My Feelings on the Mawlid Anniversary

1 — I feel this great feast — the birthday of our master Muhammad, son of Abdullah, the Meccan, the Qurayshite, upon whom God sent down the wise Quran — as an impulse driving me toward reform and toward raising the level of my nation, as our Prophet did; for by his law he put an end to the worship of idols and raised the level of society, and it bears witness to the Arab love of freedom and self-rule. The proof of this is the saying of Sédillot: "While Europe saw the light only through the eye of a needle, there burst upon her, and upon all the rest of the world, a light from the Arabian Peninsula."

2 — In the Prophet's lifetime woman was respected with the fullest respect, honored, and guarded with the best of care, after having been, in the Jahiliyya, despised and abased, of no worth whatever. By her entry into Islam she attained a strong measure of learning, and became the best of mothers and grandmothers, of aunts, sisters, and daughters, and she gained her rights entire, on an equal footing with man — so much so that in the wars of Islam she was the best of members, the best helper and heartener.

3 — After all that has been set forth of the

high aspiration of the bearer of the Message, I cannot stand with folded hands before the daughters of my nation; rather it is for me to lift up my nation and my country with a great strength which I draw from the life of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace), whose nation's conquests stretched to the risings and the settings of the sun through patience, steadfastness, faith, and strength of conviction — and without my seeking any personal end.