Leadership Qualities of Prophet Muhammad 1

Lead­er­ship Qual­i­ties of Prophet Muhammad

In pen­ning this essayAuthor’s note : The 12th of Rabi al Aww­al, the third month of the Mus­lim cal­en­dar, marks the birth­day of our Prophet Muham­mad(P). This year it falls on Tues­day, April 11th. This event is marked with great fan­fare in many Mus­lim coun­tries, Malaysia includ­ed. Else­where such cel­e­bra­tions are frowned upon. I am ful­ly aware of this con­tro­ver­sy in the Mus­lim world., a trib­ute to our Prophet Muham­mad(P), I am not cel­e­brat­ing” Maulud-ul Nabi as Chris­tians cel­e­brate Christ­mas, rather I am hon­our­ing him by remind­ing myself of the many exem­plary qual­i­ties of this Last Rasul of Allah. 

Allah in His Wis­dom did not choose His Last Mes­sen­ger ran­dom­ly. Long before Allah had cho­sen him, Muham­mad had already demon­strat­ed his noble and ster­ling char­ac­ter. He was Al Amin, the Trust­wor­thy, to his com­mu­ni­ty. In Prophet Muham­mad(P), Allah had an uswatun hasana (“the most beau­ti­ful pat­tern of con­duct”, Surah Al Ahz­ab, 33:21). There are numer­ous Quran­ic vers­es exhort­ing Mus­lims to emu­late this exem­plar of a human being. Exhor­ta­tions from the Holy Book aside, a man whose teach­ings are being fol­lowed by one in five peo­ple on this plan­et deserves attention.

On this Maulud al Nabi, the Prophet’s birth­day, Mus­lims re-live the Seer­ah (the ways and say­ings of the Prophet) to dis­cern their mean­ings. As not­ed by the writer Adil Salahi, the best way for Mus­lims to demon­strate their love for the Prophet(P) is by fol­low­ing his teach­ings, not by singing his praises.

Aping Ver­sus Emulating

Some set a very low bar for them­selves, con­tent with imi­tat­ing the super­fi­cial­i­ties of the man. Thus they are reduced to sport­ing long beards and unshaven faces and wear­ing loose clothes and over­sized tur­bans. That is the extent, noth­ing fur­ther. They are aping, not emu­lat­ing, the prophet.

Oth­ers think they have set a high­er stan­dard by mim­ic­k­ing the prophet in acquir­ing mul­ti­ple wives. They do not emu­late him for his skills in trad­ing, his rev­er­ence for knowl­edge, or his quest for learn­ing. Suf­fice that they could imi­tate the prophet only in that one respect. We do what we can with what we have, so they pious­ly assure them­selves as they indulge in their world­ly lust, all in the name of fol­low­ing the exam­ple of the Holy Prophet of course.

Alas, they are look­ing for lust in all the wrong Seer­ahs !

They con­ve­nient­ly for­get that the prophet remained monog­a­mous for over 25 years with his first wife, Khati­jah. His sub­se­quent mar­riages fol­low­ing her death were expres­sions of his char­i­ty, not lust. Thus his wives includ­ed sin­gle moth­ers and war wid­ows. Oth­er mar­riages were for cement­ing polit­i­cal rela­tion­ships, as was the tra­di­tion then. As a leader with a con­sid­er­able fol­low­ing, he could eas­i­ly have had his groupies, if lust were his intent.

Not sat­is­fied with the lim­i­ta­tions of four wives at a time, and ful­ly aware of the severe penal­ty for adul­tery pre­scribed in the Quran, many Mus­lims ingen­u­ous­ly resort to tem­po­rary mar­riages.” Tem­po­rary as in hours or min­utes, depend­ing on their prowess ! Sur­pris­ing­ly, there are kad­his (reli­gious offi­cials) who would sol­em­nize such mar­riages”, for a fee of course. In my part of the world, such indi­vid­u­als are called pimps.

In their obses­sion with the super­fi­cial­i­ties of the Prophet (P), his well-mean­ing admir­ers miss the essence of the man. This was a man cho­sen by Allah and who eman­ci­pat­ed the Arabs from their Age of Jahiliyah (Igno­rance), and then spread the faith that today is adhered to by over a bil­lion people.

Lead­er­ship Through Per­son­al Exam­ple : Qudhrat Hassanah 

The lead­er­ship qual­i­ties I find most admirable were his humil­i­ty, his recog­ni­tion of tal­ent, and his abil­i­ty to think counter-intu­itive, or out­side the box” as the cur­rent cliché would have it.

When the Prophet received his first rev­e­la­tion, he trem­bled with fear. He was ful­ly aware of the awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty. So fear­ful was he that he could con­fide only to his wife Khati­jah. In an era where females gen­er­al­ly and wives, in par­tic­u­lar, were mere chat­tels of men, that he took her in con­fi­dence was remark­able. It reflect­ed his inner strength and con­fi­dence in judg­ment, regard­less of the pre­vail­ing norms. He trust­ed and respect­ed his wife, a rare trait in that time and place.

It also reflect­ed his deep humil­i­ty. Less­er mor­tals who thought they had been cho­sen by God would undoubt­ed­ly pro­claim that fact loud­ly for the world to hear, à la George Bush, Jr., or Pat Robertson.

True to his humil­i­ty, he preached ini­tial­ly only to his close fam­i­ly and friends. He was ful­ly aware that his mes­sage would lit­er­al­ly turn his soci­ety upside down, trans­form­ing it for the bet­ter. He risked divid­ing his com­mu­ni­ty in the process. He had no desire to destroy his com­mu­ni­ty in order to save it, to use a Viet­nam-era maxim.

Today’s lead­ers would do well to emu­late the Prophet?s appre­ci­a­tion and recog­ni­tion of tal­ent ? mer­i­toc­ra­cy in its pris­tine form. His clos­est com­pan­ions, lat­er to be Caliphs, were tru­ly wor­thy of the appel­la­tion, Rad­hi Allah anHu (May Allah Be Pleased with them).

Rec­og­niz­ing the beau­ti­ful voice of the hith­er­to slave, Bilal, the Prophet made him call the Azzan, a sin­gu­lar hon­our. The Azzan, beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed, gives me goose­bumps ; sim­ply hollered, it grates on the ears.

In the ear­ly days of his mis­sion, to spare his fol­low­ers’ per­se­cu­tion, he arranged for them to migrate to Abyssinia for their safe­ty. That was upper­most in his mind, a true leader. In a piv­otal bat­tle at Taif when he had the ene­my under siege, he could have eas­i­ly anni­hi­lat­ed them espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that they had been bru­tal to him years ear­li­er. Instead, lis­ten­ing to the coun­sel of his lieu­tenant about the fox cor­nered in a hole, he left them alone. You could smoke out the ani­mal and destroy it, or you could leave it alone and it would do you no harm.

The peo­ple of Taif lat­er embraced Islam on their own voli­tion. The Prophet intu­itive­ly rec­og­nized that in fight­ing for your cause, first cre­ate no new adver­saries. A sim­ple les­son, but dif­fi­cult to learn. This is a les­son the world des­per­ate­ly needs to learn in bat­tling terrorism.

The Prophet(P) may have received the bless­ings and rev­e­la­tions from Allah, but he was not above lis­ten­ing to advice from his young subordinates.

In preach­ing, the Prophet was care­ful in ensur­ing that his fol­low­ers mem­o­rized only the divine rev­e­la­tions, not his com­men­taries. He for­bade what would be con­sid­ered today as a per­son­al­i­ty cult. Had he not done so, every Mus­lim home would be adorned with his por­trait, cities named after him, and stat­ues erect­ed in his hon­our. For added mea­sure, Mus­lims would be sport­ing amulets bear­ing his name or like­ness for pro­tec­tion and good luck charms.

The Prophet was no ordi­nary mor­tal, but a mor­tal nonethe­less. At the the­o­log­i­cal lev­el, this means Mus­lims do not believe in the rein­car­na­tion or the sec­ond com­ing. At the prac­ti­cal lev­el, that too has sig­nif­i­cance. While Mus­lims duly and prop­er­ly praise the prophet, we are care­ful not to deify the per­son or attribute per­fec­tion. Per­fec­tion is after all sole­ly the attribute of Allah.

At the per­son­al lev­el, the fact that the Prophet is a mor­tal means that his exem­plary qual­i­ties are with­in the capa­bil­i­ty of every one of us to fol­low. That is the beau­ty of our Prophet(P).

May the bless­ings of Allah be upon him, his fam­i­ly, and his Com­pan­ions as we hon­our him on this spe­cial day of the 12th of Rabi al Awwal.

Repro­duced with the per­mis­sion of the author. The author’s web­site may be accessed at www​.bakrimusa​.comEndmark


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19 responses to “Lead­er­ship Qual­i­ties of Prophet Muhammad”

  1. Mat Avatar
    Mat

    In accor­dance with the Qur’an or any of the authen­tic hadiths of the prophet Muham­mad (salal­la’hu’alai­hi’wasalam), there is none any sin­gle such thing as cel­e­brat­ing the Maulidur-rasul or Maulid Nabi. Absolute­ly none ?

    If there is any ; it’s just a new­ly-invent­ed mat­ter in the reli­gious matter/​affair which is called bid’ah (inno­va­tion). That’s for sure ! By the way sor­ry if my Eng­lish writ­ings does­n’t fit or suit any of you read­ers in here or out there.

  2. AbdAllah Avatar
    AbdAllah

    Assala­mu alaykum Wa Rah­math­ul­lah Wa Barakathuhu

    I think it will suf­fice for me to leave a fatawa by Mufti Muham­mad ibn Adam (My Allah have mer­cy on him) rather than me, with my igno­rance and very lit­tle (and almost non-exis­tent) knowl­dege of Islam, com­ment­ing on the issue of Mawlid.

