MAKKAH: Malaysian pilgrims who do not master Arabic face difficulty understanding the content of the sermon delivered by the khatib during Friday prayers at Masjidil Haram here.
However, they can listen directly to a translation of the sermon in Bahasa Melayu through the portal https://manaratalharamain.gov.sa, thanks to the services of a young Malaysian, Muhammad Mujahid Zaharudin.
Muhammad Mujahid, 26, from Johor Bahru, has been working at Masjidil Haram since October 2022, translating Friday sermons, Arafah Day sermons, lectures and signboards at the mosque.
The graduate of Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah in the field of Shariah said he tried his luck applying to work in the Grand Mosque despite knowing that it would be quite difficult because the authorities stipulated that applicants must have at least a Master’s degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in their respective fields.
“I only have a degree and for those who have this degree, we need added value as support such as memorising the Quran and hadith.
“After graduation, I was getting ready and supposed to go home but when I got this offer it was like a windfall to continue living in Makkah to apply and expand what I learned at university because, unlike other fields, religious studies do not have industrial training,” he said when met here recently.
Muhammad Mujahid, who memorised 30 volumes of the Quran and about 4,000 hadiths, said that one of the challenging tasks was translating the lectures of the Chief Imam of the Grand Mosque Sheikh Dr Abdulrahman Al-Sudais.
“Sheikh Sudais is good at poetry, rhyming and using idioms. The meaning of this language is different from the Malay language, for example, ‘long hand’ in Malay means stealing but in Arabic it refers to a person who likes to give charity,” he said.
He said that he also discussed a lot with his fellow translators from Indonesia to find the right words to avoid mistranslations that could affect the institution of the holy mosque of Muslims. – BERNAMA
