The pulpit is not a safe space but a court of accountability

There was a time when the mimbar did not entertain but unsettled. It did not pacify but provoked. It did not protect comfort but exposed falsehood. Today, the structure remains, the sermons continue, the crowds gather, but the question refuses to go away: who still speaks truth from it, and who has reduced it to ritual noise?

The Qur’an does not permit silence in the face of distortion.

“O you who believe! Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves…” (4:135).

This is not a suggestion—it is a command. And the mimbar is where this command must be lived, not diluted.

Yet too often, what echoes from it today is selective deen that’s carefully edited, politically safe, and socially convenient. Oppression is mentioned in abstraction, never in context. Justice is praised in theory, never demanded in reality. The result?  The Ummah hears religion, but does not feel its weight.

Thinkers like Dr. Ali Shariati warned us of this exact decay, when religion is stripped of its revolutionary spirit and repackaged as passive obedience. When the mimbar becomes a tool not of awakening, but of sedation. That is not neutrality. That is complicity.

The Qur’an condemns those who distort truth for comfort:

“So woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and then say, ‘This is from Allah,’ to exchange it for a small price…” (2:79).

This “price” is not always money. Sometimes it is approval. Sometimes it is safety. Sometimes it is the fear of losing position.

Let it be said without hesitation: a mimbar that avoids truth is not weak, it is dangerous rather fatal. 

Because the mimbar is not a stage. It is an extension of the mission of the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him and his family) and that mission was never neutral. It confronted tyrants, dismantled systems of injustice, and redefined morality in the face of power.

Look at the school of Imam Hussain (A.S). Karbala was not fought with swords alone, it was fought with clarity of message. When truth was distorted, he did not retreat into silence; he stood, even when standing meant martyrdom and that my friends is the standard of leadership in Islam. Not survival, but integrity.

And what about Ali ibn Abi Talib (A.S) who declared: “The greatest jihad is to speak a word of truth before a tyrant ruler.” This is not poetry. It is a qualification criterion for anyone who dares to speak in the name of religion.

So ask plainly:

Can every person who climbs today’s mimbar meet this standard?

If the answer is no, then the crisis is not outside, it definitely is on the mimbar itself.

The uncomfortable reality is this: not everyone who wears the title of a religious authority has earned the right to guide. Years in seminaries do not guarantee courage. Memorization does not equal understanding. And fluency in scripture without the ability to apply it to present is intellectual dishonesty.

A mimbar that cannot address contemporary injustice is not preserving religion, it in plain and simple words is burying it.

The Qur’an warns again:

“And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest the Fire touch you…” (11:113).

Silence is a form of inclination. Avoidance is a form of alignment.

So when the mimbar refuses to name injustice, refuses to educate people about their rights, refuses to connect divine guidance with living realities; it does not remain neutral. It quietly sides with the status quo.

And that status quo is rarely just.

Let us be clear that there is honor in teaching children the basics of faith. There is dignity in leading daily prayers. But the Friday mimbar is not a default position but the intellectual and moral nerve center of the community. To stand there unprepared, unqualified, or unwilling to speak truth is not humility, it is betrayal.

A sermon that leaves people unchanged has failed.

A sermon that avoids reality has failed.

A sermon that comforts the oppressor directly or indirectly, has failed.

Because the mimbar does not just produce speeches, it produces societies.

It can awaken a generation or anesthetize it.

It can build resistance or normalize submission.

It can revive the soul of Karbala or erase it entirely.

And perhaps the most terrifying reality for anyone who ascends it is that, every khutbah is not just heard by people but is recorded by Allah.

This is not a platform you step onto casually.

This is a bridge no less severe than the Sirat itself.

So before anyone dares to climb it, the question is not:

“Can I speak?”

The question is:

“Can I answer for every word I am about to say and every truth I choose to avoid?”

The mimbar is not a privilege but a trial.

And today, it stands as a witness not just to what is being said, but to everything that is not.