    To read more of his Al-Ham­dulil­lah detailed and excel­lent fatawa, please vis­it http://​www​.darulif​taa​.com.

    Please read below :

    Ques­tion : Why do some Sun­ni Ula­ma- like the Dew­ban­dis- pro­hib­it the Mawlid ?

    Answer :

    In the name of Allah, Most Com­pas­sion­ate, Most Merciful,

    In an age and time when Mus­lims are being attacked by the ene­mies of Islam from every angle pos­si­ble, to debate and talk about some­thing which is a non-issue (yes, a non-issue), such as cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid” is doing injus­tice to ourselves.

    Thou­sands of Mus­lims are being mas­sa­cred and per­se­cut­ed day in day out, many are involved in all sorts of un-Islam­ic activ­i­ties, young­sters are on the brink of dis­be­lief (kufr), our young broth­ers and sis­ters are involved in drink­ing, drug abuse and for­ni­ca­tion, yet here we are debat­ing whether it is per­mis­si­ble to cel­e­brate the birth­day of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace).

    I per­son­al­ly was reluc­tant to write on this sub­ject, but my dear friend Sidi Faraz Rab­bani ordered me to com­pile a piece explain­ing the Deoban­di posi­tion with regards to the Mawlid. Thus, adher­ing to his com­mand, I will endeav­our to explain the rul­ing on cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid, as under­stood by the Deoban­di scholars.

    Before explain­ing the Deoban­di posi­tion on the Mawlid, I would like to empha­size that unfor­tu­nate­ly many of our dis­putes, dis­agree­ments and argu­ments are due to not under­stand­ing (or not want­i­ng to under­stand, should I say) the oppo­site par­ties stance on a par­tic­u­lar issue. I have expe­ri­enced this many times. This is a prob­lem on both, the Deoban­di and Barel­wi, sides.

    Rather than find excus­es for the state­ments of fel­low Mus­lims and inter­pret them so they are jus­ti­fied, we force peo­ple to believe some­thing which they them­selves no dot believe. In my per­son­al expe­ri­ence, this is the main rea­son why so many Mus­lims are divided.

    I hear some Deoban­dis claim that the Barel­wis believe this and that, yet when I speak to some of our Barel­wi broth­ers about the issue, they cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that this is not what we believe ; rather…….and then they explain their stance. The case is same with the Barel­wis, in that they them­selves decide for the Deoban­dis that agree or dis­agree ; this is what you believe, despite the Deoban­dis reject­ing it.

    This is quite unfor­tu­nate indeed. If we look at all the oth­er reli­gions, faiths, nations, groups, and organ­i­sa­tions, they try and increase the num­bers of their asso­ciates. The Chris­tians claim that most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion are fol­low­ers of their faith, and many oth­er reli­gions also try their best to include every indi­vid­ual in their reli­gion who has a minor attach­ment to them, in order to increase the size of their fol­low­ing. How­ev­er, Mus­lims are the only ones who try their best to decrease the Ummah of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) by forc­ing peo­ple to believe what they don’t, and reduce the Mus­lim Ummah as much as pos­si­ble. We don’t hes­i­tate for one moment in brand­ing one anoth­er as disbelievers.

    The great Hanafi Imam, Alla­ma Ibn Abidin (Allah have mer­cy on him) states in his renowned Sharh Uqud Rasm al-Mufti :

    Brand­ing some­one a non-believ­er (kafir) is a great thing indeed ; hence I do not label a believ­er as a non-believ­er as long as one sign of him believ­ing is found….One should not issue a Fat­wa of a believer’s dis­be­lief (kufr) as long as it is pos­si­ble to inter­pret his state­ment in a jus­ti­fied man­ner, or there is a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion regard­ing him dis­be­liev­ing, even if there is a weak nar­ra­tion.” (Sharh Uqud Rasm al-Mufti, 136)

    Thus, one should not haste in brand­ing and terming oth­er Mus­lims as dis­be­liev­ers or sin­ners and inno­va­tors, for brand­ing a Mus­lim a dis­be­liev­er is a grave thing indeed. The Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him eter­nal peace) said : Any per­son who calls his broth­er : O Unbe­liev­er ! (then the truth of this label) would return to one of them. If it is true, (then it is) as he assert­ed, (but if it is not true), then it returns to him (and thus the per­son who made the accu­sa­tion is an Unbe­liev­er).” (Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 6130 and Sahih Mus­lim, no. 60, report­ed by Ibn Umar, Allah be pleased with him)

    Thus, it is very impor­tant that we have tol­er­ance, patience and for­bear­ance. We must be pre­cau­tious in what we say. We should try and look for excus­es for our fel­low Mus­lim broth­ers and sis­ters. If a state­ment or view­point of a fel­low Mus­lim seems incor­rect, then rather than con­demn­ing the per­son, go and inves­ti­gate as to whether it is true or oth­er­wise. Don’t force oth­ers to believe what they them­selves do not believe.

    Many of the issues on which the Deoban­dis and Barel­wis are divid­ed are for this very rea­son. In real­i­ty, there is no sig­nif­i­cant” dif­fer­ence, rather it is only a case of inter­pre­ta­tion or how it was said, yet there is so much fuss made about it.

    For exam­ple : The mat­ter of whether the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) had knowl­edge of the unseen is made such an issue, but if we were to pon­der deeply with cool head­ed­ness, it would become clear that there is no real difference.

    The Deoban­dis state that the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) had knowl­edge of many unseen things, but the knowl­edge was giv­en to him by Allah Most High. Thus, one can­not call the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) the know­er of the unseen” (a’lim al-Ghayb), for that is used when one has knowl­edge of the unseen with­out some­one else inform­ing him. When I asked some of my Barel­wi friends that do you believe that the mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) had knowl­edge of the unseen in a man­ner that Allah has ? They said : of course not” How can the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) be equal in knowl­edge to Allah. How­ev­er, he had the knowl­edge of the unseen, but it was giv­en to him by Allah Most High.

    Now, when we look at these two posi­tions, it becomes clear that both the Deoban­dis and Barel­wis agree that the Mes­sen­ger of Allah’s (Allah bless him & give him peace) Knowl­edge of the unseen was giv­en to him by Allah Most High. The only minute dif­fer­ence is whether one can call him A’lim al-Ghayb or oth­er­wise. The Deoban­dis state that because the knowl­edge was giv­en to him by Allah most High, it is not cor­rect to call him A’lim al-Ghayb, for that title is for some­one who knows of the unseen with­out being informed by anoth­er. The Barel­wis, on the oth­er hand, say there is noth­ing wrong in giv­ing this title to the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) even if the knowl­edge to him was giv­en by Allah Most High.

    Thus, the dif­fer­ence is very minute indeed, but rather than explain to peo­ple that it is a very minute dif­fer­ence, we make it a fun­da­men­tal part of one’s Aqi­dah. The Deoban­dis insist that the Barel­wis regard the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) to be equal to Allah, and that they regard his knowl­edge to be sim­i­lar to that of Allah, where­as the Barel­wis refuse to accept that the Deoban­dis also believe that the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) also had knowl­edge of the unseen, and that they dis­re­spect the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace)

    The sec­ond point to remem­ber is that we must abstain from using the var­i­ous names and titles like Deoban­dis, Barewlis, etc. I myself have used these terms here, because I had no choice. I am explain­ing the dif­fer­ences of the two schools, thus it was indis­pens­able for me to use them. But in our day-to-day con­ver­sa­tions, we should not call our­selves and oth­ers but with the title of Mus­lims and Sunnis.

    Allah Most High says :

    He has cho­sen you, and has imposed no dif­fi­cul­ties on you in reli­gion ; it is the cult of your father Ibrahim. It is he who has named you Mus­lims, both before and in this (Rev­e­la­tion); that the Mes­sen­ger may be a wit­ness for you and you be wit­ness­es for mankind.” (Surah al-Hajj, V. 78)

    Thus, we must avoid using names oth­er than that of being a Mus­lim. To use dif­fer­ent names and titles in order to incite oth­ers and cause fric­tion and dis­uni­ty among Mus­lims is a grave sin, and must be avoided.

    Once a stu­dent approached a Syr­i­an Arab Schol­ar and said : I need to ask you some ques­tions, but before I do that, I need to know whether you are a Barel­wi or Deoban­di” He said : I am a Mus­lim, fol­low­er of the Shafi’i School, I don’t know what this Barelwi/​Deobandi thing is” The stu­dent insist­ed that he must be one of them. He sug­gest­ed that the Shaykh look into the clas­si­cal Aqi­dah books and see the Aqi­dahs of these two groups. The Shaykh said : I have read almost all of the major works in Aqi­dah but have nev­er found these names. The stu­dent insist­ed that it must have been over­looked by the Shaykh !

    Once a broth­er said to me that Alla­ma Ibn Abidin was a Deoban­di and Imam Suyu­ti a Barel­wi ! I became infu­ri­at­ed and said : This is com­plete­ly incor­rect. How can you call some­one a Deoban­di when Deoband did not even exist ? The real­i­ty is that the Deoban­dis, Barel­wis and also oth­ers fol­low the likes of Alla­ma Ibn Abidin and Imam Suyuti.

    There­fore, these titles and names should be com­plete­ly avoid­ed. I sin­cere­ly advice our broth­ers and sis­ters to abstain them­selves and pre­vent oth­ers from using these names, for it caus­es noth­ing but friction.

