Suhaib Webb – Mawlid & A Functional Ummah
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AI: Transcript ©
To mawlid or not to mawlid, that is
the question people ask every year, subhanAllah, and
every year it seems like we recycle the
same debates and fights online.
First and foremost, this is an issue of
tremendous difference amongst the jurists, although the majority
of jurists say that celebrating the mawlid is
something commendable because it is a way of
expressing love for the Prophet ﷺ, expression of,
you know, respecting the sacred.
Like whoever honors the sacred things, this is
a sign of taqwa, although they all agree
that it is not a sunnah, an explicit
sunnah, established by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ
or the sahaba.
And Imam al-Shafi'i said the one
that thinks that anything not done by the
Prophet ﷺ or anything not done by his
sahaba is misguidance, is off, is someone who
doesn't really understand the contours of sharia.
We have a great axiom that says, just
because the Prophet ﷺ didn't do something and
the sahaba didn't do something, it doesn't mean
that that thing is, that that's a proof
that they didn't do it.
The second area is related to mustarahat, terminology,
and we find people rightfully saying, well bid
'ah in acts of worship is forbidden.
Bid'ah in acts of worship is forbidden.
Yes and no, because ibadah is defined by
the majority of jurists of anything that's done
in wajh al-qurba, of something that falls
under needing a niyyah, needing intentionality, there's being
pillars, conditions, shurut like wudu, ghusl, you name
it.
Celebrations don't fall under ibadah, right?
Celebrations don't fall under ibadah, and that's why
the sahaba radiAllahu anhum, they continue to observe
itriyya, a celebration that happened before the time
of the Prophet ﷺ and continued well into
the early Abbasid period as far as I
know.
And you find this mentioned in hadith and
there's a difference of opinion about its permissibility
amongst the jurists, the malikis, and the hanabila
allowing it.
So therefore the mawlid falls under celebration, not
ibadah, so it doesn't really get under the
purview of ibadah, although there may be acts
within the mawlid that are innovations, that are
ibadah that we should avoid.
What should we be doing if we celebrate
the mawlid?
Reading the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, singing
na'atar songs in celebration of the Prophet's
life ﷺ, and drawing near to our understanding
of his greater mission to heal a fractured
world.
Both schools have very strong positions.
Both schools have their evidences to support either
explicitly or implicitly why they do it or
why they don't do it.
We should avoid fighting over this issue, divisions
over this issue, and focus on what we
agree upon and forgive each other and where
we differ.
If we say to the disbelievers, you is
your religion, to ours our religion.
Should we say to scholars and great scholars
and Muslims who follow great scholars and Muslims
who follow scholars and other great scholars, some
say yes, some say no,