“and whoever does not come is not required to perform ghusl.”

He states, in summary: Yet the ḥadith with this extra wording and the mention of women is anomalous and unsound; the reliable wording is the one without it, as related by the Two Shaykhs and others. I have documented this in al-Daʿīfah 3958.

Ruling on the Friday sermon
9 – It has been established with certainty that the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) never abandoned the sermon in the Friday prayer that Allah, exalted be He, legislated in His Noble Book with the command to “hasten to the remembrance of Allah.” The sermon itself is part of that remembrance—if it is not the very remembrance intended—so the khutbah is a sunnah, not an obligation.

As for claiming that it is a condition for the validity of the prayer, certainly not. We have found not a single word to that effect in the purified Sunnah; indeed, there is no statement therein that commands it in a way that would imply obligation, much less conditionality. All that exists are simple narrative reports that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ delivered a sermon, said such-and-such in it, and recited