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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fama wadhu. My brothers and sisters, we are in the month of Rabi’ul Awwal. And Rabi’ul Awwal is popularly known as the month of Rasulullah ﷺ. Because in this month he was born. The date of birth of Rasulullah ﷺ is not known for certain. And the reason for that is because the Arabs did not have a calendar. So they did not have years until the Hijri calendar came. And the Hijri calendar came in the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab. Which is after the passing away of Rasulullah ﷺ. After the passing away of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. In the time of Sayyidina Umar, the Hijri calendar was created. And they took as their zero the date of Rasulullah ﷺ’s Hijra to Medina. It’s interesting to note that they did not take the date of birth of Rasulullah ﷺ as the beginning of the calendar. Which could have been done; it could have been a logical thing if that was there. They did not do that. And the main reason they did not do that is because it was not known. They didn’t know. We don’t know. Nobody knows. What we do know is that Rasulullah ﷺ was born in the month of Rabiul Awal. In what the Arabs call the Amul field—the year of the elephant—which is the year when the Yemeni king Abraha came to Makkah with the intention of demolishing the Kaaba. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala prevented that. Allah mentioned it in Surah Al-Feel. And we know the whole story. So these two things are known: the fact that he was born in the month of Rabiul Awal and in the year of the elephant. What year does that correspond to? In which case, we don’t know. Third thing we know is that he was born on a Monday. Because he mentioned this. He said I was born on a Monday. Rasulullah ﷺ used to fast on Mondays because he said I was born on a Monday and I would like to meet Allah in a state where I am fasting. And he also fasted on Thursdays. However, you find in the reports of the days. So there is a report that he was born on the second of Rabiul Awal. There is a report that he was born on the third of Rabiul Awal. There is a report that he was born on the ninth of Rabiul Awal. There is a report that he was born on the tenth of Rabiul Awal. There is a report that he was born on the twelfth of Rabiul Awal. All of these are conjecture compared to the seventeenth of Rabiul Awal. So there are so many days. Now you might ask quite logically why there is no certainty about this. Why is there no one date? Why are there so many days? And the answer is very simple. When he was born, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he was not born as a Nabi. Right? Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la in His will and in His decree had decreed him as a Nabi whenever Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala wished. So Allah knew that he was a Nabi but nobody other than Allah knew that he was a Nabi. So as far as the people were concerned, human beings were concerned, a boy was born in the family of Abdul Muttalib to the widow of his son Abdullah. Abdullah had already died, passed away. His wife gave birth to their son Muhammad ﷺ. That’s it. So why would it be recorded? Especially when it was not the custom of the Arabs to record dates of birth. Now for anyone to whom this seems strange, I can tell you that to this day, in our country here in India, you take anywhere in the Middle East, or even the West, dates of birth of children are not routinely recorded in every home, in every place. They are not recorded. You go to the village, in our country also, go to the villages, ask them for the date of birth. Is there a SIR issue? It is happening. There is no birth certificate, there is no date of birth. It is not a thing which is recorded. The whole issue of birthday celebrations and so on is Western stuff which has come and also Easter. Which is nothing to do with the Sunnah, nothing to do with Islam, nothing to do with anything. Dates of birth were recorded routinely of royalty, of nobility; in the West they had a custom where they would have a family Bible and in this family Bible on one page, they would write the names and dates of birth of children. Right? But this was with the clergy, this was with the priests. So the normal person on the street didn’t record dates of birth and neither did the Arabs. So nobody recorded the actual dates of birth. The date of birth of Rasool Allah. But today there are many claims. According to one thing, the strongest claim is for the 9th of Rabiul Awal. What we people have this Mawlid or Mawlud or Miladun Nabi and so on on the 12th of Rabiul Awal. That’s also one of the dates mentioned but according to whatever records, some people say it is the 9th. But as I said, the date is not known. That is the simplest, most factual thing. Now, question is, how did this celebration start? Because we know now all over the world, Miladun Nabi, there is a holiday. It’s very interesting that public celebrations of the birthday of Rasool Allah were first introduced by the Shia dynasty called the Fatimids in Egypt during the 11th century. Rasool Allah was in the 7th century. This was introduced in the 11th. First time it was celebrated was in the 11th century. In the Hijri calendar, it was the 4th or 5th century Hijri. Which means that obviously Rasool Allah passed away. It also meant that every Sahabi passed away. In the 5th century, nobody lived for 500 years. So, all the Sahaba were gone. Tabi’in were gone. The next generation was gone. The following generation was gone. And the celebration was started by the Khalifa of the time who actually, somebody advised him. He was one of the most unpopular of the Khulafa, of the Fatimids. Very unpopular. So, people