Today many Muslims are honoring the birthday (Mawlid) of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
Sunni Muslims observe the Prophet Muhammed’s (also known as Mohammed or Muhammad) birthday on the 12th day of the Islamic month of Rabi’ al-awwal, while Shi’a Muslims mark it on the 17th of this month. Muhammed is believed to be the last prophet.
As we celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (the Mawlid), it is good to reflect on the ways in which various memories of Muhammad have continued to reverberate through Islamic society. One of the loveliest has been through a distinctly Turkish tradition called Mevlud (also spelled as Mevlut) which recalls and celebrates the birth of the Prophet. These poems, which might well be called the Nativity of Muhammad, would be recited on major life occasions, and have been for centuries a key part of the devotional life of Ottomans. While there are multiple versions of these poems, perhaps the most well-known and beloved Mevlud is that by Suleyman Chelebi.
Here are portions of it, courtesy of the great German scholar of Islam, Annemarie Schimmel, whose own engagement with Islam began with a deep affinity towards Turkish Islam and Muslims globally. The poem begins, as any good birth narrative does, with a recollection of the mother’s experience. In this case, it is with Amina, Muhammad’s mother, who according to Turkish custom is referred to as Amina Khatun(Lady Amina):
Amina Khatun, Muhammad’s mother dear:
From this oyster came that lustrous pearl.
After she conceived from ‘Abdallah
Came the time of birth with days and weeks.
As Muhammad’s birth was drawing
Amina Khatun, Muhammad’s mother dear:
From this oyster came that lustrous pearl.
After she conceived from ‘Abdallah
Came the time of birth with days and weeks.
As Muhammad’s birth was drawing nearNewly born Muhammad in his mother’s arms being shown to his grandfather and Meccans. From Turkish book paintingMany signs appeared before he came!
In the month of Rabi’ al-awwal then
On the twelfth, the night of Monday, look,
When the best of mankind was born
O what marvels did his mother see!
Spoke the mother of that friend: “I saw
A strange light; the sun was like its moth.
Suddenly it flashed up from my house,
Filled with world with light up to the sky.
Heavens opened, vanquished was the dark,
And I saw three angels with three flags.
One was in the East, one in the West,
One stood upright on the Ka’ba’s roof.
Rows of angels came from heaven, and
Circumambulated all my house;
Came the houris group on group; the light
From their faces made my house so bright!
And a cover was spread in mid-air,
Called ‘brocade’ – an angel laid it out.
When I saw so clearly these events
I became bewildered and confused.
Suddenly the walls were split apart
And three houris entered in my room.
The poem above begins with a recollection of Muhammad as a pearl, a pun in Arabic where the words for “pearl” and “orphan” are similar. Muhammad of course was born as an orphan, and yet in the marvelous spirituality of the Turks his orphan background is transformed to him having been precious, pearl-like. The birth of Muhammad is told first through the experience of his mother, and the wonders that she beheld. A light fills her heart, and her house is circumambulated. Her house becomes like the Ka’ba, as it were, and the various mentions of “opening” are reminiscent of the Qur’an’s recalling of the need to have one’s heart opened. The home of Amina becomes like a heart: all is illuminated, all is opened. The poem goes on to state:
“Some have said that of these charming three
One was Asiya of moonlike face,Muhammad Zakariya One was Lady Mary without doubt,
And the third a houri beautiful.
Then these moonfaced three drew gently near
And they greeted me with kindness here;
Then they sat around me, and they gave
The good tidings of Muhammad’s birth;
Said to me: “A son like this your son
Has not come since God has made this world,
And the Mighty One did never grant
Such a lovely son as will be yours.
You have found great happiness, O dear
For from you that virtuous one is born!
He that comes is King of Knowledge high,Is the mine of gnosis and tawhid [monotheism].
For the love of him the sky revolves,
Men and jinn are longing for his face.
This night is the night that he, so pure
Will suffuse the worlds with radiant light!
This night, earth becomes a Paradise,
This night God shows mercy to the world.
This night those with heart are filled with joy,
This night gives the lovers a new life.
Mercy for the worlds is Mustafa,
Sinners’ intercessors: Mustafa!'”
