The term Mawlid is used in some parts of the world, such as Egypt, as a generic term for the birthday celebrations of other historical religious figures such as Sufi saints.
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Mawlid is recognized as a national holiday in most of the Muslim-majority countries of the world with the exception of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
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Mawlid is derived from the Arabic root word, meaning to give birth, bear a child, descendant.
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In contemporary usage, Mawlid refers to the observance of the birthday of Muhammad.
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The issue of the correct date of the Mawlid is recorded by Ibn Khallikan as constituting the first proven disagreement concerning the celebration.
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Therefore, it has been concluded that the first Mawlid celebration which was a public festival was started by Sunnis in 1207 by Muzaffar al-Din Gokburi.
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Mawlid is celebrated in almost all Islamic countries, and in other countries that have a significant Muslim population, such as Ethiopia, India, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, France, Germany, Italy, Iraq, Iran, Maldives, Morocco, Jordan, Libya, Russia and Canada.
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In many parts of Indonesia, the celebration of the Mawlid al-nabi "seems to surpass in importance, liveliness, and splendour" the two official Islamic holidays of Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.
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Mawlid was a scholar who wrote a fatwa on the Mawlid, which became one of the most important texts on this issue.
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Al-Suyuti thought that the Mawlid could be based on the fact that the Prophet performed the sacrifice for his own birth after his calling to be the Prophet.
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Mawlid said that Abu Lahab, who he called an unbeliever, had been condemned by what was revealed in the Qu'ran but was rewarded in the fire “for the joy he showed on the night of the birth of the Prophet” by releasing from slavery Thuwayba when she had informed him of the birth of the Prophet.
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Ibn Taymiyya's position on the Mawlid has been described as "paradoxical" and "complex" by some academics.
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Mawlid ruled that it was a reprehensible devotional innovation and criticised those who celebrated the Mawlid out of a desire to imitate the Christian celebration of Jesus's birthday.
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Mawlid said that it was a “bida that was introduced by idlers, and a delight to which gluttons abandon themselves.
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Mawlid said it was not compulsory, meritorious, or permitted, and therefore it was reprehensible or forbidden.
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Mawlid said that it was reprehensible when a person observed at their own expense without doing more at the gathering than to eat and abstain from doing anything sinful.
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Mawlid objected to certain things, such as singers performing to the accompaniment of percussion instruments, pointing to their blameworthiness.
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Mawlid asked about what connections there might have been between percussion instruments and the month of Prophet's birthday.
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Skaykh al-Islam, abu I-Fadl ibn Hajar, who was “the hafiz of this time, ” said that the legal status of the Mawlid was that it was a bida, which was not transmitted on the authority of one of the pious ancestors.
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However, he said that it comprised both good things, as well as the reverse, and that if one strove for good things in practicing it and evaded bad things, the Mawlid was a good innovation, and if not, then not.
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Mawlid said that the coming of the Prophet was a good benefaction, and said that only the day ought to be observed.
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