told him, some of his advisors, they told him, why don’t you start a celebration and celebrate the birthday of Rasool Allah, Sayyidina Ali, Sayyidina Fatima, Sayyidina Hassan, Sayyidina Hussain and himself, the King. Right? So, 7 days. 5 of these Nabi and 7. So, 6 or 7 days of celebration. This man thought it’s a good idea. He started it. And the records tell us that it was adopted by somebody called King Muzaffaruddin Gokburi in Irbil, which is in Iraq. So, that guy has the distinction of really publicizing this. Right? So, this is started so, 1207 of the Christian calendar and 5th century of Hijri. This is when the celebration, public celebration, which is a holiday and this and that. Interestingly, I don’t have it with me now, but I remember there was an actual record of every day; the King had fireworks and, you know, they did all of this. Fireworks and bands and singing and dancing in the streets and also feeding. So, the King paid for public feeding. And there was a, somebody had recorded the actual menu, what was given. So, you know, so many sheep, so many, this is the origin of this so-called celebration of Maulid or Miladunabi. So, the first thing to understand is the actual day is not known. So, if somebody says Rasulullah was born on this day, you have to tell him very politely, I’m sorry you are lying because you have no idea. Right? You are not there. Nobody recorded it. People who were there didn’t record it. So, you can’t tell me it was 12th or 11th or 13th. It’s all conjecture. We don’t follow conjecture in this deen. The reason why Islam does not have mythology is because we don’t do things like this. We follow the dalil. We follow actual proof and evidence. Right? This is the beauty of Islam. We follow the kitab of Allah, the book of Allah, and we follow the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ. We don’t follow a third thing. Whoever else you are following, supposing you are saying, I am a disciple, I am a follower of Imam Abu Hanifa or Imam Shafi’i or Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani or this one or that one. You are actually following Rasulullah ﷺ. Who these people followed and therefore you are following that person. Supposing you say, I respect my father very highly and I, my salah, I learnt from my father and I pray like my father. But your father prayed like who? InshaAllah he prayed like Rasulullah ﷺ. If your father prayed in a different way from the Rasul and you are following your father, then believe me, you and your father are both in trouble. This was the fundamental thing as far as Islam was concerned. The people who did not come to Islam, what did they say? They said, we follow the religion of our forefathers. This is what they said. We follow the religion of our forefathers. This is how we found our forefathers. This is how they worshipped. Whether it was worshipping idols or doing something or you know, customs practices, superstitions, whatever it was. They used to do this. We found them doing it, so we are also doing it. This is not Islam. This is the antithesis of Islam. This is the complete opposite of Islam. If you are following your forefathers, if you are following your custom and tradition of your tribe, your clan, your city, your culture, if you are following your father, your grandfather, in opposition to the Sunnah of Rasool Allah then you are completely and totally wrong. So as far as the celebration of the birth of Rasool Allah is concerned, anybody who says it happened on such and such a day, makes a definitive statement, is lying. He is lying about Rasool Allah. And if somebody says that this should be celebrated in this way or that way, then we have to remind them that sorry, the Rasul himself never celebrated it. He did not ask anyone to celebrate it. All the Khulafa, Rashida did not celebrate it. Nobody celebrated it. All the Sahaba did not celebrate it and nobody loved Rasool Allah more than his Sahaba. Nobody. No one in the face of the planet can claim that they love Rasool Allah more than the Sahaba loved him because Allah is the witness. He revealed Quran about how much the Sahaba loved Rasool Allah and they did not celebrate it. If anyone had to celebrate the birthday of Rasool Allah, it would have been the Sahaba. They did not celebrate it. I will come to that in a minute why they did not celebrate it. We will see that. It is a very serious matter. The celebration was started by one of the worst of the Khulafa, one of the worst of the kings of the Fatimids which was the Shia dynasty in Egypt. This was the dynasty from which eventually Salahuddin Ayubi Rahmatul Ali he became the Prime Minister of that dynasty. Then he took over that dynasty and started the Ayubids and then the conquest of Jerusalem and so on and so forth. So, the point is, this is when it started. So, nobody started. So, today somebody is saying, we have a function Mela Dhun Nabi on the 12th of Rabiul Awal. You say, please, you can have any function you want but do not say that this is the birthday of Rasool Allah because it is not. Number one. Number two, you are celebrating and you are doing something which is not the Sunnah. It is not in the Quran. No Sahabi did it. No, none of the Khulafa, Rashida did it. None of the family of Rasool Allah did it. Sayyeda Fatima did not do that. Hassan and Hussain, they did not do that. Nobody did that. So, people who loved him more than anyone else and who knew him, who had seen him, who sat in his presence, who ate from the plate that he ate, who loved him more than anybody and anyone else. And as I said, Allah is the witness of their love. It is not my claim. They did not celebrate this. So, now you are celebrating it. Why? Why? Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’in wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.