to the audience, who are specially enjoined to remain sitting and silent during the sermon (Bu. 11:29). This is delivered in two parts, the Imām taking a little rest by assuming the sitting position in the middle of the sermon, and then continuing. Any subject relating to the welfare of the community may be dealt with in the sermon. The Holy Prophet is reported to have once prayed for rain during the sermon, after somebody had directed his attention to the fact that the cattle and the people were in severe hardship on account of drought (Bu. 11:35). According to another report, a certain person came to the Holy Prophet when he was delivering a sermon and questioned him about faith, and the Holy Prophet explained to him what faith was and then resumed the sermon (M. 7:13). As regards the ‘Īd sermons, it is expressly stated that the Holy Prophet used to order the raising of an army, if necessary, in the sermon, to give any other orders which he deemed necessary, in addition to admonitions of a general nature (ZM. I, p. 125). All these facts show that the sermon is for the education of the masses, to awaken them to a general sense of duty, to lead them to the ways of their welfare and prosperity and warn them against that which is a source of loss or ruin to them. Therefore it must be delivered in a language which the people understand, and there is no sense in delivering it in Arabic to an audience which does not know the language. Divine service is quite a different thing from the sermon. The sermon is meant to exhort the people, to give them information as what to do under certain circumstances and what not to do; it is meant, in fact, to throw light on all questions of life; and to understand a sermon in a foreign language requires an extensive, almost an exhaustive, knowledge of that language. Not so in the case of Divine service, which consists of a number of stated sentences and the meaning of which can be fully learnt, even by a child, in a short period. Moreover, in Divine service the different postures of the body are in themselves expressive of Divine praise and glory, even if the worshipper does not understand the significance of the words. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that the masses should know what the preacher is saying in the Friday service which is the best means of education for the masses and for maintaining the vitality of the Muslim community as a whole.