find peace, to contemplate and to re-energize. A masjid is as any other place of worship a sanctuary for reflection and deep thought. However jumah has become too 'commercialized" for a lack of better words. People are playing on their phones, ringers are going off, the entire back row is occupied with people leaning against the wall trying to catch up on some sleep. People are scattered all over the floor instead of being huddled together in front of the imam.

With that said, having fundraisers during jumah is a deterrent. At least for me it is. I don't appreciate the fact that I must sit there and listen to the imam or guest imam trying to raise funds to pay the utility bills.

On that note it's time for masjids and the community to find better ways to save costs and not rely so heavily of donations. Perfect example is what my brother in law spoke to you about concerning that non-profit affiliation program. I think that is wonderful program. The masjid makes a return on every individual that signs up under them. The masjid can make some good residual income that can used to pay for ongoing expenses. The thing I don't get is why the board doesn't pay any attention to resources and programs such as these. Anwaar had approached an individual who was going to speak to the board members concerning this program. After a couple of weeks he told Anwaar they were not interested and didn't even give him a chance to speak to them directly. Unless there is some information I don't have I cannot understand why they won't even bother looking into programs like these.

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Permalink Reply by Afroz Lateef on March 2, 2010 at 12:37pm

I personally believe that the Jummah Khutba's should be used primarily to educate people about Islam.
Use it as an opportunity to invite them to come for all 5 Salat to the masjid or at least be regular in prayers.
Unfortunately, we have started building bigger and bigger mosques and therefore need funds to operate them.
Why do we need bigger mosque when we should focus on having more, dispersed and smaller mosques.
These big mosques are filled mostly in Jummah and during Ramdhan.
It's all about controlling costs!
Well! But what can we say or do?

As a non-profit organization, a masjid cannot promote any specific business so there are left very few options
to generate money.

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Permalink Reply by Imran Randhawa on March 2, 2010 at 12:43pm

You are right about building these huge masjids. There's got to be businesses for non-profits. This one program I was talking about was specific for non-profits. I don't know the details about it but it seemed to be ok for non-profit organizations.

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Permalink Reply by Hazrat Amin on March 2, 2010 at 1:32pm

Muslim population is growing and the result is that the big centers with all their good intentions are trying to serve the population expansion. It is almost like a knee jerk reaction where instead of spreading the resources, we are trying to concentrate in one place. Its part of our learning curve.

On the issue of fundraising during khutba, my personal opinion is that its being overdone. Unless there is some emergency, khutba should not be used for fundraising. It should be an agenda free message.

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Permalink Reply by AJAZ U REHMAN on March 5, 2010 at 8:58am

Fund call is not bad or band but it should be done for reasonable time, let’s say 5 minutes total.

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Permalink Reply by Hazrat Amin on March 5, 2010 at 9:05am

Usually the appeal part is 5 mins or less. But tailoring the Friday khutba for an appeal, I believe is misleading the congregation.

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Permalink Reply by AJAZ U REHMAN on March 5, 2010 at 9:15am

Amin Bhai, this is your opinion, but only few minutes appeal is not misleading. This is what I am thinking. You have the right to oppose this idea.

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Permalink Reply by Hazrat Amin on March 5, 2010 at 9:30am

Great point. Again, I want to emphasize that this is just my opinion. I want to explore and learn other perspectives.

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Permalink Reply by khalid shaheed on March 10, 2010 at 4:24pm

Sounds like you are implying that a khutba with a brief fundraising appeal attached can not be educational. I disagree that the two are mutually exclusive.

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