The Message of the Mawlid

On this anniversary, every year, the eyes of the Arabs under every sky turn toward the man by whose generous hand God ordained that their forefathers should be led into the fold of faith, and that with them he should storm the field of conquest in the cause of this faith; and behold, they bound the horizons one to another with threads of new knowledge and of true eloquence; and behold, they spread over all that was known of the world a sheltering shade, than which history has never known an ampler in the domain of goodness and dominion.

Yes: on this anniversary, every year, the eyes of the Arabs under every sky turn toward Muhammad, son of Abdullah. And Muhammad, son of Abdullah, is a great model of heroism, a greater example of struggle for the sake of a creed, and a symbol, grander and greater still, of revolt against ignorance and of aspiration toward knowledge. And upon my life, I do not think that time bestows on any nation, in the hour of its labor toward emancipation, a nobler face than Muhammad's, a purer heart than his, or a more honorable tongue. It is no accident, then, that history should have watched this nation act upon its stage, through a long era of it, that radiant, unsullied, noble part.

One thing more: he who carries in his heart and mind a message such as this message which the anniversary of the birth of the first of the Arabs breathes into us — I count him nothing less than one who raises its fluttering banner anew over the loftiest heights of the earth.