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AA,
In the last few days, I have seen a few debates about
celebrating or not celebrating our Prophet's birthday. Here are some thoughts.
CELEBRATING OUR PROPHET'S
BIRTHDAY
The greatness of our prophet comes from the fact that he
believed in humility, he believed in Allahu Akbar and practiced that Allah only
is great.
Any one in his capacity would have had a bloated ego and
would have rejoiced his statute and pictures hung in every corner of his world.
He was God's messenger, he knew these things were mortal, and the best way to
communicate to the world was practicing it to the point of asking people to not
even paint his portrait. He lived a model life to follow. Allah is great, we are
mortals and need to submit to Allah, meaning "fana-ing" the ego which is the
root cause of all evil. Alhamdu Lillah, Muslims have honored his request.
Our prophet understood human nature well, and knew well
that if he did not make a point, people would have made his tomb an object of
worship. So he said that he be buried in an un-marked grave, from Allah we come
and to Allah we go. However as a respect to him, we humans have built a tomb,
but kept his wish intact: that we worship Allah alone. No Muslim that I know
worships our prophet.
Our prophet's greatness comes from the fact that he did
not want people to idolize him and lose track of Allah. He avoided birthday
celebration for that very fact, lest people go astray. Thanks to Allah, we have
followed his wish by not worshipping him.
However, it is our privilege to honor our prophet, he
brought the rahmat to the world and we need to celebrate that. It is a way to
honor him for helping us stay focused on God. We would also respect those who
follow his word literally and choose not to celebrate. Both practices ought to
be respected and that's what our prophet would love - for the community to be
together with differences.
There are several places you can go to celebrate,
including going to the mosque and praying for a better world.
Mike Mohamed Ghouse
www.WorldMuslimAgenda.com (coming up)
*************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
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- [IslamCity] Celebrating our Prophet's (pbuh) birthday MIKEGHOUSE