    Third­ly, when we look at the issues of dif­fer­ence between the Barel­wis and Deoban­dis, it is quite evi­dent that some of them are minor and pet­ty issues. You won’t find any of the clas­si­cal books of Aqi­dah dis­cussing these issues.

    Thus, we need to over­look these pet­ty issues and con­cen­trate on the more impor­tant issues of Islam. Peo­ple are in need of real guid­ance, some­one to help them strength­en their faith, teach them about the basics of Islam, not some­one who debates whether one can say Ya Rasul Allah or otherwise.

    Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have giv­en extra sig­nif­i­cance to these issues than they deserve. These were issues that were asso­ci­at­ed to a person’s indi­vid­ual con­nec­tion with Allah Most High and His beloved Mes­sen­ger (Allah bless him & give him peace), but we have made them into the basic tenets of Creed (aqi­dah) and issues that dis­tin­guish belief from dis­be­lief and piety from impi­ety (fisq).

    One a broth­er phoned me and said : I need to ask you a ques­tion con­cern­ing busi­ness and trade but first tell me are you from the Aqi­dah of Assalatu was­sala­mu alay­ka ya Rasul Allah ? I said that this is not a mat­ter of Aqi­dah. It is sim­i­lar to say­ing : Do you have the Aqi­dah of Sub­han Allah or Assala­mu Alay­ka ayyuhan Nabi”! I explained to him that these are minute and pet­ty issues and debat­ing about them should be avoided.

    Keep­ing the above three points in mind, we come to the issue of cel­e­brat­ing the birth­day of our beloved Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace).

    The Deoban­di stance on the Mawlid is that, not only is it per­mis­si­ble to cel­e­brate it, rather it is an great act of virtue, as long as the cel­e­bra­tions are free from the unlaw­ful or rep­re­hen­si­ble activ­i­ties, such as free inter­min­gling of the sex­es, exces­sive waste­ful spend­ing, fix­ing of a par­tic­u­lar date, etc, and it is not held to be some­thing nec­es­sary to do such that those who choose not to par­tic­i­pate are con­sid­ered to be in the wrong.

    This is the Deoban­di view­point and it would not be appro­pri­ate to force it down them that they total­ly reject the cel­e­bra­tion of the Mawlid. As men­tioned ear­li­er that it is wrong to force upon oth­ers their beliefs and opin­ions, rather we should take what they say at face value.

    The fun­da­men­tal book that explains the view­points of the Deoban­di schol­ars is al-Muhan­nad ala al-Mufan­nad com­piled by Shaykh Mawlana Khalil Ahmad al-Saha­ran­fu­ri and endorsed by many schol­ars, such as : Imam Ashraf Ali al-Tahanawi, Shaykh al-Hind Mawlana Mah­mud al-Hasan Deoban­di and many oth­ers (Allah have mer­cy on them all). The above­men­tioned view­point can be seen quite clear­ly in this book.

    Shaykh Khalil Ahmad (a stu­dent of Shaykh Rashid Ahmad Gan­go­hi) states :

    Far be it from any Mus­lim that he says (let alone us): men­tion­ing the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace), or even men­tion­ing the soil under his footwear and the urine of his don­key, is an act of rep­re­hen­si­ble and unlaw­ful innovation.

    Thus, aspects that have even a minute con­nec­tion with the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace), men­tion­ing them is from the much-loved of prac­tices and from the great­est of rec­om­men­da­tions, be it the men­tion of his blessed birth, or the men­tion of him reliv­ing him­self, stand­ing, sit­ting, sleep­ing and being awake. This has been explained in detail in my book al-Barahin al-Qati’a in many places.” (al-Muhan­nad, P. 78)

    The above text quite cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly states the per­mis­si­bil­i­ty of cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid. How­ev­er, what the Deoban­di Ula­ma reject is the unlaw­ful and evil prac­tices that have found its way in some Mawlid cel­e­bra­tions, espe­cial­ly in the Sub­con­ti­nent. Thus, Shaykh Khalil Ahmad (Allah have mer­cy on him) fur­ther states :

    It is clear from the above that we do not reject the men­tion­ing of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah’s (Allah bless him him & give him peace) birth ; rather, we reject and refute those evils that are attached to such gath­er­ings as you may have seen them in the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent, such as men­tion­ing fab­ri­cat­ed and false nar­ra­tions, inter­min­gling of the sex­es, exces­sive waste­ful spend­ing in lights and dec­o­ra­tion, hold­ing it to be some­thing nec­es­sary to do such that those who choose not to par­tic­i­pate are slan­dered and called non-believ­ers, and oth­er evils from which very few gath­er­ings (in the sub­con­ti­nent) are free.
    How­ev­er, if the gath­er­ing is free from such evils, far be it from us that we say : Cel­e­brat­ing the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) is evil and an inno­va­tion…” (ibid, p. 80)

    Let us now look at the Fat­wa of Shaykh Mufti Taqi Usmani (may Allah pre­serve him), with which some peo­ple have a prob­lem. The respect­ed Shaykh states :

    As I explained in my arti­cle on cel­e­bra­tion of Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (Mawlid), hold­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss dif­fer­ent aspects of the life of the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him & give him peace) is a very mer­i­to­ri­ous act for which the Mus­lims should strive to the best of their abil­i­ty. But con­fin­ing this dis­cus­sion to the events of the birth of the Holy Prophet and restrict­ing it to a par­tic­u­lar date and hold­ing atten­dance at such meet­ings as nec­es­sary or oblig­a­tory for every Mus­lim ren­ders this prac­tice as bid’ah or innovation.

    Most­ly the meet­ings of Mawlid today are of this type. There­fore, con­tem­po­rary Ule­ma of Deoband have declared it a bid’ah.

    If the life of the Holy Prophet is made sub­ject of a meet­ing, and the meet­ing is free of the above men­tioned defects, nobody can call it a bid’ah. It is in this con­text that some schol­ars of the past have allowed the prac­tice.” (Tak­en from the http://​www​.albal​agh​.net website)

    The upshot of the above Fat­wa is that there are three things which are dis­ap­proved of :
    1) Men­tion­ing only the events of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah’s (Allah bless him & give him peace) birth in the gatherings,

    2) Restrict­ing the gath­er­ing to a par­tic­u­lar date,

    3) Think­ing it to be oblig­a­tory and bind­ing upon everybody,

    Thus, if the above three main evils are avoid­ed, not only will cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid be per­mis­si­ble ; rather, it will be a great act of virtue.

    I myself once asked Shaykh Taqi Usmani (Allah pre­serve him) that if the evils were avoid­ed in such gath­er­ings, would they be per­mit­ted ? He replied in the affir­ma­tive and said the most impor­tant of these evils that must be avoid­ed is that of restrict­ing the cel­e­bra­tion to a par­tic­u­lar date.

    This is quite sig­nif­i­cant, because dur­ing my stay in Syr­ia, I observed Mawlid gath­er­ings being cel­e­brat­ed on many dif­fer­ent dates of Rabi’ al-Aww­al. So much so that many gath­er­ings would even take place out­side of this month. The cel­e­bra­tions and gath­er­ings would be spread out right through the year, although they would become more wide­spread in the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal.

    Thus, in light of Shaykh Taqi Usmani’s words, these Mawlid gath­er­ings are not only per­mit­ted, rather high­ly rec­om­mend­ed prac­tices. It would be wrong (and an inno­va­tion) to specif­i­cal­ly restrict the Mawlid gath­er­ing to the 12th of Rabi’ al-Aww­al in a way that it would not take place on any oth­er date.

    Below is anoth­er Fat­wa autho­rized by Mufti Taqi Usmani (may Allah pre­serve him):

    The gath­er­ings arranged to remem­ber the birth of the Prophet Muham­mad, Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasal­lam, the mer­cy to the mankind, are called Milad gath­er­ings. Remem­ber­ing the life of the Prophet Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasal­lam, and teach­ing oth­ers about it, is an act of great bless­ing and virtue. How­ev­er all good deeds have to be per­formed accord­ing to the rules and guide­lines estab­lished by the Shari­ah. To exceed them is a grave sin. For exam­ple recit­ing the Qur’an is a great act of virtue, but it is pro­hib­it­ed to do so while one is in ruku or sujud in prayers. Like­wise, Salat is one of the most impor­tant acts of wor­ship. Yet, it is haram to per­form it at sun­rise or sunset.

    Sim­i­lar­ly, there are rules gov­ern­ing the blessed remem­brance of the Sir­ah. For exam­ple, this remem­brance must not be asso­ci­at­ed with a par­tic­u­lar day or month ; it should be con­sid­ered equal­ly vir­tu­ous dur­ing every month of the year, every week of the month, and every day of the week. Also it can take any per­mis­si­ble form. For exam­ple you can arrange a read­ing of an authen­tic book on Sir­ah or have a lec­ture deliv­ered by a schol­ar. Doing that is not only per­mis­si­ble but it will bring great reward. But it is impor­tant to stay away from the evils found in the preva­lent Milad gath­er­ings. Here are some of those evils :

    1) A par­tic­u­lar date (12 Rabi al-Aww­al) has been des­ig­nat­ed for this remembrance.

    2) The ele­ment of show-off (riya) is com­mon­ly present in these gatherings.

    3) If some­one does not attend these gath­er­ings, he is looked down upon.

    4) Dis­tri­b­u­tion of sweets is con­sid­ered an indis­pens­able part of the proceedings.

    5) To meet the expens­es, dona­tions are col­lect­ed from some­times unwill­ing peo­ple who give mon­ey under social pres­sure. Accord­ing to the hadith it is not per­mis­si­ble to take any Muslim’s mon­ey with­out his willingness.

