Public Preaching

Ibn al-Jawzi's gatherings began to attract people.

So the people of Baghdad crowded around him,

Both the elite and the common people drew from his knowledge, his preaching, and his reminders,

until he became one of the leading figures of Baghdad.

and a source of pride that other cities boasted about,

Visitors to Baghdad were eager to attend his sessions.

which had no equal in the Islamic world.

And here is the famous Andalusian traveler Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr.

He attends one of these gatherings.

And he describes it in a splendid account in his famous journey,

Then he says:

Then he saw us on Saturday morning.

After him came the assembly of the sheikh, the jurist, the Unique Imam.

Jamal al-Din Abu al-Fada'il, son of Ali al-Jawzi.

Opposite his house on the eastern side of the riverbank,

And he would sit in it every Saturday.

Then we saw the gathering of a man who was neither Amr nor Zayd.

And all the game was in the hollow of the fur cloak,

A marvel of the age, the delight of the eye of faith, the chief of the Hanbali school.

And the one singled out in the sciences by lofty ranks,

Leader of the community, and champion of the arena of this craft,

and the one acclaimed for his noble precedence in eloquence and mastery,

He is never at a loss for words when composing and publishing.

And he who plunges into the sea of his thought in search of rare pearls.

Among his most astonishing signs and greatest miracles:

That he ascends the pulpit, and the reciters begin the recitation.

And their number was a little over twenty reciters,

Then two or three of them step forward to take a verse for recitation.

They recite it in a melodious, suspenseful style.

When they finished, another group recited a second verse according to their number.

And they continue taking turns reciting verses from different chapters until their recitation is complete.

And they recited similar verses,

The eager mind can hardly separate it into distinct units.

Or he calls it a system,

When they had finished, this imam of uncommon standing hurriedly began to deliver his sermon.

And he poured out pearls from his words into the shells of ears.

The openings of the recited verses fell into place during his sermon.

And he presented them according to the pattern of their recitation, neither earlier nor later.

Then he completed the sermon on the rhyme of its final verse.

If only the most eloquent person in the assembly...

He took the trouble to name, verse by verse and in order, what the reciters had read because he was unable to do so.

So what about someone who arranges them on the spot?

And he quickly delivers the eloquent sermon with it.

Then indeed he came, after he had finished his sermon, with gentle admonitions.

And clear verses from the Reminder,

The hearts soared with longing for it.

And the souls melted because of it, consumed by burning.

Until the clamor rose and reverberated with its plaintive sobs,

The repentant cried out, and they fell upon him like moths falling on a lamp.

Each one takes his forelock in his hand and then cuts it off.

And he wipes his head, praying for him.

And among them someone faints, and he is then lifted in the arms to him.

So we saw a terror that filled the souls with repentance and remorse,

and he mentions the terrors of the Day of Resurrection;

If we had not sailed the surging sea,

And we seek the desert's shelters only to behold one of his assemblies.