and that stir their interest and readily pass from tongue to tongue, for to such themes they are more attentive, more inclined, and more familiar.
16 – When he delivers the sermon he should be ardent and impassioned—at once a warner, a cautioneer, and a bearer of glad tidings. He ought to speak in weighty, well-shaped paragraphs marked by purposeful repetition, the use of synonyms, telling parables, and weaving in Qur’anic verses and prophetic hadiths. At times he asks questions, at others he rejects a false notion, and at still others he marvels aloud.
The oratorical style has its own distinctive performance, and the preacher has his own electrifying stance; in this way his words permeate the audience, influence them, and they leave more convinced and more willing to act upon what they have heard.
Benefit
Al-Shāṭibī said: The root of the word bidʿa denotes inventing something without any previous model. Allah the Exalted says, “The Originator of the heavens and the earth” (Q 2:117), meaning that He brought them into existence with no prior example.
From this sense any act for which the Sacred Law provides no evidence is called an innovation (bidʿa), and the one who practices it is an innovator (mubtadiʿ). An innovation, therefore, is a fabricated path in the religion that mimics the Sharīʿah, adopted with the aim of exaggerated devotion to Allah, exalted is He.
Innovation is of two kinds: genuine and relative.
A genuine innovation is one for which no scriptural proof exists at all, even if the innovator claims that what he has introduced falls under general evidences; such a claim is invalid. Examples include:
1 – Subordinating the religion of Allah to pure reason and rejecting the revealed texts.
2 – The disbelievers’ statement, “Trade is only like interest.”
3 – A prayer that contains two bowings and only one prostration.
4 – A prayer begun with the salutation and ended with the takbīr.
5 – A prayer in which the tashahhud is recited while standing and Qur’anic recitation is done during prostration and bowing.