By reciting mawlid, Muslims explain about Rasûlullâh’s (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) birth, the Mi’râj and his life, and remember and praise him. It is necessary for every Muslim to love Rasûlullâh very much. He who loves Rasûlullâh much remembers him, repeats his name and praises him very frequently. The hadîth ash-sharîf narrated by ad-Dailamî and quoted in Kunûz ad-daqâ’iq declares, “The one who loves very much remembers the beloved very frequently.” All ’ulamâ’ of Islam have written in detail that it is necessary to love Rasûlullâh very much.
Even the Wahhâbite book “Fat’h al-majîd” notes this fact:
“It is declared in a hadîth sharîf, ‘One’s îmân is incomplete unless he loves me more than his children, his parents and everyone.’ That is, ‘His belief is not perfect,’ he meant. It is wâjib for him who loves Allah to love His Prophet. And he also has to love Allah’s pious servants.”
The recitation of a mawlid is an ’ibâda is proven with documents in the book An-ni’mat al-kubrâ ’ala ’l-’âlam fî mawlid as-Sayyid al-walad al-Âdam by Ibn Hajar al-Hîtamî, in Ar-raddu ’alâ man ankara qirâ’at al-mawlidi ’n-Nabî by Jalâl ad-dîn as-Suyûtî, in Jawâhîr al-bihâr (Part Three) and Hujjat-Allâhi ’ala ’l-’âlamîn (pages 233-9) by Yûsuf an-Nabhânî, in Ithbât al-mawlid by Ahmad Sa’îd al-Mujaddidî and in Sharh al-Mawâhib al-laduniyya (Part One, pages 136-40) by ’Allâma Muhammad az-Zarkânî. Sa’îd al-bayân, the book of mawlid written in Urdu by Ahmad Sa’îd al-Fârûqî al-Mujaddidî, and the Turkish Mevlid Kirâetinin Fazîleti (The Virtue of Reciting Mawlid) by Sayyid ’Abdulhakîm Effendi (rahmat-Allâhi ’alaih) are very valuable.
In the Persian book Tas’hîh al-masâ’il, which was written in 1266 A.H. (1850), Mawlânâ Muhammad Fadl ar-Rasûl al-Badâyûnî (rahimah-Allâhu ta’âlâ), one of the prominent scholars of Islam in India, refuted the book Miata Musa’îl by Muhammad Is’hâq, an Indian man of religious profession who had sold himself to the Wahhâbîs. On page 253 of his book, Fadl ar-Rasûl wrote, “The recitation of mawlid was not practised in the first three centuries [of Islam]; it was introduced later. Therefore, the ’ulamâ’ disagreed on whether it was permissible to congregate for a mawlid; their words did not conform with one another’s. This disagreement of the ’ulamâ’ has been dealt with in detail in the book As-sîrat ash-Shâmî by Muhammad ibn Yûsuf ash-Shâmî (rahimah-Allâhu ta’âlâ), who passed away in Egypt in 943 A.H. (1536). Yet, only the opposing views are reported and no preference is made in this book. Nevertheless, he quoted many ’ulamâ’ who, had said that congregating for a mawlid was mustahab. He also noted that his master had refuted those who opposed it. If, leaving the majority aside, the mawlid congregation is accepted as permissible on account of a few opposing ones, confidence in many of the affairs of fiqh will lessen,” and quotes the book As-sîrat ash-Shâmî: Read the rest of this entry »
