By Ahmad Zol Fareed bin Zolkifli
GOMBAK, 4 May 2019 – The Friday prayers this week saw an amazing khutbah being delivered at SHAS Mosque in IIUM by Maeno sensei, a young imam and a scholar from Japan, which caught many students by surprise.
The first khutbah was fully delivered in the Japanese language. But as many could guess, it was about dakwah. In the second khutbah, Maeno sensei summarised the first khutbah in English. His English is as equally good as his Quranic recitation.
He said in the second khutbah (in English), “Who would have imagined a Japanese imam would come here and deliver a khutbah in his mother tongue? This is one of the happy tidings the Prophet mentioned.”
Although many of the attendees could not understand the first khutbah, but because of his excellent delivery, clear voice projection and beautiful recitation of the Quran, it could be seen that most people were awake and paid attention. His Quranic recitation is also very exquisite and everyone could feel that it came from his heart.
He also quoted the Quran, Surah an-Nahl: 125: “Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good encouragement, and reason with them in the best manner possible.” This verse is basically talking about dakwah, where he emphasised that we shouldn’t talk much, instead we show the beauty of Islam through our character.
Maeno sensei or his real name, Shaykh Ahmad Maeno, embraced Islam in 1994 at the age of 18. After graduating from Osaka University of Foreign Studies, majoring in Arabic language and working for a Japanese company in Osaka and Nagoya Mosque, he embarked on a journey of seeking the sacred knowledge in the blessed land of Shaam. Shaykh Ahmad now resides in his home country Japan teaching the sacred sciences.***