Following the Qur’an all Muslims celebrate the connection among the various Prophets, particularly the close connection among Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Here that same connection is reaffirmed through a female perspective, by talking about how the luminous women, through whom each of these channels of grace (baraka) were opened up onto this world, gather around Amina, greeting her as Muhammad is being born to her. The poem specifically mentions three female visitors for Amina, as it were the three wise (and beautiful) women: Moses’ Asiya, Jesus’ Lady Mary, and a houri — a celestial beauty. [While in some recent imagination the termhouri is taken in a sexual context, here the emphasis is purely on the houri’s beauty and chastity.]
As has been characteristic of the Muslim tradition, the paramount quality of Muhammad emphasized here is that of rahmatun li ‘l-‘alamin (“a mercy to all the worlds”), a direct reference to Qur’an 21:107. It is Muhammad the intercessor for sinners, the mercy for the worlds that is the object of Muslim devotion here. Just as the earth became like a paradise upon Muhammad’s birth, those who recite the poem hope to turn their own homes, their own hearts, and their own lives into one filled with God’s mercy. Echoes of the echoes of Muhammad reverberate. The Mevlud poem goes on to describe the very physical experience of birth, that magical experience where a life enters this world through a grace-filled opening, resulting in an opening of a new gate of mercy for humanity.
“They described him in this style to me,
Stirred my longing for that blessed light.”
Amina said: “When the time was ripe
That the Best of Mankind should appear,
I became so thirsty from that heat
That they gave me sherbet in a glass.
Drinking it, I was immersed in light
And could not discern myself from light.
Then a white swan came with soft great wings
And he touched my back with gentle strength.
And the King of Faith was born that night:
Earth and heaven were submerged in light!”
Amina here is much more than a simple “vessel” for carrying Muhammad. Her own experience here is mystical, stating that she was “immersed in light” and that she couldn’t discern herself from the light. Indeed the whole world is described as being illuminated. These passages all recall the strong tradition of illuminative contemplation in Islam, harkening back to those Qur’anic verses that describe God as the “light of the Heavens of the Earth.” In both Sunni and Shi’i traditions human beings become seen as reflecting that light onto this world, light upon light.
The next section of the poem is referred to as the great “Welcome”, in which all of the cosmos joins in welcoming the newborn Muhammad. This Muhammad is much more than simply a child, he is the cure for pain, one who is not separated from God, and a saintly being (“Friend of God”), whom all will call upon to deliver them from sin in the days of the Hereafter:
asma nabi asia society Muhammad calligraphy large size
Welcome, O high prince, we welcome you!
Welcome, O mine of wisdom, we welcome you!
Welcome, O secret of the Book, we welcome you!
Welcome, O medicine for pain, we welcome you!
Welcome, O sunlight and moonlight of God!
Welcome, O you not separated from God!
Welcome, O nightingale of the Garden of Beauty!
Welcome, O friend of the Lord of Power!
Welcome, O refuge of your community!
Welcome, O helper of the poor and destitute!
Welcome, O eternal soul, we welcome you!
Welcome, O cupbearer of the lovers, we welcome you!
Welcome, O darling of the Beloved!
Welcome, O much beloved of the Lord!
Welcome, O Mercy for the worlds!
Welcome, O intercessor for the sinner!
Only for you were Time and Space created…
It was this Muhammad — the cosmic Muhammad who served as the cause of creation, the Muhammad that God so loved that were it not for him creation would not have been — that was the object of Ottoman devotion. Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so does Muhammad reflect the light of God onto the cosmos. The above Mevlud poem continues to be recited in Turkish homes down to today as it was in Ottoman times, a remarkable longevity in devotional life of Muslims.
To honor the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, here is a little poem from Rumi honoring the Prophet as the “mother” of the Path of Love. This was a way in which the Sufi poets honored the Prophet as the “maternal” (ummi) prophet, playing on the pun of Ummi as both “unlettered” and derived from Umm (mother). This was a fairly common “gender-bending” way in which mystical poets of Islam called on the Prophet to suckle the faithful through the “breast of compassion.” The imagery might seem odd to a more prudish modern Muslim audiences, but was familiar to a pre-modern Muslim audiences more at home with erotic and sensual imagery. – See more at: http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2014/01/13/mawlid/#sthash.GrQjRFfh.dpuf
With that, here is Rumi’s short poem, honoring the Prophet as the Mother of the Path of Love:
عشق است طریق و راه پیغمبر ما
Love is the path of my Prophet.
