Readings for the Mawlid of Prophet Muhammad (May Peace Be Upon Him)

20 December 2015

Mawlid or Miladun Nabi is the observance of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, and is celebrated on the 12th day of Rabi’ al-awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar. With the Islamic lunar calendar consisting of 354 days over a 12 month period, this celebration occurred earlier in 2015 during the first week in January, and will be commemorated once again on December 22 or 23.

The twelve months of the Muslim calendar and major Muslim festivals. Image by Simerg.

To mark the Mawlid, we present you pieces by two fine writers, Michael Wolfe of the USA, who produced the highly acclaimed documentary Muhammad Legacy of the Prophet, and Izzat Muneyb of England, who contributed to the Ta’lim curriculum developed at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London.

As we remember our beloved Prophet, the Khatim an-Nabiyin (the seal of the Prophets) and the Al-Amin (the Trustworthy), we wish everyone a very happy and joyful Milad. The readings commence with a very pertinent message on the Prophet Muhammad by none other than His Highness the Aga Khan, the present 49th hereditary Imam of the Ismailis, who is lineally descended from the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.s.) and Hazrat Ali (a.s.), the first Imam.

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THE HOLY PROPHET

By His Highness the Aga Khan

I have observed in the Western world a deeply changing pattern of human relations. The anchors of moral behaviour appear to have dragged to such depths that they no longer hold firm the ship of life: what was once wrong is now simply unconventional, and for the sake of individual freedom must be tolerated. What is tolerated soon becomes accepted. Contrarily, what was once right is now viewed as outdated, old-fashioned and is often the target of ridicule.

In the face of this changing world, which was once a universe to us and is now no more than an overcrowded island, confronted with a fundamental challenge to our understanding of time, surrounded by a foreign fleet of cultural and ideological ships which have broken loose, I ask, “Do we have a clear, firm and precise understanding of what Muslim Society is to be in times to come?” And if as I believe, the answer is uncertain, where else can we search then in the Holy Qur’an, and in the example of Allah’s last and final Prophet?

There is no justification for delaying the search for the answer to this question by the Muslims of the world, because we have the knowledge that Islam is Allah’s final message, the Qur’an His final book and Muhammad His last Prophet. We are blessed that the answers drawn from these sources guarantee that neither now, nor at any time in the future will we be going astray.

The Holy Prophet’s life gives us every fundamental guideline that we require to resolve the problem as successfully as our human minds and intellects can visualise. His example of integrity, loyalty, honesty, generosity both of means and of time, his solicitude for the poor, the weak and the sick, his steadfastness in friendship, his humility in success, his magnanimity in victory, his simplicity, his wisdom in conceiving new solutions for problems which could not be solved by traditional methods, without affecting the fundamental concepts of Islam, surely all these are foundations which, correctly understood and sincerely interpreted, must enable us to conceive what should be a truly modern and dynamic Islamic Society in the years ahead….Excerpt from Presidential Address by His Highness the Aga Khan, Seerat Conference, Pakistan, 1976.

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HOW A MUSLIM SEES MUHAMMAD

By Michael Wolfe

A lot of non-Muslims who know something about Islam as a religious practice are nonetheless in the dark when it comes to real knowledge of Muhammad. This, despite the fact that Muhammad is the guiding, human spirit of the religion.

Muslims see Muhammad as a human being who became a prophet and yet remained human all his life. He had a special access to God’s words, but he also worked for a living, married, and had children, led his people out of oppression and died at the age of 63 with his family at his side. They see him, that is, not the way Christians view Jesus but rather in the tradition of prophets like Abraham and Moses.

Muhammad never claimed to be divine, and he never attributed supernatural powers to himself. From the age of forty until his death, his mission was simply to convey a message, contained in the Qur’an, and to illustrate its spirit in his daily life. Muhammad received the Qur’an a few verses at a time, intermittently, over this long, eventful period, and he rendered it into language people could understand. That, he said, was his only miracle. He did not defy gravity or return the dead to life. He rebuked anyone who suggested otherwise.

Muslims have no pictures to suggest what he may have looked like. Their focus is on his message, not his face. If you spend any time at all with Muslims, you soon begin to see that they know Muhammad’s words and actions and quote them frequently.

This quotable aspect of the tradition is seemingly inexhaustible, running to thousands of pages. Together with the Qur’an, they form a cannon on which Islamic Law is based. In a less formal way, these reports of what Muhammad said and did are put to use daily as a yardstick against which people measure their actions and intentions.

Just as the words of Jesus are woven into the fabric of every European language so that, believer or not, most everyone knows who to credit with phrases like “Turn the other cheek,” “the meek shall inherit the earth,” and “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” so too for many Muslims the words of Muhammad are on the tips of their tongues and easily recognized.

In the published collections, these reports are often grouped by category, in sections with titles like “The Book Of Knowledge,” or “The Book of Prayer.”

“The Book of Knowledge” is both instructive and occasionally wry. What better sentence to write on the black board, for instance, than “Asking good questions is half of learning.” A page or two later, the value of knowledge is summed up in these terms: “People with knowledge and those who seek it are the only two groups of any use to humanity.” While truth’s poor keepers are succinctly dismissed, as in this gem: “Three agents destroy religion: an ill-tempered scholar, a tyrannical leader, and an ignorant theologian.”

“The Book of Charity” contains this unexpected advice: “Happy are those who find fault with themselves instead of finding fault with others.”

Morality is often expressed in terms so simple they arrest you, as in this maxim: “Avoid anything that requires an excuse.” At other times, the terms are earthy and even humorous: “If people had been forbidden to make porridge of camel dung, they would do it, saying that it wouldn’t be forbidden unless there was some good in it.”

And here is Muhammad on Humility: “Strength does not lie in carrying heavy loads: a camel can do that. The essence of strength lies in taming your temper and your anger.”

These statements full of wisdom were mostly coined on the spot, in response to particular situations, by a man aware of the limits of his knowledge. He only knew, he said, what God would show him.

Here is what God showed Muhammad about prayer: “During prayer, God lifts the veils and opens the gates of the invisible, so that His servant is standing in front of Him. Prayer creates a secret connection between the one praying and the One prayed to – Prayer is a threshold at the entrance to God’s reality.”

And what does the great Hindu sage Mahatma Gandhi say about Muhammad’s words? “They are among the treasures of Mankind, not merely Muslims…. A reverent study of the sayings of the different teachers of mankind is a step in the direction of… mutual respect.”

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IN PRAISE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD
(May Peace Be Upon Him)

By Izzat Muneyb

Author’s note: This song introduces us to some of the titles by which Prophet Muhammad came to be known. They are: ‘Ahmad’, ‘Mustafa’, ‘Rahmatan li’l-‘aalameen and ‘King of law laak’. The words ‘law laak’ in Arabic mean, “Were it not for…” There is a Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, where Allah speaking to His prophet, says, “Were it not for you, I would not have created the universe – law laaka lamaa khalaqtu’l-aflaaka.” [1]

N.B: The lines marked * are sung twice.