    6) Inter­mix­ing of men and women com­mon­ly takes place in these gath­er­ings. Peo­ple stay late at night in these meet­ings there­by miss­ing the next morning’s prayers.

    7) The focus of the talks deliv­ered there is very lim­it­ed. The Prophet, Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasal­lam, has giv­en guid­ance for every aspect of our life. These cov­er acts of wor­ship, deal­ing with oth­er peo­ple, morals and man­ners, social rela­tion­ships, busi­ness deal­ings, etc. How­ev­er, it has been observed that the preva­lent Milad talks con­cen­trate main­ly or sole­ly on the account of the birth of the Prophet, Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasal­lam, and his mir­a­cles. They do not attempt to cov­er the vast teach­ings of the Prophet, Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasallam.

    For these rea­sons, one should refrain from the preva­lent Milad gath­er­ings. How­ev­er, if care is tak­en to avoid all of these evils and to fol­low the Shari­ah care­ful­ly, then a meet­ing orga­nized to remem­ber the Prophet, Sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wasal­lam , with the sole pur­pose of seek­ing Allah’s plea­sure, will Insha-Allah be a blessed event. And Allah knows best. (End of Fatwa)

    Writ­ten : Muham­mad Abdul Muntaqim Syl­heti (Darul-Ifta, Darul-uloom Karachi) Con­cur­rence from :

    Jus­tice Mufti Muham­mad Taqi Usmani

    Mufti Muham­mad Rafi Usmani

    Mufti Abdul Rauf Sakkharvi

    And many oth­ers. (See : http://​www​.albal​agh​.net)

    The above Fat­wa of Dar al-Uloom Karachi and approved by Shaykh Mufti Taqi Usmani (Allah have mer­cy on him) also gives the same mes­sage, in that the Mawlid, if free of imper­mis­si­ble mat­ters, can­not be con­sid­ered blame­wor­thy or an innovation.

    In my per­son­al view, it is only a dif­fer­ence of inter­pre­ta­tion and the way one puts forth his view­point. It is a case of what we dis­cussed ear­li­er that one says some­thing and much more is added to it.

    If we were to look at the same above Fat­wa endorsed by Mufti Taqi Usmani and turn it around, the mes­sage would seem quite the oppo­site. There are two ways of putting your argu­ment forward.

    For exam­ple : One can say that cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid is a great act of virtue, a high­ly praise­wor­thy prac­tice, etc….Then con­clude the Fat­wa or arti­cle by say­ing : How­ev­er, if there are evils attached to the gath­er­ing, it would not be per­mit­ted. On the oth­er hand, one may say : cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid is wrong, an inno­va­tion, has too many evils, etc….Then con­clude the answer by say­ing : How­ev­er, if these evils were avoid­ed it would be permissible.

    Now, even though these two argu­ments give the same mes­sage, the assump­tion made is quite the oppo­site. It’s just a case of how you say it”.

    It is relat­ed that the great Deoban­di schol­ar of Hadith, Fiqh and Tasawwuf, Shaykh Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Gan­go­hi (Allah have mer­cy on him) once on his jour­ney to Makkah al-Mukar­ramah for Umra vis­it­ed his Shaykh and spir­i­tu­al mas­ter, Haji Imdad Allah Muha­jir al-Mak­ki (Allah have mer­cy on him). Inci­den­tal­ly, on one of the days a Mawlid gath­er­ing was orga­nized. His Shaykh Haji Imdad Allah (Allah have mer­cy on him) said to Shaykh Gan­go­hi that there is a Mawlid gath­er­ing orga­nized, would you like to attend with me ? He reused and said : How can I attend a gath­er­ing of Mawlid when I pre­vent oth­ers from attend­ing it in India due the evils that have been attached to them. If they (peo­ple in India) came to know of me attend­ing a Mawlid what would they say ? Upon hear­ing this, his Shaykh Haji Imdad Allah said : May Allah reward you. I would have not been hap­pi­er if you attend­ed the Mawlid than I am in you refus­ing to come with us, because you are stead­fast on what you believe to be the truth.

    There­after, Haji Imdad Allah al-Mak­ki attend­ed the Mawlid and one of the ser­vants and stu­dents of Shaykh Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Gan­go­hi also, with­out inform­ing his Shaykh, went to the Mawlid. This stu­dent of Shaykh Rashid Ahmad said after attend­ing the Mawlid : If my Shaykh, Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Gan­go­hi would have attend­ed the Mawlid gath­er­ing, he would have not con­demned it, for it was free from evil and imper­mis­si­ble mat­ters. (See : Mal­fuzat of Mufti Mah­mud al-Hasan Gan­go­hi, 199)

    The Deoban­dis also have gath­er­ings in which they men­tion the Sir­ah, char­ac­ter­is­tics and ways of the mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace). Songs and Anashid in praise of the best of cre­ation are sung. These gath­er­ings are orga­nized through­out the year and become more com­mon in the month of Rabi’ al-Aww­al. How­ev­er, they do not attach it to a par­tic­u­lar date, and also, rather than call­ing them Mawlid gath­er­ings” they call them Sir­ah gath­er­ings, denot­ing that not only the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) will be dis­cussed rather his life in general.

    There­fore, we can con­clude the Deoban­di view­point on cel­e­brat­ing Mawlid say­ing that it is a high­ly praise­wor­thy act for which one will be reward­ed. How­ev­er, it will be wrong and an inno­va­tion to attach the imper­mis­si­ble mat­ters to it, and this is how they under­stand the state­ment of schol­ars such as Hafidh Ibn Hajar, Imam Suyu­ti and oth­ers when they per­mit­ted the cel­e­bra­tion of the Mawlid.

    By look­ing into the books of the Deoban­di Ula­ma, we can sum up these evils and imper­mis­si­ble prac­tices in the following :

    1) A par­tic­u­lar date (i.e. 12th of Rabi’ al-Aww­al) is fixed,

    2) Only the birth events of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) are discussed,

    3) It is called a day of Eid, whilst Islam has only pre­scribed two Eids,

    4) Cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid is con­sid­ered to be necessary,

    5) Unlaw­ful prac­tices (such as inter­min­gling of the sex­es) take place,

    If we were to look at the state­ments of those who sup­port the cel­e­bra­tion of Mawlid, it becomes clear that they also strong­ly con­demn the var­i­ous evils men­tioned by the Deoban­di scholars.

    The great Sufi and Mali­ki schol­ar resid­ing in Makkah al-Mukar­ramah, Sayyid Muham­mad ibn Alawi al-Mali­ki (may Allah pre­serve him) states in his short trea­tise regard­ing cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid, Hawl al-ihti­fal bi zikra mawlid al-nabawi al-sharif :

    How many times have we stressed that the Mes­sen­ger of Allah’s day of birth is not con­sid­ered a Eid, nei­ther do we regard it as a day of Eid, for it is a day greater and more vir­tu­ous than the day of Eid. Eid only comes once a year, whilst cel­e­brat­ing the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) and men­tion­ing his Sir­ah should be a con­stant thing, with­out restrict­ing it to a par­tic­u­lar time or place.” (P.8 – 9)

    He fur­ther sates :

    We cel­e­brate the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) con­stant­ly and all the time, at every occa­sion and at every event of hap­pi­ness and joy. This is increased in the month of his birth Rabi’ al-Aww­al” and the day of his birth Mon­day”. (p. 11)

    He also states :

    One of the inno­va­tions (bid’a) of the Mawlid is that, it is prac­ticed by some of those who cel­e­brate it by car­ry­ing out unlaw­ful activ­i­ties, being neg­li­gent with prayers, involve­ment if Riba and not imple­ment­ing the out­ward and inward Sun­nahs of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace).” (p. 49)

    And :

    One of the inno­va­tions that is prac­tised in some coun­tries is restrict­ing the men­tion of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah’s (Allah bless him & give him peace) sir­ah, char­ac­ter­is­tics, and praise, feed­ing oth­ers and car­ry­ing out oth­er com­mend­able actions to only the month of Rabi’ al-Aww­al because of the birth of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace). How­ev­er, it is nec­es­sary that these acts are not restrict­ed to the month of Rabi’ only ; rather, it is nec­es­sary (wajib) upon a Mus­lim that he car­ries out these good deeds con­stant­ly in every day of the month, for the men­tion of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) is not attached to a par­tic­u­lar time….” (p. 50)

    And :

    If we met and men­tioned the prais­es of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace), his strug­gles, his char­ac­ter­is­tics and did not even men­tion the sto­ry of his birth, to which peo­ple have become accus­tomed- to such an extent that they con­sid­er a Mawlid gath­er­ing incom­plete with­out it….,we would have cel­e­brat­ed the Mawlid.” (p. 40)

    We can see from the above quotes of Sayyid Muham­mad ibn Alawi al-Mali­ki (may Allah pre­serve him) tak­en from his book which he com­piled in sup­port of the Mawlid (and should be read by those who reject the Mawlid total­ly), it becomes clear that there is agree­ment between what the schol­ars of Deoband say and those who cel­e­brate Mal­wid. As such, there is no dis­agree­ment in reality.

    In con­clu­sion, we need to devel­op patience and sin­cer­i­ty in our efforts to bring about more tol­er­ance in this world. Try to make dif­fer­ences seem non-exis­tent. There is no real dif­fer­ence between the Deoban­di schol­ars and the Barel­wis, in that they both agree with the Mawlid and dis­agree with the evils and unlaw­ful prac­tices that are prac­ticed by some.

