Mawlid Processions

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Jabir bin Abdullah رضى الله عنه narrates:

كَانَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم إِذَا كَانَ يَوْمُ عِيدٍ خَالَفَ الطَّرِيقَ‏

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم would, on the day of Eid, vary his route (Sahih al-Bukhari)

The Ulama have mentioned that the wisdom of this action was to manifest the glory of Islam, making the presence of the Muslims felt, which would also serve as a means of annoying the unbelievers and the hypocrites. The Sunni Muslims who commemorate the Mawlid, the blessed birthday of the Holy Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم often carry out a public procession on the road for this very reason. In such Mawlid processions, the people gather in mammoth crowds, recite and listen to poetry and devotionals in praise of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم, wave flags, proclaim Takbir (Allahu Akbar) and the slogan of Ya Rasulullah.

I believe that outside of the Muslim World, and outside of India, the most energetic and massive Mawlid processions are carried out in the UK. In my experience and personal observation, the Muslims of the UK are the most confident and visibly Muslim community among all the various Muslim minorities in the West. This is certainly from the blessing and goodness of the Sunni Barelawi Ulama and the Sufi Mashayikh who have managed to maintain a position of influence within the Subcontinental Sunni Muslim community—a position that is sadly not mirrored in our Middle Eastern and African counterparts. Unlike in the UK, the state of Muslim minorities in the rest of Europe, especially in France, Germany and Scandinavia, is precarious. Their lack of a strong class of Ulama and Mashayikh, a weaker link to Islamic identity, and lesser passion for the Holy Prophet explains, at least partly, why they aren’t flourishing and why they are unable to successfully resist cultural assimilation. The Far-Right and White nationalists in the UK are today quite depressed about the situation of their country with regard to the phenomenal growth of the Muslim presence. It is not just a growth in raw numbers, but a growth in social and political influence, and a visibility which simply can’t be ignored. In their Islamophobic propaganda, which is almost entirely online, the visuals of Muslim processions, especially the Mawlid, are what really trigger them and therefore shared widely as a desperate attempt to spark a reaction. While the Far-Right and White nationalists lament the presence of all non-White foreigners in the West, including Hindu Indians, Black Africans, East Asians and Latin Americans, it is the Muslim presence, particularly the very visibly Muslim of Asiatic extraction, that frightens them the most. Certain stark cultural contrasts, especially the full veiling of Muslim ladies, and the establishment of Mosques with minarets, totally unnerve the Islamophobe and the White nationalist. In the spirit of emulating the Prophet’s Sunnah, Muslims should maximize such behavior that unnerves the unbeliever and the hypocrite, rather than attempting to make them feel at ease. The latter is the way of the feeble minded who themselves are usually uncomfortable with such a loud display of Muslimness. It is in my view a characteristic of weak faith or perhaps even hypocrisy for someone, who claims to be a Muslim, to want to reduce Islamic visibility in the West so that the Westerner feels at ease.

The Mawlid procession is also an answer to the Shiah who have their Muharram mourning processions. Especially now, the Shiah utilize their mourning processions in Muharram and during Arbain as a demonstration of their power and presence—to unnerve mainstream Sunni Muslims. After the US invaded Iraq and overthrew the Baathist regime of Saddam in 2003, the Iraqi Shiah employed their processions to both demonstrate their power and intimidate the non-Shiah. It is not unlike how the Ulster Protestants of Northern Ireland carried out marches in Irish Catholic neighborhoods to commemorate William of Orange and the Battle of the Boyne so as to intimidate and demoralize that community. The narrow understanding and stupidity of Salafism in failing to comprehend how optics are a necessary part of Islamic dawah explains how the Arabs under its influence have been unable to block the spread and rise of Shiism in the Middle East.