It is the twelfth of April, already, in the Hijri count and Sufi Muslims over theworld celebrate the birthdate of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), this month,
starting last week. For the next five months, organs, institutions, little schoolsand bid and small households will hold their own festivities at their chosendates, in their own way, until Ramadan.The goal is to vary the dates so the events do notclash and so guests can attend most occasions, to fetch different accounts ofanecdotes and untold or retold events in the life of the celebrant. These featsare in honour, respect and love for the Prophet, whose evolution is the only reasonthis world is running and of life of all humans and all creations despite the manyatrocities, like, say, a neighbour’s possible return of hate and evil to aneighbour’s possible previous kindness.
The feats and the accounts of the good of the bestman ever should have healed the world, if only the guardians of our affairsdemand exemplary living based on the qualities we talk about in the prophet.Instead they occasions scare even the faithful guilty of claiming traditions ofthe Prophet on lips only.
The feats are strong reminders of everythingMuhammad, everything he stands for, everything he ever did or said and arestrong reasons against the man in the world today that take his mercy but dropshis lessons in their lives. That is perhaps the reason for the ranting of theguilty opponents of the feat who would rather debase the whole notion of thefeat just to get the cognitive consonance to justify the antiMuhammadan valuesthey enjoy and enforce.
All good is the cardinal of all prophets in historyand the Prophet Muhammad only sealed them with the firebrand of his seal of, andbest of, conducts. It suffices the world then to unite in competition for, andin, best conducts of the man and the world would be different from how it looks.
But nay, the celebrations do not include that and aslong as we mark Maulid just for thename of it and not for the essence of it, then the challenges of the worldremain on the necks of those who profess him but deny his sacrifice, endurance,patience, human respect, tolerance, help and assistance of the poor, the needy.
During last week’s grand events across the country,the President and other political leaders asked Nigerians to emulate thecharacter and good conducts in the lifetime of the celebrant. This is a routinenow, just as they ask the people to emulate the life of Prophet Ibraheem duringthe Eidhul Adha and to take up thesteadfastness of Ramadhaan to next year during the Eidul Fitir.
All my life, this routine went on but withoutsignificant improvements and only with more poverty, deaths, killing, deteriorationin the standard of life and living of, particularly, the Muslim. Why? The interveningmacro and micro system variables are cruel but the reasons are personal.
They are mainly the intent and consent of theindividual Muslim to idle in the waters of reluctance, materialism andbandwagon effects in gross submission to the processes of dialectical materialismand all its effect. Even Marxists whose ideas Islam condemns have made more effortsagainst the evil forces of denial of rights and privileges and thereinforcement of self-corrupting parameters than Muslims do.
The other reason which is not enough for theMuslim’s wantedness above is poverty, which has been used as, and remains, aninstrument of intimidation, enslavement and subjugation to the corruptingeconomic systems and subsystems as well as spanners and screwdrivers for agentsof such systems who make and mar even resilient targets among nations, states,areas and persons.
But then the evil forces, many a times spearheadedby agents within Islam – persons you consider close in sisterhood and you sharemuch with who can do anything in apostasy to impinge on the prophetic doctrineof modesty, share of wealth and use of the little you have to make impact onthe needy – are actually inhuman and cruel. Yet, they cannot be, there cannotbe, any justification for the level of derailment of the life of the Muslim.
One of the great, revered lessons of the prophet ishis remarkable self-finishing but unpopular at public functions in Nigeria, prayer,“Oh Lord, make me live poor, make me die poor and raise me among the poor”. Theprayer is a hard reading or even mentioned at such celebrations because itcontravenes the lifestyles of many Muslims today.
For a man who was offered the mountains of Mecca asgold if he wanted but refused, the reason of poverty to give in to every bit ofthe corrupt titbits is a betrayal of the lessons he passed down and we onlycelebrate on the lips. Those lessons are the source, today, of everyhumanitarian value that is used to change the gray areas of the sick world tono avail.
Prophet Muhammad’s great example has been usurpedmore by western Christians and even Jews than Muslims. Their lives and systemswork in direct tandem with the teachings and qualities of the Prophet aspromised to them. He is a mercy to everyone in the world.
That was what forced one Islamic scholar who oncevisited Europe and said on return, “I have seen Islam without Muslims in Europeand here are Muslims in Arabia and Africa without Islam.”
Maulid will not make sense and it will continue toattract criticism from selfish quarters of agents of the plot for globaldomination and control of the socioeconomic systems as long as it remains acelebration on lips only, of the qualities and amazing, life-changing anecdotesabout the lifetime of the Prophet. Muslims must learn to live the examples ofthe Prophet, must try in their true best to remain resolute and determined, inspite of the evil forces and the challenges.
We cannot continue to pay eye- and lip-service tomatters relating to the life of the Prophet of the world and its mercy. Therecitations must invite the presence of Allah and His Messenger to the fore ofthe celebrations in order to approve the genuine intent and motives of thestages of the feats and how they can keep souls awake a year round.
That is the only way to find additional reasons, reinforce the sanctity, double the bounty of Allah’s pleasure and that of His Messenger, invite and attract more interest in the annual feat, expand the vault of hearts in love of the Prophet, and put a final seal on the lips of leftists on the wrong side of the divide. Maulid Mubarak.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)abuna2406@gmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