    Indeed, there are some igno­rant Mus­lims who do prac­tice the evils men­tioned by the Deoban­di schol­ars, but rather than refute their cel­e­bra­tion of the Mawlid, Deoban­dis should strive and cor­rect these prac­tices. If they begin to refute the Mawlid alto­geth­er, then those who prac­tice it will say that these are Wah­habis, etc, and won’t even reflect upon their unlaw­ful actions. Con­verse­ly, if they sup­port the Mawlid, there is a great chance of them cor­rect­ing the evils. Thus, they should be giv­en an alter­na­tive of pure and uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed gath­er­ing of Mawlid in which the Sir­ah of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) is men­tioned. A Gath­er­ing in which peo­ple are encour­aged to imple­ment the Sun­nahs and char­ac­ter­is­tics of the beloved of Allah, whether you call it a Mawlid gath­er­ing or a Sir­ah gath­er­ing, for names are irrel­e­vant. This is my sin­cere advice to the Deobandis.

    As far as our Barel­wi broth­ers are con­cerned, rather than argu­ing the ratio­nal­i­ty of Mawlid gath­er­ings and try­ing to prove it, they should try and stamp out the evils prac­ticed by some indi­vid­u­als. Explain to the mass­es that cel­e­brat­ing the Mawlid is not suf­fi­cient. One has to be a com­plete believ­er. One needs to imple­ment the ways of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) in all aspects of one’s life. Use these Mawlid gath­er­ings to spread the message.

    If we do this, then, not only will we have a more har­mo­nious rela­tion­ship, but we will see Mus­lims becom­ing stronger in their faith and bet­ter Mus­lims as a whole. May Allah guide us all to the straight path. I seek for­give­ness if I may have offend­ed any­body. May Allah unite us and gath­er us all in Par­adise, Ameen.

    And Allah knows best

    Muham­mad ibn Adam
    Darul Iftaa
    Leices­ter , UK

  3. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    as salaa­mu alaykum,

    thanks for the response, broth­er khalid, broth­er imran. broth­er khalid, you your­self have admit­ted that some of the branch­es of islam­ic knowl­edge did not exist dur­ing the Prophet’s time. could it be that the Prophet did not see any val­ue in cre­at­ing these branch­es of knowl­edge ? hence, accord­ing to what i under­stand as your line of rea­son­ing, these branch­es should be bidaa as well.

    the point here is that the Prophet and the Com­pan­ions did not do absolute­ly EVERYTHING that is good, and it does not pre­vent mus­lims from doing which are good, when tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion with­in the bal­ance of the shari­ah, which were not done in the Prophet’s time. (bidaa hasanah, accord­ing to tra­di­tion­al mus­lim schol­ars, such as imam suyu­ti). and mawlid cel­e­bra­tions fall in this kind of bidaa. what i was men­tion­ing as libels of bidaa’ is that some of the broth­ers, like you, frown upon these cel­e­bra­tions, thus by impli­ca­tion, mawlid cel­e­bra­tions are a bad kind of bidaa.

    would we stop our mus­lim broth­ers from being hap­py by remem­ber­ing the Prophet, because it hap­pened to be his birth, which is the great­est event in his­to­ry ? so you’re say­ing that we should be hap­py and in remem­brance of him all our life, all year long, but then we should sud­den­ly turn against each oth­er dur­ing rabi­ul aww­al 12 ? what is bad with seer­ah meet­ings, send­ing salaams upon the prophet, dur­ing rabi­ul aww­al 12 ?

    — – With regard to the claim that this prac­tice is based on the Prophet?s fast­ing on mon­days — who under­stood the Prophet?s prac­tices bet­ter : you or the noble Saha­ba ? If they, and the lead­ing Mus­lim schol­ars, nev­er cel­e­brat­ed the Prophet?s birth­day, then how can you claim that this is what the hadith means ? — —

    Abu Qata­da al-Ansari nar­rates in Sahih Mus­lim, Kitab al-siyam, that the Prophet was asked about the fast of Mon­day, and he answered : That is the day that I was born and that is the day I received the prophecy.”

    — – So like I said, if there was any val­ue in the annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of the Prophet?s birth­day the com­pan­ions would have done it. They did not. — —

    appar­ent­ly, the Prophet him­self did not val­ue an annu­al celebration/​commemmoration, since he and the saha­ba val­ued a week­ly com­mem­mora­tion instead, in light of Hazrat Abu Qata­da al-Ansar­i’s nar­ra­tion in Sahih Mus­lim above.

    broth­er, of course, the Prophet under­stands bet­ter, as it was he who men­tioned the sig­nif­i­cance of the fast on Mon­days. can you pro­vide any oth­er expla­na­tion for this ?

    as for the lead­ing Mus­lim schol­ars, the link i pro­vid­ed men­tions some of these schol­ars. and among these schol­ars is ibn taymiyyah. does he also have the audac­i­ty to per­mit this bidaa ?
    here is a por­tion of an arti­cle found on http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid/muslimarticles/mawlid.html :

    Ten (10) PROOFS from the Qur’an and Sun­nah that Cel­e­brat­ing the Nabi’s birth­day is accept­ed in Shari’ah.

    FIRST : Allah asks the Prophet, peace be upon him, to remind his Nation that it is essen­tial for those who claim to love Allah, to love His Prophet : Say to them : If you love Allah, fol­low (and love and hon­or) me, and Allah will love you” (3:31).
    The Cel­e­bra­tion of the Holy Prophet’s birth is moti­vat­ed by this oblig­a­tion to love the Prophet, peace be upon him, to obey him, to remem­ber him, to fol­low his exam­ple, and to be proud of him as Allah is proud of him, since Allah has boast­ed about him in His Holy Book by say­ing, Tru­ly you are of a mag­ni­fi­cient char­ac­ter” (68:4).
    Love of the Prophet is what dif­fer­en­ti­ates the believ­ers in the per­fec­tion of their iman. In an authen­tic hadith relat­ed in al-Bukhari and Mus­lim, the Prophet said : None of you believes until he loves me more than he loves his chil­dren, his par­ents, and all peo­ple.” In anoth­er hadith in al-Bukhari he said : None of you believes until he loves me more than he loves him­self” and Sayyid­i­na Umar said : O Prophet, I love you more than myself.”
    Per­fec­tion of faith is depen­dent on love of the Prophet because Allah and His angels are con­stant­ly rais­ing his hon­or, as is meant by the verse already quot­ed, Allah and His angels are pray­ing on the Prophet” (33:56). The divine order that imme­di­ate­ly fol­lows in the verse, O believ­ers, pray on him,” makes it clear that the qual­i­ty of being a believ­er is depen­dent on and man­i­fest­ed by pray­ing on the Prophet. O Allah ! Send peace and bless­ings on the Prophet, his fam­i­ly, and his companions.

    The Prophet Empha­sized Mon­day As the Day He Was Born.

    SECOND : Abu Qata­da al-Ansari nar­rates in Sahih Mus­lim, Kitab al-siyam, that the Prophet was asked about the fast of Mon­day, and he answered : That is the day that I was born and that is the day I received the prophecy.”
    We quote again from Shaykh Mutawal­li Sha‘rawi :
    Many extra­or­di­nary events occurred on his birth­day as evi­denced in hadith and his­to­ry, and the night of his birth is not like the night of any oth­er human being’s birth.”
    These events and the hadiths per­tain­ing there­to, such as the shak­ing of Chos­roes’ court, the extinc­tion of the 1,000-year old fire in Per­sia, etc. are relat­ed in Ibn Kathir’s work al-Bidaya, Vol. 2, pages 265 – 268.
    We quote from the book Kitab al-Mad­khal by Ibn al-Hajj (1:261):
    It is an oblig­a­tion that on every Mon­day of Rabi‘ ul- Aww­al we increase our wor­ship to thank Allah for what He gave us as a great favor — the favor of send­ing us His beloved Prophet to direct us to Islam and to peace… The Prophet, when answer­ing some­one ques­tion­ing him about fast­ing on Mon­days, men­tioned : On that day I was born. There­fore that day gives hon­or to that month, because that is the day of the Prophet… and he said : I am the mas­ter of the chil­dren of Adam and I say that with­out pride… and he said : Adam and who­ev­er is descend­ed from him are under my flag on the day of Judg­ment. These hadiths were trans­mit­ted by the Shaikhayn [Bukhari and Mus­lim]. And Mus­lim quotes in his Sahih, the Prophet said, On that day, Mon­day, I was born and on that day the first mes­sage was sent to me.”
    The Prophet empha­sized the day of his birth and thanked Allah for the big favor of bring­ing him to life by fast­ing on that day as is men­tioned in the hadith of Abu Qata­da. This means that the Prophet was express­ing his hap­pi­ness for that day by fast­ing, which is a kind of wor­ship. Since the Prophet empha­sized that day by fast­ing, wor­ship in any form to empha­size that day is also accept­able. Even if we change the form, the essence is kept. There­fore, fast­ing, giv­ing food to the poor, com­ing togeth­er to praise the Prophet, or com­ing togeth­er to remem­ber his good man­ners and good behav­ior, all of this is con­sid­ered a way of empha­siz­ing that day. (See also the hadith Dying on Mon­day” below.)

    Allah Said : Rejoice in the Prophet

    THIRD : To express hap­pi­ness for the Prophet com­ing to us is an oblig­a­tion giv­en by Allah through Qur’an, as Allah said in Qur’an : Of the favor and mer­cy of Allah let them rejoice” (10:58).
    This order came because joy makes the heart grate­ful for the mer­cy of Allah. And What greater mer­cy did Allah give than the Prophet him­self, of whom Allah says, We did not send you except as a mer­cy to human beings” (21:107).
    Because the Prophet was sent as a mer­cy to all mankind, it is incum­bent not only upon Mus­lims, but upon all human beings to rejoice in his per­son. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, today it is some Mus­lims who are fore­most in reject­ing Allah’s order to rejoice in His Prophet.

