A RESEARCH ON THE SUNNAH PRACTICE AND PREACHING SUNNAH TO THE SOCIETY BY RELIGIOUS OFFICIALS OF KARGI DISTRICT

Abstract

This study examines the level to which religious officials, who are officially appointed with the duty to preach the Qur'an and sunnah to the society, practice sunnah in their personal lives and preach it to the society in their professional life. For Muslims, the Qur’an and sunnah are the two main sources of Islam. The Qur’an is the theoretical text of the revelation that God sent, the supreme message. Sunnah expresses the experienced dimension of revelation that has been transferred into practice by the Prophet, that is, the religious life. The research examines whether the independent variables of the education level and total time spent working of the officials had a positive impact on the level of personal practice of sunnah and they're preaching it to the society. The research was carried out with the participation of 79 religious officials working in Kargı district of Çorum, including urban centers and villages. The study controls for the socio-demographic status of religious officials, as well as the levels of use of television, smartphones, the internet, and credit cards, which are the mediators of modern life. In addition, social media habits such as e-mail, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram usage of religious officials were also taken into account. The level of the religious officials' practice of sunnah in their lives and preaching activities, and their answers to the dependent variable questions, which are prepared according to the five-point Likert scale, are examined in their relation to the socio-demographic independent variables. As a result of the analysis of the collected data, it was seen that while the education level did not have a positive effect on the attitudes of religious officials to the sunnah, it had a positive effect on their level of transferring it to society. It was determined that the working time-independent variable did not cause a significant difference in the attitudes of religious officials to sunnah in their lives and preaching activities.