My Feelings on the Mawlid Anniversary

1 — Feasts hold a great place in my soul, and for this feast I have a special feeling; for I feel that it is not an Islamic feast only, but the feast of humanity. How should it not be, when with the birth of the Messenger humanity came of age in mind, and bade farewell to its childhood and its bondage to sickly superstitions. Before the birth of Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) the world tossed in the slavery of matter and the dominion of force, and dragged its chains in a mentality that killed thought. The family had no order, and the tribe no law. But when the noble Messenger was born, he set minds free from their captivity, and made rivalry a rivalry in good, cooperation a cooperation in righteousness, and precedence a precedence in piety, as in the words of the Most High: "O mankind, We have created you from male and female, and made you peoples and tribes, that you may know one another. Truly the noblest of you in God's sight is the most pious of you. Truly God is All-Knowing, All-Aware."

2 — The Prophet led the way in caring for woman and her welfare, in providing the means of her happiness, and in destroying the causes of weakness in her life. He valued what woman is worth in the founding and tending of the family and in the betterment of society, so he granted her her rights entire, and charged her with her obligations entire ("And they have rights like those held over them, according to what is right").

Before the birth of Muhammad, woman in East and West alike was crushed under men's injustice — no difference between the unlettered and the learned — bought and sold, and forced into marriage. He did her justice, gave her her freedom, and set her standing at man's side, shoulder to shoulder, and said: "The best of you is he who is best to his family."

And how should he not give women their rights, when woman held over him a claim not to be denied? Was it not Khadija, daughter of Khuwaylid, Mother of the Believers, who heartened him and helped him to spread the call? Was it not she who said to him, when the revelation had descended upon him and she saw him trembling: "God will never shame you nor harm you! You keep the bonds of kinship, you speak the truth, you earn, and you give help against the blows of fortune"?

And was not Aisha, Mother of the Believers, a help to him in lightening the blows of fortune? She preserved his sayings from his lips, and of her he said: "Take your religion from this little rosy one."

3 — In the Messenger of God we have had a goodly example. He stood upon the highest summit and the loftiest station of tolerance, forbearance, and compassion. He met from men's harm and from the hardships of the call what cannot be described, yet he bore patiently the struggle in God's way, and endured toil and pain for the happiness of the world and of humanity.