“O People of the Book! Certainly Our Prophet has come to you, clarifying for you much of what you used to hide of the Book, and excusing many [an offense of yours]. Certainly there has come to you a light from Allah, and a Manifest Book.” (Holy Qur’an 5:15)
We are on the eve of that blessed day. In fact, a glorious Eid of Islam, when the Messenger with the universal mission, foretold by all prophets of yore in different eras and different areas of the world, was born in Mecca exactly 1487 lunar years ago.
As the Qur’an would later testify, after the formal proclamation of his mission as the Last and Greatest of God’s Messengers, he was “not sent, but as Mercy unto the [entire] creation” (21:107).
The sceptics, both among the followers of other creeds and those who claim to be Muslims, might raise eyebrows or might object to my use of the word “Eid of Islam” for his auspicious birthday, because their hearts have yet to be enlightened by the Light that Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) was, as he himself says in a famous hadith: “The first thing God created was my Light.”
Those still in doubt are advised to refer to the authentic books of hadith and history, which testify that on his birth, a dazzling light appeared on the horizon of Mecca, and the idols installed by the pagan Arabs in Adam’s monotheistic edifice (the Holy Ka’ba), fell headlong.
This is something logical and among the divine portents accompanying the birth of the chosen of God who do not come unannounced as ordinary mortals.
All those following any of the Abrahamic creeds, will vouch that the birth of Prophet Abraham (AS) was something awaited and expected, whether by the virtuous Mesopotamians, who looked for salvation or whether by the vicious like Nimrod, who out of fear tried in vain to prevent his birth.
The same are the circumstances leading to the birth of Prophet Moses (AS), whose mission was foretold, both by the Israelites looking forward to deliverance and by the soothsayers of the terrified tyrant Pharaoh, who launched a massacre of the newborns in a bid to avert the inevitable.
No Islamic scholar will deny these facts, and neither the divine signs that accompanied the birth of Prophet Jesus (AS).
Regarding the birth of the Virgin-born Messiah, the Gospels of the Christians say that a bright star appeared on the horizon, and was followed by a group of wise men from the east (Persia), who followed it to Palestine to pay homage to the brilliant baby – the same infant in the cradle, who according to the holy Qur’an stupefied the doubting Israelites by saying in clear words: “‘Indeed I am the servant of Allah! He has given me the Book and made me a prophet.” (19:30)
Anyone denying these miraculous words of the Son of Mary, is undoubtedly a disbeliever, and outside the pale of Islam, as all denominations of Islam unanimously opine.
So how come, some of these same denominations think that the Seal of all Divine Messengers, the Excellent Exemplar to mankind, the Most Perfect Ever Person created by God, the only Prophet invited to the highest point in the ethereal heavens to the extent that only the distance of two bows or even less (Holy Qur’an 53:8.9) separated him from the Celestial Throne, was born in obscurity, without any heavenly signs accompanying his birth, and that the celebration of his birthday as an Islamic Eid is “haraam” and “bad’a”.
Fie on such faithless persons. This is ample proof of their lack of true faith. It means they know little about the Prophet and nothing about the dynamism of Islam, because whatever they claim to know about religion is not from the authentic sources.
Their emphasis on the ways and days of the “Salaf” (predecessors), rather than on the pure and pristine Sunnah and Seerah of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) means that the Islam they claim to follow is akin to Christianity, which is the creed of Paul the Hellenized Jews, and not the purely monotheistic message of Jesus the Prophet of God.
Just like Paul, who was a bitter opponent of Jesus as long as the Messiah was on earth, everyone knows that the Salaf (most of whom were of obscure parentage compared to the monotheistic Bani Hashemite clan), were the archenemies of the Prophet before reluctantly accepting Islam – and after him they mercilessly persecuted his blessed progeny.
That was the reason, God commanded the spotlessly pure Prophet to bequeath Islam and his immortal legacy to the Ahl al-Bayt, or his unsullied progeny, as the Thaqalayn, and not to any of his companions.
Perhaps that is the reason God decreed that the 17th of Rabi al-Awwal, the day of Prophet Muhammad’s (SAWA) birth, should also be the day of the birth of his 6th Infallible Successor, exactly 136 lunar years later.
No wonder, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), so thoroughly revived the Sunnah and Seerah of his ancestor in those days of the false Omayyad and Abbasid caliphs (inheritors of the mantle of the Salaf) that till this day the genuine Fiqh or jurisprudence of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) is known as “Fiqh al-Ja’faria”, in contrast to the guesswork and conjecture in which the pseudo jurists of his days indulged, because of their failure to take Islam from the right sources.
Now we understand the meaning and purport of the ayah that I have quoted at the beginning of this brief article that speaks about the Light sent down by Allah along with the Manifest Book, while those that claim to be believers, hide many of the facts (of the Ahl al-Bayt as well) mentioned in their own books.
