Someone asked Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa about the hadith in regard to Eid sermons, recorded in Sunan al-Daraqutni, wherein the Holy Prophetsa said after an Eid prayer that he was going to deliver the Eid sermon and that whoever wished to stay, could stay and whoever wished to leave, could leave. The person asked whether this hadith was authentic.
Huzooraa, in his letter dated 20 October 2020, granted the following reply:
“[…] The hadith regarding leave from the Eid sermon that you have mentioned in your letter with reference to Daraqutni has also been narrated in Sunan Abi Dawood.
“It is correct that the Holy Prophetsa has not emphasised the listening of the Eid sermon as much as he has emphasised the attending of the Friday sermon and listening to it with complete silence. Based on this, fuqaha and other scholars have declared the Eid sermon a sunnah and mustahab [i.e. a desired action as practised by the Holy Prophetsa].
“However, alongside this, one should also remember that the Holy Prophetsa has declared the attending of the Eid prayers and joining in the supplications of the Muslims, a blessed act of virtue. He emphasised it to the extent that he instructed that a woman who does not have her own scarf, should borrow it from one of her sisters to attend the Eid prayers. Moreover, he emphasised attending the Eid prayer for menstruating women with the instruction that they should join in the dua while staying out of the prayer area.”