I was born through love,
Love is my mother.
This love is hidden in my veil
Hidden from my unfaithful nature.
I wasn’t born from a mother.
This love gave birth to me.
Marvel!
A thousand blessings on this motherly love.
Omid Safi (Omid Safi is a Professor of Islamic Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and classical Islam. He leads educational tours to Turkey every summer, through Illuminated)
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Birthday of Imam Sadegh (PBUH)
The prosperous birthday of Imam Jafar Sadegh (peace be upon him) on Monday, 17th day of Rabiolaval, the year: 83 (lunar calendar) the same with birthday of holy prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny). His sacred name was Jafar, his family name was Abdollah and he was well known as Saber, Fazel, Taher, Sadegh, mostly known as Sadegh.
Imam Ja’far ibn Muhammad, the son of the Fifth Imam, was born in 83/702. He died in 148/765 according to Shi’ite tradition, poisoned and martyred through the intrigue of the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mansur. After the death of his father he became Imam by Divine Command and decree of those who came before him. During the Imamate of the Sixth Imam greater possibilities and a more favourable climate existed for him to propagate religious teachings. This came about as a result of revolts in Islamic lands, especially the uprising of the Muswaddah to overthrow the Umayyad caliphate, and the bloody wars which finally led to the fall and extinction of the Umayyads. The greater opportunities for Shi’ite teachings were also a result of the favourable ground the Fifth Imam had prepared during the twenty years of his Imamate through the propagation of the true teachings of Islam and the sciences of the Household of the Prophet.
The Imam took advantage of the occasion to propagate the religious sciences until the very end of his Imamate, which was contemporary with the end of the Umayyad and beginning of the ‘Abbasid caliphates. He instructed many scholars in different fields of the intellectual and transmitted sciences, such as Zurarah ibn A’yan, Muhammad ibn Muslim, Mu’minu ‘t.-Taq, Hisham ibn al-Hakam, Aban ibn Taghlib, Hisham ibn Salim, Hurayz, Hisham al- Kalbi an-Nassabah and Jabir ibn Hayyan (the alchemist). Even some important Sunni scholars such as Sufyan ath-Thawri, Abu Hanifah, the founder of the Hanafi school of law, al-Qadi as-Sukuni, al-Qadi Abu ‘I-Bakhtari, and others, had the honour of being his students. It is said that his classes and sessions of instructions produced four thousand scholars of hadith and other sciences.
The number of traditions preserved from the Fifth and Sixth Imams is more than all the hadith that have been recorded from the Prophet and the other ten Imams combined. But toward the end of his life the Imam was subjected to severe restrictions placed upon him by the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mansur, who ordered such torture and merciless killing of many of the descendants of the Prophet who were Shi’te that his actions even surpassed the cruelty and heedlessness of the Umayyads. At his order they were arrested in groups, some thrown into deep and dark prisons and tortured until they died, while others were be- headed or buried alive or placed at the base of or between walls of buildings, and walls were constructed over them. Hisham, the Umayyad caliph, had ordered the Sixth Imam to be arrested and brought to Damascus.
Later, the Imam was arrested by as-Saffah, the ‘Abbasid caliph, and brought to Iraq. Finally, al-Mansur had him arrested again and brought to Samarrah where he had the Imam kept under supervision, was in every way harsh and discourteous to him, and several times thought of killing him. Eventually the Imam was allowed to return to Medina where he spent the rest of his life in hiding, until he was poisoned and martyred through the intrigue of al-Mansur. Upon hearing the news of the Imam’s martyrdom, al-Mansur wrote to the governor of Medina instructing him to go to the house of the Imam on the pretext of expressing his condolences to the family, to ask for the Imam’s will and testament and read it. Whoever was chosen by the Imam as his inheritor and successor should be beheaded on the spot. Of course, the aim of al-Mansur was to put an end to the whole question of the Imamate and to Shi’ite aspirations. When the governor of Medina, following orders, read the last will and testament, he saw that the Imam had chosen four people rather than one to administer his last will and testament: the caliph him- self, the governor of Medina, ‘Abdullah Aftah, the Imam’s older son, and Musa, his younger son. In this way the plot of al-Mansur failed. (Shi’ite Islam)
By Allamah Tabatabai