    The Prophet Cel­e­brat­ed Great His­tor­i­cal Events

    FOURTH : The Prophet always made the con­nec­tion between reli­gious events and his­tor­i­cal events, so that when the time returned for a sig­nif­i­cant event, he remind­ed his Saha­ba to cel­e­brate that day and to empha­size it, even if it had hap­pened in the dis­tant past. This prin­ci­ple can be found in the fol­low­ing hadith of Bukhari and oth­ers : When the Prophet reached Mad­i­na, he saw the Jews fast­ing on the day of Ashu­ra’. He asked about that day and they told him that on that day, Allah saved their Prophet, Sayyid­i­na Musa and drowned their ene­my. There­fore they are fast­ing on that day to thank Allah for that favor.” At that time the Prophet respond­ed with the famous hadith, We have more right to Musa than you,” and he used to fast that day and the day pre­ced­ing it.

    Allah Said : Invoke Bless­ings on the Prophet

    FIFTH : Remem­brance of the birth of the Prophet encour­ages us to pray on the Prophet and to praise him, which is an oblig­a­tion on us through Allah’s order in the verse,
    Allah and His angels are pray­ing on (and prais­ing) the Prophet ; O believ­ers ! pray on (and praise) him and send him utmost greet­ings” (33:56). Com­ing togeth­er and remem­ber­ing the Prophet caus­es us to pray on him and to praise him. Who has the right to deny the oblig­a­tion which Allah has ordered us to ful­fill through the Holy Qur’an ? The ben­e­fit brought by obey­ing an order of Allah, and the light that it brings to our heart, can­not be mea­sured. That oblig­a­tion, fur­ther­more, is men­tioned in the plur­al : Allah and His angels are pray­ing on and prais­ing the Prophet — in a gath­er­ing. It is entire­ly incor­rect, there­fore, to say that pray­ing on and prais­ing the Prophet must be done alone.
    The Effect of Observ­ing Mawlid on Unbelievers

    SIXTH : Express­ing hap­pi­ness and cel­e­brat­ing the Prophet on his birth­day caus­es even unbe­liev­ers, by Allah’s favor and mer­cy, to gain some ben­e­fit. This is men­tioned in Sahih Bukhari. Bukhari said in his hadith that every Mon­day, Abu Lahab in his grave is released from pun­ish­ment because he freed his hand­maid Thuway­ba when she brought him the news of the Prophet’s birth.
    This hadith is men­tioned in Bukhari in the book of Nikah, and Ibn Kathir men­tions it in his books Sir­at al-Nabi Vol.1, p. 124, Mawlid al-Nabi p. 21, and al-Bidaya p. 272 – 273. The hafiz Sham­sud­din Muham­mad ibn Nasirud­din ad-Dimashqi wrote on this the fol­low­ing vers­es in his book Mawrid as-sadi fi Mawlid al-Hadi : If this, a kafir who was con­demned to hell eter­nal­ly with Per­ish his hands” [sura 111], is said to enjoy a respite every Mon­day because he rejoiced in Ahmad : what then do you think of the ser­vant who, all his life, was hap­py with Ahmad, and died say­ing, One”?”

    The Oblig­a­tion to Know Sira and Imi­tate Its Cen­tral Character

    SEVENTH : We are asked to know about our Prophet, about his life, about his mir­a­cles, about his birth, about his man­ners, about his faith, about his signs (ayat wa dala’il), about his seclu­sions, about his wor­ship, and is not this knowl­edge an oblig­a­tion for every Mus­lim ? What is bet­ter than cel­e­brat­ing and remem­ber­ing his birth, which rep­re­sents the essence of his life, in order to acquire knowl­edge of his life ? To remem­ber his birth begins to remind us of every­thing else about him. This will make Allah hap­py with us because then we will be able to know the Prophet’s Sira bet­ter, and we will be read­ier to take the Prophet as an exam­ple for our­selves, to cor­rect our­selves, and to imi­tate him. That is why the cel­e­bra­tion of his birth­day is a great favor sent to us.

    The Prophet Accept­ed Poet­ry in His Honor

    EIGHTH : In the time of the Prophet, it is well-known that poets came to him with all kinds of works prais­ing him, writ­ing about his cam­paigns and bat­tles and about the Saha­ba. This is proved by the numer­ous poems quot­ed in the Sir­as of Ibn Hisham, al-Waqi­di, and oth­ers. The Prophet was hap­py with good poet­ry since it is report­ed in Bukhar­i’s al-Adab al-mufrad and else­where that he said : There is wis­dom in poet­ry.” Thus the Prophet’s uncle al-‘Abbas com­posed poet­ry prais­ing the birth of the Prophet, in which are found the fol­low­ing lines :
    When you were born, the earth was shin­ing, and the fir­ma­ment bare­ly con­tained your light, and we can pierce through, thanks to that radi­ance and light and path of guidance.
    This text is found in Suyu­ti’s Husn al-maqsid p. 5 and in Ibn Kathir’s Mawlid p. 30 as well as Ibn Hajar’s Fath al-Bari.
    Ibn Kathir men­tions the fact that accord­ing to the Saha­ba, the Prophet praised his own name and recit­ed poet­ry about him­self in the mid­dle of the bat­tle of Hunayn in order to encour­age the com­pan­ions and scare the ene­mies. That day he said : I am the Prophet ! This is no lie. I am the son of Abd al-Muttalib!”
    The Prophet was there­fore hap­py with those who praised him because it is Allah’s order, and he gave them from what Allah was pro­vid­ing him. If we get togeth­er and do some­thing in order to approach the Prophet, we are doing some­thing to approach Allah, and approach­ing the Prophet will make Allah hap­py with us.
    Singing and Recita­tion of Poetry :
    It is estab­lished that the Prophet instruct­ed A’isha to let two ladies sing on the day of Eid. He said to Abu Bakr : Let them sing, because for every nation there is a hol­i­day, and this is our hol­i­day” [Agreed upon]. Ibn Qayy­im in Madar­ij al-salikin com­ments that the Prophet also gave per­mis­sion to sing in wed­ding cel­e­bra­tions, and allowed poet­ry to be recit­ed to him. He heard Anas and the Com­pan­ions prais­ing him and recit­ing poems while dig­ging before the famous bat­tle of the Trench (Khan­daq), as they said : We are the ones who gave bay‘a to Muham­mad for jihad as long as we are living.”
    Ibn Qayy­im also men­tions Abdul­lah ibn Rawa­ha’s long poem prais­ing the Prophet as the lat­ter entered Mec­ca, after which, the Prophet prayed for him. He prayed that Allah sup­port Has­san ibn Thabit, with the holy spir­it as long as he would sup­port the Prophet with his poet­ry. Sim­i­lar­ly the Prophet reward­ed Ka‘b ibn Zuhayr’s poem of praise with a robe. The Prophet asked Aswad bin Sar­ih to make poems prais­ing Allah, and he asked some­one else to recite the poem of praise of 100 vers­es which Umayya ibn Abi al- Salt had com­posed. Ibn Qayy­im con­tin­ues, “ A’isha always recit­ed poems prais­ing him and he was hap­py with her.”
    This Umayya ibn Abi al-Salt is a poet of Jahiliyya who died in Dam­as­cus before Islam. He was a pious man who had relin­quished the use of wine and the wor­ship of idols, as relat­ed by Dha­habi in Siyar a‘lam al-nubala’ (2:23).
    Part of the funer­al eulo­gy Has­san ibn Thabit recit­ed for the Prophet states :
    I say, and none can find fault with me But one lost to all sense : I shall nev­er cease to praise him. It may be for so doing I shall be for ever in Par­adise With the Cho­sen One for whose sup­port in that I hope. And to attain to that day I devote all my efforts.(1)
    Singing and Recita­tion of Qur’an :
    As Ibn al-Qayy­im says in his book, Allah gave per­mis­sion to his Prophet to recite the Qur’an in a melo­di­ous way. Abu Musa al- Ash‘ari one time was recit­ing the Qur’an in a melo­di­ous voice and the Prophet was lis­ten­ing to him. After he fin­ished, the Prophet con­grat­u­lat­ed him on recit­ing in a melo­di­ous way and said, You have a good voice.” And he said about Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari that Allah gave him a miz­mar” (flute or horn) from Dawud’s miz­mars. Then Abu Musa said, O Mes­sen­ger of Allah, if I had known that you were lis­ten­ing to me, I would have recit­ed it in a much more melo­di­ous and beau­ti­ful voice such as you have nev­er heard before.”
    Ibn Qayy­im con­tin­ues, The Prophet said, Dec­o­rate the Qur’an with your voic­es,” and Who does not sing the Qur’an is not from us.” Ibn Qayy­im com­ments : To take plea­sure in a good voice is accept­able, as is tak­ing plea­sure in a nice scenery, such as moun­tains or nature, or from a nice smell, or from good food, as long as it is con­form­ing to Shari‘a. If lis­ten­ing to a good voice is haram, then tak­ing plea­sure in all these oth­er things is also haram.”
    The Prophet Allowed Drum-Play­ing For A Good Intention :
    Ibn Abbad the Muhad­dith gave the fol­low­ing fat­wa in his Let­ters.” He starts with the hadith, One lady came to the Prophet when he was return­ing from one of his bat­tles and she said, Ya Rasu­lal­lah, I have made an oath that if Allah sends you back safe, I would play this drum near you.” The Prophet said, Ful­fill your oath.” The hadith is found in Abu Dawud, Tir­mid­hi, and Ahmad.
    Ibn Abbad con­tin­ues, There is no doubt that the play­ing of a drum is a kind of enter­tain­ment, even though the Prophet ordered her to ful­fill her oath. He did that because her inten­tion was to hon­or him for return­ing safe­ly, and her inten­tion was a good inten­tion, not with the inten­tion of a sin or of wast­ing time. There­fore, if any­one cel­e­brates the time of the birth of the Prophet in a good way, with a good inten­tion, by read­ing Sira and prais­ing him, it is accepted.”

