Using religion as a tool to deceive the people has a long history, both in the history of Islam and in the history of other nations.
The first and most famous historical trick in which religion was misused as a tool was used by one of the parties in a war called Safin to create differences in the ranks of the other party, and it was very effective. In later periods, similar methods were used by some caliphs and sultans. In the current era, in our environment, various groups have used religion as a tool for political use, but the Taliban have taken the lead from others in this field and have used all the possibilities of political and worldly use of religion without any limits. In the latest action of this group, preachers have been ordered to mention the name of Amir al-Momineen Taliban at the end of Friday prayer sermons. In the first rule of this group in the 1990s, such a decree was also issued, and those preachers who disobeyed this act due to Sharia, were punished and removed from imamate and address.
Mentioning the ruler’s name, be it Caliph or Commander of the Faithful or Sultan or King, in the sermons of Friday and Eid prayers, which is a part of religious rites, has no basis in religion and is one of the obvious heresies that has clearly emerged for worldly purposes. In the sermons of the Friday prayer during the time of the Prophet of Islam and the rightly caliphs, such a thing was never done and no one was allowed to do such a thing.
The first time Friday sermons were used politically was at the beginning of the Umayyad rule, when they promoted cursing Imam Ali, the first Shiite imam and the fourth caliph of Muslims, in Friday prayer sermons. It is not known whether this was done at the time of Muawiya and at his command or later, but Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti narrates that this was common during the time of the Umayyads until Umar bin Abd al-Aziz came to power and removed this heresy. At the end of the sermon, in the same part where the curse was sent to Ali, he ordered to read verse 90 of Surah An-Nahl, which recommended justice and moral virtues.
After stopping this practice, in the following periods, the Abbasid caliphs ordered that their names be mentioned in Friday sermons. This act was a part of the caliphate’s propaganda apparatus, which symbolically placed supreme religious and political authority in the hands of the caliph. It was with such implication that whenever the relations of the local governments with the caliphate became strained and they wanted to free themselves from its rule, they removed the names of the caliphs from the Friday sermons. For the first time in our region, Tahir Foshanji removed the name of the Abbasid caliph from his sermons in order to demonstrate the independence of Khorasan from the Abbasid rule.
The question of the religious legitimacy of mentioning caliphs in Friday sermons has always been raised among jurists; Among them, Sultan al-Ulama Ezz al-Din Ibn Abd al-Salam (660 AH), one of the famous jurists of the middle centuries and one of the experts on the topic of heresy and Sunnah, gave a clear fatwa on this matter that mentioning the names of heretical caliphs and sultans is indecent. The ruling of the Sharia’s is clear on this issue and this work will remain heresy. Such heresy in Afghanistan is another symbolic step to consolidate religious tyranny in the country.
