{"id":1849,"date":"2013-01-22T12:22:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T17:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=1849"},"modified":"2016-12-15T09:36:16","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T17:36:16","slug":"merry-mawlid-al-nabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html","title":{"rendered":"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/75\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg\" alt=\"Mohammed Rasulullah SAW\" width=\"300\" height=\"304\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1850\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By the Fatimid calendar, Mawlid al-Nabi (also known as Milad al-Nabi) starts tonight at sunset. Mawlid is the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed SAW, and is an occasion to express our <em>mohabbat<\/em> (love) for him and our <em>shukr<\/em> (gratitude) to Allah for sending him to us as his Messenger and bringing with him the Deen of Islam. <\/p>\n<p>The obvious analogy to Mawlid would be Christmas, in which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and express their love for him. The obvious difference of course is that to Christians, Jesus is an aspect of God himself, whereas in Islam both Jesus AS and Mohammed AS are Prophets of God. In celebrating Mawlid, Muslims do not venerate Mohammed SAW as divine but rather simply express their emotion and joy at his Prophethood, with recitation of salawat, processions, and congregating with family and friends, as well as the tradition of Na&#8217;at, devotional poetry and hymns that praise the Prophet&#8217;s SAW life and virtues. <\/p>\n<p>Whether you call it Mawlid or Milad, this is a day of joy for Muslims. Milad Mubarak! Merry Mawlid to all!<\/p>\n<p>Related: The observance of Mawlid has it&#8217;s share of controversy, but I won&#8217;t dwell on that today, as there will always be those who are more obsessed with imposing their own puritan, spartan interpretations on everyone else, in denial of basic human emotion and reason. I did explain the controversy in detail in my earlier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/03\/reflection-on-milad-al-nabi.html\">post on Milad al Nabi<\/a> a couple years ago, and there is also a <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2010\/02\/26\/instead-of-debates-lets-take-a-quick\/\">good discussion thread about Mawlid<\/a> at Talk Islam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the Fatimid calendar, Mawlid al-Nabi (also known as Milad al-Nabi) starts tonight at sunset. Mawlid is the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed SAW, and is an occasion to express our mohabbat (love) for him and our shukr (gratitude) to Allah for sending him to us as his Messenger and bringing with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[24,386,436,28,437],"class_list":["post-1849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-islam","tag-milad","tag-mohammed-saw","tag-muslims","tag-the-prophet"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Milad al-Nabi Mubarak! - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak! - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By the Fatimid calendar, Mawlid al-Nabi (also known as Milad al-Nabi) starts tonight at sunset. Mawlid is the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed SAW, and is an occasion to express our mohabbat (love) for him and our shukr (gratitude) to Allah for sending him to us as his Messenger and bringing with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-22T17:22:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-15T17:36:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak! - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak! - City of Brass","og_description":"By the Fatimid calendar, Mawlid al-Nabi (also known as Milad al-Nabi) starts tonight at sunset. Mawlid is the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed SAW, and is an occasion to express our mohabbat (love) for him and our shukr (gratitude) to Allah for sending him to us as his Messenger and bringing with&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2013-01-22T17:22:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-12-15T17:36:16+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg"}],"author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html","name":"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak! - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg","datePublished":"2013-01-22T17:22:42+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-15T17:36:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/01\/muhammad_3.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/01\/merry-mawlid-al-nabi.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Milad al-Nabi Mubarak!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1849"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2977,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849\/revisions\/2977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}