    The Prophet Empha­sized the Birth­day of Prophets

    NINTH : The Prophet empha­sized in his hadith both the day and the place of birth of pre­vi­ous prophets. Speak­ing of the great­ness of the day of Jum‘a (Fri­day), the Prophet said in his hadith : On that day [i.e. Jum‘a], Allah cre­at­ed Adam.” This means that the day of Fri­day is empha­sized because Allah cre­at­ed Adam on that day. That day is empha­sized because it saw the cre­ation of the prophet and father of all human beings. What about the day when the great­est of prophets and best of human beings was cre­at­ed ? The Prophet said : Tru­ly Allah made me the Seal of prophets while Adam was between water and clay.” This hadith is relat­ed by Ahmad in the Mus­nad, Bay­haqi in Dala’il al-Nubuwwa and oth­ers, and is sound and estab­lished as authentic.
    Why Bukhari Empha­sized Dying On Monday
    Imam Qastal­lani said in his com­men­tary on Bukhari : In his book on Jana’iz (Funer­als), Bukhari named an entire chap­ter Dying on Mon­day.” In it there is the hadith of A’isha relat­ing her father’s (Abu Bakr al-Sid­diq) ques­tion : On which day did the Prophet die?” She replied : Mon­day.” He asked : What day are we today?” She said, O my father, this is Mon­day.” Then he raised his hands and said : I beg you, O Allah, to let me die on Mon­day in order to coin­cide with the Prophet’s day of passing.”
    Imam Qastal­lani con­tin­ues, Why did Abu Bakr ask for his death to be on Mon­day ? So that his death would coin­cide with the day of the Prophet’s pass­ing, in order to receive the bara­ka of that day… Does any­one object to Abu Bakr’s ask­ing to pass away on that day for the sake of bara­ka ? Now, why are peo­ple object­ing to cel­e­brat­ing or empha­siz­ing the day of the Prophet s birth in order to get baraka?”
    The Prophet Empha­sized the Birth­place of Prophets
    A hadith authen­ti­fied by the hafiz al-Haytha­mi in Maj­ma‘ al- zawa’id states that on the night of Isra’ and Mi‘raj, the Prophet was ordered by Jib­ril to pray two rak‘ats in Bayt Lahm (Beth­le­hem), and Jib­ril asked him : Do you know where you prayed ? When the Prophet asked him where, he told him : You prayed where Isa was born.”(2)
    T
    he Ijma‘ of ula­ma on the Per­mis­si­bil­i­ty of Mawlid

    TENTH : Remem­ber­ing the Prophet’s birth­day is an act that all ula­ma of the Mus­lim world accept and still accept. This means that Allah accepts it, accord­ing to the say­ing of Ibn Mas‘ud relat­ed in Imam Ahmad’s Mus­nad with a sound chain : What­ev­er the major­i­ty of Mus­lims see as right, then this is good to Allah, and what­ev­er is seen by the major­i­ty of Mus­lims as wrong, it is wrong to Allah.”

    May Allah guide us all, Broth­ers. peace and bless­ing upon the Prophet, his house­hold, his com­pan­ions, and all those who fol­low and love him.

  4. Khalid Avatar
    Khalid

    Assala­mu Alaykum,

    — — — — — regard­ing the 3 ele­ments of tawhid, why lim­it it to 3 ele­ments only, brother ? — — — — — –
    It isn’t. This is a mis­un­der­stand­ing on your part. There are numer­ous ways to clas­si­fy Tawheed, the three sub­di­vi­sion way is just one pop­u­lar way. Oth­er schol­ars (eg. Ibn Al-Qayy­im, Ibn Abu Al-Izz) have divid­ed it into two cat­e­gories — Tawheed Al-Ilmi and Tawheed Al-Amali. Each of these cat­e­gories is fur­ther divid­ed into three cat­e­gories for a total of six cat­e­gories. So cat­e­go­riza­tion and clas­sif­ca­tion of Tawheed has noth­ing to do with reli­gious inno­va­tion it is mere­ly a toold which aids in analysing and teach­ing the con­cept of Tawheed, just as clas­si­fy­ing dif­fer­ence Islam­ic sci­ences as Uloom Al-Qur’an, Usul Al-Hadith, usul Al-Fiqh, etc. helps in teach­ing and learn­ing the Islam­ic sciences.

    Clas­si­fi­ca­tion in and of itself can nev­er be innovation.

    — – why did not the prophet, peace be upon him, explain it that way ? isn?t it read­ing into his inten­tion as well ? — -
    As I already men­tioned broth­er, the Qur’an itself iden­ti­fies these dif­fer­ent components.
    —- why don?t we have tawhid of cre­ation, tawhid of mer­cy, tawhid of lord­ship, tawhid of omnipres­ence, tawhid of omnipotence — -
    All you have done here is fur­ther divide Tawheed Asmaa was-sifaat. If you think that is use­ful as a learn­ing tool, so be it, but it changes absolute­ly nothing.

    —- yet the prophet insist­ed on explain­ing tawhid as ?la ila­ha ila Allah, Muham­madur Rasul Allah?. — –
    That is not an expla­na­tion, just a statement,

    —-but the truth is, it was not done by the salaf, and it is a read­ing by imam ibn taymiyyah, which was emu­lat­ed by muham­mad ibn adul wahhab. — –
    Non­sense. I have men­tioned two oth­er past schol­ars who clas­si­fied Tawheed and there are hun­dreds more.

    And I already answered your ques­tion on the com­pi­la­tion of the Qur’an in my pre­vi­ous response.

    So like I said, if there was any val­ue in the annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of the Prophet’s birth­day the com­pan­ions would have done it. They did not.

    I’ve been sim­ply repeat­ing myself here and hav­ing said what needs to be said I don’t think I will reply here again unless there is a dif­fer­ent point raised which would mer­it a response.

    Wa alaykum as-salaam.

  5. Imran Avatar
    Imran

    jaza­kAllah for your response bro aian.
    salaam

  6. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    let me cor­rect my state­ment, it was actu­al­ly broth­er khalid who answered my ques­tion with anoth­er ques­tion. my apolo­gies, broth­er imran.

  7. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    as salaa­mu alaykum brothers.

    broth­er imran, you answered my ques­tion with anoth­er ques­tion. if you noticed, i nev­er said that we should cel­e­brate mawlid and for­get the beloved prophet’s mes­sage. what we should do is live accord­ing to the prophet’s mes­sage, and he who likes to show hap­pi­ness over the prophet’s birth on a date which is agreed upon by the mass­es of the mus­lims and their schol­ars as his birth, then he should do so, with­in the con­fines of the shari­ah. nobody here dis­agrees that we should show hap­pi­ness for every aspect of his life and teachings.

    are these two things (celebrating/​commemorating the prophet’s birth on 12th rabi­ul aww­al with­out imi­tat­ing chris­tians and oth­er kuf­far, and fol­low­ing the prophet’s mes­sage) two mutu­al­ly exclu­sive things to you ? does doing one nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­clude the oth­er ? broth­ers, in fact they are com­pli­men­ta­ry, as many of the mus­lims who cel­e­brate the mawlid fol­low the prophet’s teach­ings with love in their heart for him, peace be upon him, and Allah Almighty.

    of course some of our brethren are in just for the fun of it, and some­times things pro­scribed by the shari­ah are indeed com­mit­ted. but that is my point in men­tion­ing that i have seen mus­lims in my place who cel­e­brate the 2 eids by drink­ing wine and danc­ing to dis­co music. let’s say that cry­ing out ya muham­mad’ and call­ing on pirs and dead walis are bidaa. does that mean that cel­e­brat­ing the prophet’s birth and liv­ing accord­ing to his teach­ings are bidaa as well ?

    regard­ing the 3 ele­ments of tawhid, why lim­it it to 3 ele­ments only, broth­er ? why did not the prophet, peace be upon him, explain it that way ? isn’t it read­ing into his inten­tion as well ? why don’t we have tawhid of cre­ation, tawhid of mer­cy, tawhid of lord­ship, tawhid of omnipres­ence, tawhid of omnipo­tence, etc ? yet the prophet insist­ed on explain­ing tawhid as la ila­ha ila Allah, Muham­madur Rasul Allah’. isn’t this a reli­gious bidaa, to arbi­trar­i­ly explain that there are only three parts of tawhid, and not 99 or a million?isn’t it bet­ter to take each of the 99 names of God as a por­tion’ of tawhid, instead of just three ? would­n’t it lim­it bidaa more, since there are now 99 lim­i­ta­tions to shirk, instead of just three ? we could stretch this to absur­di­ty. but the truth is, it was not done by the salaf, and it is a read­ing by imam ibn taymiyyah, which was emu­lat­ed by muham­mad ibn adul wahhab.

    pre­serv­ing the reli­gion’s most holy text in a man­ner which the prophet did not do, but which he could have ordered to be done, isn’s this a reli­gious bidaa, but a good bidaa ? same goes with the branch­es of islam­ic knowl­edge. of course, you may be averse to the term bidaa’ or even good bidaa’ for these nec­es­sary things, but that is the point. there is actu­al­ly no use on argu­ing over names. a rose, if called by any oth­er name, would smell just as sweet, as juli­et says. but the truth remains that these things were not prac­ticed or done by our prophet and the com­pan­ions, but the mus­lims had the audac­i­ty’ to inno­vate’ these because they are nec­es­sary and help the religion.

    the links broth­er dan­ny post­ed answers much of your con­tentions, broth­ers khalid and imran. how­ev­er, let me direct you to a link which shows that our enlight­ened Islam­ic schol­ars, even imam ibn taymiyyah, approved of mawlid, if prac­ticed with­in the shari­ah and with­out bidaa, which you right­ly condemn :

    http://​www​.living​is​lam​.org/​n​/​m​w​l​d​_​e​.​h​tml

    you can also check out shaykh gib­ril fouad had­dad’s response to mufti taqi usman­i’s fat­wa against mawlid, as it touch­es on many of the points we are bring­ing up.

    jazak Allah khayr.

