Friday, February 26th insha’Allah coincides with the 12th of Rabbiul Awwal and the anniversary of the day our Blessed Prophet Muhammad SAW was born. Muslims around the world celebrate this event with parties, Quranic competitions, song recitations and a general reverence of that particular day. The only problem is that our Blessed Prophet warned us about Bidi’a or Innovation i.e adding things to religion. Nowhere in the Quran, Hadith or Sunna was anyone’s birthday celebrated. And neither the blessed Prophet or his companions celebrated his birthday or other milestones such as the first day the Quran was revealed, the success at Badr, the day Makkah became Muslim etc.

In fact, the blessed Prophet warned us to not imitate Christian traditions. And the celebration of birthday’s is a Christian invention. They not only celebrate their own birthday’s every year, they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ (AS) each year at Christmas. Early Christians may have started this celebration in innocence, but thousands of years later, Christmas has taken on a completely different meaning. It has become a commercialization of something that was initially meant to be spiritual.

On the 12th of Rabbiul Awwal, it is important to inform our children the significance of this day, but nothing else. Because anything else is an innovation, is assigning greater significance to that day than Allah or His Messenger assigned to it. We are supposed to spend our whole lives emulating Rasulullah and his message, not just take one day to do so.

Our Blessed Prophet SAW was a practical man, so it’s hard to imagine he would approve of people granting themselves a holiday for no other reason than to celebrate his birth some thousand years ago. And if Birthday’s were something that Allah had intended for Muslims to celebrate, then He would have ordered us to do so. He would have asked us to celebrate the birthday’s of other prophets as well such as Musa AS, Ibrahim AS and others.

What matters is not the day the prophets were born, or the days they died but rather what they did while they lived. What’s important is the message they brought of the oneness of Allah, the truth about His books and Angels, and the certainty of the day of judgement. May Allah guide us to the right path and help us hold steadfast to the truth. Amin.

I leave you with a quote from the Blessed Prophet’s Last sermon.

“Remember one day you will appear before Allah and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone. People, no prophet or apostle will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well therefore, O people, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Quran and the Sunnah, and if you follow these you will never go astray. All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listened to me directly. Be my witness, O Allah, that I have conveyed Your message to Your people.”