The marginal commentary states: For the Friday (Jumuʿah) prayer to be valid, two sermons must precede it, in agreement with Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and the vast majority of scholars. Al-Nawawī transmitted this as a consensus, and the Sunnah has widely attested to their legitimacy.

2 – The ḥadith also delineates the preacher’s qualities and the state he ought to display while delivering the sermon—traits intended to spark zeal and emotion that pass from the preacher’s soul to the listeners. In this way he rouses them, awakens their consciences, ignites their feelings, and moves their hearts toward obedience to Allah and away from the sins He has forbidden.

Among those traits are:
• that his eyes redden—a sign of his anger and emotional fervor;
• that his voice rise, so that it reaches their ears and shakes their hearts;
• that his anger intensify, stirring their zeal and arousing in them the same passion, agitation, and fervor, until he seems like a warner announcing an army that has surrounded the land and is about to descend upon them at dawn or dusk to seize their territory, slaughter them, capture their womenfolk, enslave their children, and plunder their wealth.

3 – In his sermon he would urge adherence to the Book of Allah—against which no falsehood can come, from before it or from behind it—and adherence to the Sunnah and guidance of His Messenger, ﷺ, which stands alongside the Book in providing guidance and pointing to all that is good.

Ibn al-Qayyim said: The aim of the sermon is to extol Allah Most High, glorifying Him by bearing witness to His oneness and to the messengership of His Messenger; to remind the servants of His days, to warn them of His wrath and punishment, to counsel them with what draws them near to Him and to His gardens, and to forbid them from what brings them close to His displeasure and His fire.

Ibn al-Qayyim further added: The Prophet’s ﷺ sermon was, in essence, a delineation of the fundamentals of faith.