  8. Khalid Avatar
    Khalid

    —-Khal­i­fa uth­man had the ?audac­i­ty ? to com­pile the holy qur?an in one vol­ume, even though it was not done dur­ing the prophet?s lifetime — — —
    This is not a reli­gious prac­tice. Com­pil­ing mate­r­i­al is not an inno­va­tion. Com­pil­ing aha­dith is not an inno­va­tion either. We are not cre­at­ing a new prac­tice we are sim­ply pre­serv­ing the Islam­ic sources.
     — — and shaykh-un naj­di, muham­mad ibn abdul wah­hab, had the audac­i­ty to explain tawhid in three parts, even though it was not done by the prophet, or dur­ing the prophet?s life­time, even though nobody explained tawhid more clear­ly than Prophet Muham­mad, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam. — –
    The Qur’an itself shows the three com­po­nents of Tawhid. And clas­si­fi­ca­tion in and of itself is not a bida’h. We have clas­si­fied Islam­ic sci­ences — fiqh, Uloom Al-Qur’an, aqeedah, etc. etc. Yet these were nev­er around at the time of the Prophet either. Clas­sif­ca­tion is not a bidah.

  9. Khalid Avatar
    Khalid

    Salaa­mu alaykum br. aian jaafar,
    With regard to the claim that this prac­tice is based on the Prophet’s fast­ing on mon­days — who under­stood the Prophet’s prac­tices bet­ter : you or the noble Saha­ba ? If they, and the lead­ing Mus­lim schol­ars, nev­er cel­e­brat­ed the Prophet’s birth­day, then how can you claim that this is what the hadith means ?

    And you say we should have hap­pi­ness for the Prophet’s birth­day — my ques­tion to you — why not show hap­pi­ness for the Prophet’s mes­sage, for every aspect of his life ? Why cre­ate a new prac­tice that the most noble gen­er­a­tion nev­er practiced ?

    Jaza­kAllah khayr.

  10. Imran Avatar
    Imran

    the sahabah used to say, ?ya muham­mad ? even after the prophet?s death. and even if they did not, that was not the point. do you think the prophet, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam, hears us when we send salaams upon him dur­ing salaah ?

    I believe it is more like a duaa for him.If it were like 2 peo­ple giv­ing each oth­er salaam, then when the cam­pan­ions reached to the part asala­mualay­ka ayuhan­abiyu” prophet (pbuh) would of respond­ed back walaikumsalaam.“But there is no proof for any of this, is there ? do you have even one authen­tic nar­ra­tion in the saheeh col­lec­tions that says the saha­ba said ya muham­mad” when they were in mad­i­na and he (pbuh) was in Mecca ?

  11. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    as salaa­mu alaykum wa rah­matu allah,

    broth­er dan­ny, you got to the point of the mat­ter, and what you said was true. Broth­er Khalid should be remind­ed that the Prophet him­self, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam, cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day by fast­ing on mondays.

    to broth­er Imran : in the philip­pines, i have seen mus­lims danc­ing to dis­co music and con­sum­ing wine, sup­pos­ed­ly in cel­e­bra­tion of eid ul fitr and eid ul adha. should i also label mus­lims eid ul adha and eid ul fitr defend­ers’, for defend­ing bidaas’ such as eid ul fitr and eid ul adha ?

    dis­re­spect of holy men is the root prob­lem. it began in jan­nah when iblis, whom the prophet called shaykh-un najdi’(for tak­ing the form of a sheikh from najd when he went in pur­suit of the prophet dur­ing the hijrah), refused to bow down to prophet adam.

    the sahabah used to say, ya muham­mad’ even after the prophet’s death. and even if they did not, that was not the point. do you think the prophet, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam, hears us when we send salaams upon him dur­ing salaah ?

    and yes, the sahabah loved him more than any­body else, espe­cial­ly more than those of the dev­il’s horn, that’s why the sahabah sang poet­ry in his hon­our dur­ing his mawlid when he was alive.

    Khal­i­fa uth­man had the audac­i­ty’ to com­pile the holy qur’an in one vol­ume, even though it was not done dur­ing the prophet’s life­time. and shaykh-un naj­di, muham­mad ibn abdul wah­hab, had the audac­i­ty to explain tawhid in three parts, even though it was not done by the prophet, or dur­ing the prophet’s life­time, even though nobody explained tawhid more clear­ly than Prophet Muham­mad, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam.

    and last­ly, broth­er khalid and broth­er imran, let’s say that call­ing upon pirs and dead walis and cry­ing out ya muham­mad’ are bidaa. is express­ing hap­pi­ness toward the holy prophet’s birth­day bidaa ?

    and Allah knows best.

  12. danny Avatar
    danny

    Broth­er a_​rafee, just stick with the main body of the Mus­lims, the Ahle Sun­nah Wal Jamaah. Accord­ing to the con­cen­sus of the Ahle Sun­nah Wal jamaah, Mawlid is per­fect­ly accept­able and there is noth­ing wrong” cele­ber­at­ing it. In Pak­istan for instance, as in many parts of the Mus­lim world, high­ly qual­i­fied schol­ars of Ahle Sun­nah wal Jamaah orga­nize huge mawlid events and gath­er­ings on a reg­u­lar basis in the open.

    You will find these arti­cles of use which counter the lat­er wahabi bidaa, dis­tor­tions and oppo­si­tion to the Ahle Sun­nah Wal Jamaah’s accep­tance of mawlid (milad):

    http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/mwld_e.html

    http://www.abc.se/~m9783/lp_e.html

    http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/bida_e.html

    http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/tufm_e.html

    It’s best not to fol­low small groups and sects here and there on such mat­ters. Best to stick with the main body, the con­cen­sus, the tra­di­tion­al Islam — Ahle Sunnah.

  13. Khalid Avatar
    Khalid

    Sor­ry, I tried to respond, but my response got cut out. br. A_​rafee, are you say­ing that the Saha­ba were weak in emaan because they nev­er cel­e­brat­ed the Prophet’s birth­day ? The saha­ba loved him more than any­one else did, so why do we have the audac­i­ty to invent new prac­tices as though they are supe­ri­or to those or the Saha­ba and the Prophet himself.

  14. Imran Avatar
    Imran

    i agree with you, broth­er a_​rafee. naysay­ers among our brethren have increased to such an extent, that cel­e­brat­ing the mawlid of the seal of the prophets has become an occa­sion for shout­ing libels of bidaa with­in the ummah.

    –when they say Ya Muham­mad” do they think that Muham­mad (pbuh) is lis­ten­ing to them in Ara­bia ? which pir gets to com­mu­ni­cate with Muham­mad (pbuh)? in there one verse in the Qur’aan where one is allowed to get knowl­edge from dead people ?

  15. Imran Avatar
    Imran

    The peo­ple who cel­e­brate these mawlids do more than just cel­e­brate mawlid.they ask their pirs and dead walis to help them in times of need and pain.just like what the catholics have done with Mary (pbuh).see a chris­t­ian on s.r.i argue that he isn’t wor­ship­ping her but he is get­ting clos­er to God through her :

    http://​groups​.google​.com/​g​r​o​u​p​/​s​o​c​.​r​e​l​i​g​i​o​n​.​i​s​l​a​m​/​b​r​o​w​s​e​_​f​r​m​/​t​h​r​e​a​d​/​e​7368​f​f​c​a​d​e​2​f​e​30​?​s​c​o​r​i​n​g​=​d​&​h​l​=en

    exces­sive ven­er­a­tion of these peo­ple is the root prob​lem​.how many of you mawlid defend­ers ask Mary (pbuh) for help since her sta­tus accord­ing to the QUR’AAN IS ABOVE ALL WOMEN ?

  16. Khalid Avatar
    Khalid

    Salaam a_​rafee,

    » We Mus­lims are so weak in iman that now even express­ing hap­pi­ness over the Prophet?s com­ming to this earth..saving us from eter­nal pun­ish­ment .. is cosidered controversal ?

  17. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    as salaa­mu alaykum wa rah­matu allah wa barakatuhu.

    i agree with you, broth­er a_​rafee. naysay­ers among our brethren have increased to such an extent, that cel­e­brat­ing the mawlid of the seal of the prophets has become an occa­sion for shout­ing libels of bidaa with­in the ummah.

    broth­er m. bakri musa, you need not explain your­self regard­ing your remem­brance of our blessed prophet, habibul­lah, prophet muham­mad, sal­lal­lahu alay­hi wa salaam. may Allah bless you for hon­or­ing our prophet on the night of his aus­pi­cious birth.

  18. a_rafee Avatar
    a_rafee

    What’s wrong in say­ing that we are cel­e­brat­ing ? Aren’t we sup­pose to be hap­py that our Prophet SAW was born on this day. We Mus­lims are so weak in iman that now even express­ing hap­pi­ness over the Prophet’s com­ming to this earth..saving us from eter­nal pun­ish­ment .. is cosidered controversal ?

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