Background
Pilgrimage in Islam was prescribed during the 9th year of the Islamic Hijra or 623 C.E. The prophet of Islam deputed Abu Baker to lead the pilgrims to perform the Haj. During the 10th year of Hijra, the Prophet left Medina on the 26 of Zul Qi’dah with an average of 90,000 Muslims who joined him to perform Haj. On the 9th of Zul Hijjah the Prophet left Makkah to Arafat with a group of Muslims who exceeded 115,000. At the Mount of Mercy (Al Rahmah), the prophet mounted his camel, and addressed the Muslims while Rabi’ah Ibn Umaiyah Ibn Khalaf was repeating after the Prophet sentence by sentence. This khotba was the last one that the Prophet delivered. The haj performance to Makkah and Arafat was the only one and the last one that the Prophet did. For this reason, the speech that he gave was called Khutbatul Wida’: The farewell Speech, the Farewell Khutba, The farewell Sermon, or the Farewell Address. (Sakr, The farewell Khutbah of the Prophet, p.13). This research is to analyze the text of the Farewell address of the Prophet Muhammad from semiotics and discourse analysis approaches.
Statement of the Problem:
Textual Analysis of the last sermon of the Prophet is to interpret the text and to address the issues that has been mentioned by the prophet and regarded highly by all Muslims.
In his address, the Prophet addressed several issues:
- Freedom to all
- Sanctity of life, wealth and property
- Equality of all races
- Justice in front of the law and in front of Allah
- Women’s rights and obligations
- Exploitation and Monopoly
- Rights of others
Research Question
The study seeks to investigate the following specific research questions:
After about fourteen centuries from delivering the Last Sermon of the prophet, are the issues at the statement of the problem still relevant to the human society in the modern times? Or were they just related the Prophet time and place only?
Methodology:
Textual analysis is a method used by researchers to “describe and interpret the characteristics of a recorded or visual message” (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p.225). Textual analysis describes the content, structure, and functions of messages contained in texts. The purpose is to ascertain the meaning intended by the producer of a text (Hirsch, 1967); other scholars focus on how consumers perceive and interpret text, regardless of the meaning intended by the producer.
Textual analysis can be used to answer the two major questions posed in communication research: “What is the nature of communication?” And “How is communication related to other variables?
Within textual analysis is embodied rhetorical criticism that owes its working definition to Aristotle’s work on “the available means of persuasion” Rhetorical criticism itself is defined as “a systematic method for describing, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating the persuasive force of messages embedded within texts” (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p.229)
Textual Boundaries:
Where does A text begin and end? If a text has a determinate state, then it would necessarily follow that we should be able to localize the text. But where? The language of the text suggest that we end the text where language ends. (Joseph Grigely, Textualterity, Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism, P. 130) In the farewell address, the language that the prophet used set unlimited boundaries to the text. The message of the prophet was not intended for his local people. It was for all people every where and for all generations to come. The prophet used the terminology “O People” He did not use “O Muslims” or “O Believers”. He asked the attended people to deliver His words to others and the others to others.
Textual Event
Joseph Grigely argues that text might be prepared for a specific event and he raises the issue of the notion of iterability (iterare, to repeat; iterum, again). Repeatability is a universal quality in textual studies, where efforts are made to produce or reproduce a particular text. (Joseph Grigely, Textualterity, Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism, P. 93) The last sermon of The Prophet Muhammad has been known, repeated, produced, reproduced, printed, reprinted and will stay forever in the world since it was delivered by the Prophet fourteen centuries ago.
At lest, two million Muslims from around the world every year, they stand at the same mountain of Arafat in Makkah and they remember the Prophet’s last sermon and its universal values that brought to the world. |
