What is your opinion of the current state of the Husayni minbar?

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful

And blessings and peace be upon the noblest of Allah's creation, Muhammad, and his pure family.

As long as the minbar has a wide quantitative reach, given the many religious occasions in the Shiʿi milieu, it is natural that the affairs of the minbar are discussed among people. However, we should emphasize a set of points so that this engagement does not turn into a negative tool that diminishes the standing of the Husayni minbar, or becomes one of the factors restricting its positive influence in society.

The first point: Any act of criticism must take into account that criticism is a developmental process. When the critic's intention is directed toward reaching a better state for the Husayni minbar, he will undoubtedly not engage in deliberate distortion, will not resort to generalization in criticism, and will not consider difference of opinion one of the minbar's negatives; his criticism will be disciplined in its language and style, and even in the bounds of its circulation.

The second point: Any act of criticism that does not carry with it serious proposals for the process of development will be merely a personal opinion by which no influence is intended; rather, some listeners may exercise criticism in order to choose the minbar at which they sit, and this kind of criticism is not negative as long as it remains within its narrow bounds, which do not have a negative effect or create counter-publicity…

The third point: Generalization in criticism is the effective tool for demolishing the very basis of things. When enemies want to demolish something, they work by practicing generalization, so that society loses confidence in that thing. Therefore one should beware of generalization in criticizing the Husayni minbar, such as saying that its state is weak and feeble and carries no meaning. This is contrary to reality for anyone who carefully observes the diversity of the Husayni minbar: in it there are some who focus on the elegiac recitation (taʿziya) and are unable to present an integrated topic; in it there are those who work on attending to their minbar in all respects and succeed to some degree; and among them are those whom success attends, so they present good topics. All of this exists in reality; therefore generalization in criticism will undoubtedly be a tool for demolishing the positive aspects.

The fourth point: We should not content ourselves with critical observations about the preacher; indeed, some may have an obsession with collecting observations and gaps, to the point that they benefit from no minbar at all. It is important that we turn our attention to posing a question to ourselves: What have I benefited from the preacher today? That is, focusing on the positive side and seeking knowledge in what the preacher presents. This is very important, so that we do not lose that enormous amount of knowledge presented in the season of ʿAshura, even though its degrees of benefit vary. This point is not limited to the ordinary person but includes the educated person, and even the scholar, however high he has risen in his knowledge; for we have sat with many jurists and heard them mention, with humility, some benefits they gained from listening to the Husayni minbar. The appetite for criticism should not carry us away from humility before knowledge and learning.

The fifth point: The preachers should be viewed as people working in the way of Allah and in the way of reviving the cause of the Ahl al-Bayt (a). How influential is the role they play! Can one imagine a season without preachers? They enrich the occasion and work night and day for its sake. Even if there is some criticism of, and observations on, some of them, this is something that applies to all who work in the way of Imam al-Husayn (a). Thanks should be extended to them, and their tremendous efforts appreciated.

The sixth point: This is a simple word to beginning preachers, or to those whose circumstances have not helped them to join the scholarly caravan. We say to them, after appreciating their efforts, that it is of great importance for the preacher to rise to serious scholarly engagement, opening up to the avenues of scholarly research—such as opening up to the methods of understanding the Qurʾan and reflecting on it, and the ways of understanding the noble hadith and the methods of bringing narrations together within it—in order to form a religious vision or present it in a sequence that serves the topic; in addition to knowing how to read history, and the ways of addressing contemporary problems.

It is also necessary to possess the conventions (adab) of oratory for the topic being presented. A preacher may be capable of presenting doctrinal topics but lack the conventions for presenting intellectual or ethical topics; each field has its own conventions. The conventions we mean are broader than knowing the terminology of that field, encompassing the ways of presenting topics and how to use those terms so that they serve the discussion. Whoever does not possess the tools of knowledge in a certain direction should confine himself to the field whose tools he possesses, in order to reach a better state in the Husayni minbar.

Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi