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Ruling on Celebrating the
Prophet’s Birthday
Celebrating the occasion of
the birthday of the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah
be upon him) is forbidden and
is to be rejected for a number
of reasons:
1 - it is
not part of the Sunnah of the
Messenger (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) or of the khaleefahs who
succeeded him. Since this is
the case, then it is a
forbidden innovation, because
the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) said: "I urge you to
follow my Sunnah and the way
of the rightly-guided
khaleefahs after me; adhere to
it and cling to it firmly.
Beware of newly-invented
things, for every
newly-invented thing is an
innovation (bid'ah) and every
innovation is a going-astray."
(Narrated by Ahmad, 4/126; al-Tirmidhi
no. 2676).
Celebrating the Mawlid is an
innovation introduced by the
Shi'a Faatimids after the
three best centuries in order
to corrupt the religion of the
Muslims. If a person does
anything in order to draw
closer to Allaah which was not
done by the Messenger (peace
and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) or enjoined by him,
and was not done by the
khaleefahs who succeeded him,
this action implies that he is
accusing the Messenger of not
explaining the religion to the
people, and that he
disbelieves in the words of
Allaah (interpretation of the
meaning):
"This
day, I have perfected your
religion for you" [al-Maa'idah
5:3]
because
he is adding something extra
and claiming that it is a part
of the religion, but the
Messenger (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) did not bring this.
2 -
Celebrating the birthday of
the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) is an imitation of the
Christians, because they
celebrate the birth of the
Messiah (peace be upon him).
Imitating them is extremely
haraam. The hadeeth tells us
that it is forbidden to
imitate the kuffaar, and we
are commanded to differ from
them. The Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) said: "Whoever imitates a
people is one of them"
(narrated by Ahmad, 2/50; Abu
Dawood, 4/314). And he said,
"Be different from the
mushrikeen" (narrated by
Muslim, 1/222, no. 259) -
especially with regard to
things that are the symbols or
rituals of their religion.
3 -
Besides being bid'ah and an
imitation of the Christians,
both of which are haraam,
celebrating the birthday of
the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) is also a means that
leads to exaggeration and
excess in venerating him,
which even goes as far as
calling upon him (making du'aa'
to him) and seeking his help,
instead of calling upon Allaah,
as happens now among many of
those who observe the bid'ah
of the Mawlid, when they call
upon the Messenger instead of
Allaah, and ask him for
support, and sing qaseedahs
(odes) of shirk praising him,
like Qaseedat al-Burdah etc.
The Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) forbade going to extremes
in praising him, as he said:
"Do not extol as the
Christians extolled the son of
Maryam. For I am just His
slave, so say, the slave of
Allaah and His Messenger"
(narrated by al-Bukhaari,
4/142, no. 3445; al-Fath,
6/551), i.e., do not
exaggerate in praising me as
the Christians exaggerated in
praising the Messiah and
venerated him until they
worshipped him instead of
Allaah. Allaah forbade them to
do that when he said
(interpretation of the
meaning):
"O
people of the Scripture
(Christians)! Do not exceed
the limits in your religion,
nor say of Allaah aught but
the truth. The Messiah 'Eesa
(Jesus), son of Maryam
(Mary), was (no more than) a
Messenger of Allaah and His
Word, ("Be!" — and he was)
which He bestowed on Maryam
(Mary) and a spirit (Rooh)
created by Him" [al-Nisaa'
4:171]
Our
Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon
him) forbade us to
exaggerate concerning him
lest the same thing happen
to us as happened to them,
so he said: "Beware of
exaggeration, for those who
came before you were
destroyed because of
exaggeration" (narrated by
al-Nasaa'i, 5/268; classed
as saheeh by al-Albaani in
Saheeh Sunan al-Nasaa'i, no.
2863).
4 -
Observing the innovation of
the Prophet's birthday opens
the door to other kinds of
bid'ah and being distracted by
them from the Sunnah. Hence
you find that the innovators
are very active when it comes
to bid'ah and very lazy when
it comes to the Sunnah; they
hate it and regard those who
follow it as enemies, until
their entire religion is
innovated anniversaries and
Mawlids. They have split into
various groups, each of which
commemorates the anniversary
of its imaam's birth, such as
the births of al-Badawi, Ibn 'Arabi,
al-Dasooqi and al-Shaadhili.
No sooner do they end the
celebration of one birthday
but they start the celebration
of another. This results in
exaggeration concerning these
dead people and others, and in
calling upon them instead of
Allaah, believing that they
can bring benefit and cause
harm, until they deviate from
the religion of Allaah and go
back to the religion of the
people of the Jaahiliyyah of
whom Allaah says
(interpretation of the
meaning):
"And
they worship besides Allaah
things that harm them not,
nor profit them, and they
say: 'These are our
intercessors with Allaah'" [Yoonus
10:18]
"And
those who take Awliyaa'
(protectors, helpers, lords,
gods) besides Him (say): 'We
worship them only that they
may bring us near to Allaah'"
[al-Zumar 39:3]
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