There are no clear standards that govern the substance of Friday prayer sermons in any of Islam’s branches, particularly with respect to the political aspect of the sermon. In fact, only some oppressive Middle Eastern countries have ever established such standards and limited sermons to the offering of spiritual guidance. For example, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein forbade Shiite Muslims from holding Friday prayers and restricted Sunni sermons to religious content, barring the raising of political or critical issues having to do with people’s lives and problems, while also compelling preachers to pray for him at the end of each sermon.

Friday sermons changed radically for both Shiite and Sunni Muslims after 2003, when they began to largely revolve around a weekly discussion of political issues. The spiritual aspects of sermons greatly diminished, and were replaced by purely political speeches.

Some Friday sermons in Iraq were even transformed into an avenue for sectarian incitement, where violence was encouraged by some — as others used them, in one way or another — to perpetuate the prevalent social schisms.

Of course, one cannot ignore the positive roles played by some Friday preachers in identifying the loci of political aberrations. This is the case of sermons given by representatives of the Supreme Religious Authority Ali al-Sistani in Karbala, or the representatives of Abdul Malak al-Saadi in Anbar, who all adopted a conciliatory religious discourse that does not rely on incitement nor promotes violence. This is despite the fact that those sermons increasingly targeted the government with harsh criticism as a result of its mismanagement of the security, political and economic agendas.