A difference of opinion on the exact date of the wilada, but since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the time between the dates has been known as islamic unity week. Islamic unity week has been known to promote unity between sunni and shia muslims across the world. Lets take a quick look at the widespread celebrations taking place across the uma. والسحر بهما فلا تتبعوا الهوى عن غيره من الحيوانات ويبين له اللهيل الاسلام السلام عليك يا رسول الله اللهم صل عليه اللهم صل وسلم الله الذي يا رب العالمين اللهم صل على يا رب العالمين اللهم صل على محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم مرحبا بالنبي. والانبياء والصحابه يوم قمنا عسى دعوه من الله مجابه مرحبا بالنبي والانبياء والصحابه يوم قمنا على اللاله الله community we have two esteemed guests representing the scholarly class. Were lucky to have with us sheikh ahmed hanif, the muslim scholar and lecturer based here in the uk, and no strangers to the show were also joined by Brother Robert carter, a journalist and researcher who has moved from the presenters chair and now appears as a guest. Robert is a convert to islam and his work focuses specifically on muslim world affairs. Of brothers Assalamu Alaikum and welcome to the show. Now if i could. Perhaps start first with you, and the molid of the Prophet Muhammad. Now how are some of the ways that muslims can celebrate this molid . Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, um, thats a very good question, and um, i dont think it has a really definite answer, and i think the reason for this is the fact that the um, the celebration of maulud, is something that is particularly aspect of. Muslim culture, you know, it doesnt, it isnt related to the sunnah, you know, um, but um, or you dont have any kind of precedent in the quran for this, um, but um, it is an expression of the love of the of muslim communities for the holy prophet sallallah, and um, just like for example, when you love somebody, you commemorate things about them, you, you, you celebrate their birthday, if they passed away, you commemorate their passing. Away and things like that, you remember them, i think you know different muslim communities have evolved different ways by which you can um commemorate or celebrate maulud, youd find different um uh applications of it or different practices of it depending upon where in the muslim world you are, so you find for example, in indonesia it might have a particular form in sudan, it might have a particular form, in bosnia, it might have a particular form and so on, by and large i believe that lot of one of the driving factors for the commemoration of maulud, would be the would would go to the mystical or one could call it the sufi um um understanding of islam and their approach, which tends to be, and i use the word sufi in in in a you know specific sense, not in terms of extremes and whatnot, um, and you would find that, basically that school of thought like inshiism, is one of love, you know, and um, this generates this type of um, specific approach to commemorating mawlood, now um, just on that point, you said that. Some muslims celebrate it and its not in the sunnah or perhaps its not something that we see in the quran itself. Now there are some who dont celebrate it. What, what is the basis of perhaps some of the difference of opinions of people that maybe choose to opt out or say they dont want to celebrate this event . Well, the the the group that tends to be, excuse me, tends to be not only critical, but sometimes um condemming of the. Of this is would be groups of people who tend to take a pretty how should i say black and white approach to islam you know um where they see things in in a purely literalistic aspect where the sunnah for example is something uh only seen in its uh literalistic aspect and not the implications and metaphor and so forth that would be implied in that. Say um so you know for example this group would see for you know when the quran says that allahs hand is above the hand of your hands would say allah has a hand and they would take this literally you see and so um i think they are not aware of what we call i think in terms of i think Carter Woodson i believe it was um no hudson um uh the idea of islamicate you know and the concept of islamicate. Indicates the the origination of a muslim culture that comes out of islam, you see that may that has roots in islam, you know, but uh, these rules are applied in a particular sense. I give you an example, you know, marriage, you know, in islamic marriage, we have the act, the contract, and then we have the walima, okay, so these are. Two aspects that must be there, but how the walima is conducted, what colors the bride wears, what kind of you know um uh things happen, is there going to be music, is it not going to be music, what kind of music is is it going to be, um, how people comemorate that, you see is something islamicate, you know, so um, this group basically denies Islamic Culture per say, because as you know culture is a dynamic thing, its a relationship between ones worldview. You know and ones environment, you see what emerges from that, they deny that, and so what you have then is the development of kind of a anticulture among these people, okay, which tends to sort of marginalize them to a great extent. Sure, thank you, now uh, robert, we we introduced you uh of course as no strangers to the show, but also a convert to islam. I want to ask you maybe a more personal question, what was about the personality of the Prophet Muhammad maybe that uh played a part in attracting you to the religion of islam when you were doing your invitable research, well it played a huge role, i mean the prophet is fantastic individual, and if you study his life, theres so much you can learn from it, even in todays scenario, you know, i think the most interesting part of what i learned about him is all the misconceptions i had prior to learning about islam, because i think it was post 911 uh, i was you know introduced to islam as teenager by meeting agreeing other muslims at school, so going into it, my questions to them would have been things like, oh about alqaeda and this and that, thats all i knew about islam, but when i actually learned about what the prophet actually taught, what he did in his time, things like how he was empowering for for women, he liberated women in his time, he uh created avenues to free slaves and provided slaves unique opportunities to become free and become important people, even some of his great sahaber were former slaves like uh bilal uh for example and you know it totally shattered. All of these ideas i had about muslims and islam and it was because of the example that the prophet was. That was what broke it for mean and after that i began to open my heart to the quran, began opening my heart to other parts of islam and learning about it, and thats what led me on the path to alhamdulillah taking my shahadah, but it was the example that the prophet gave us that literally opened my heart up to this whole new world, and ever since then ive never looked back, it was the greatest decision ever made and uh i love the. Prophet more than i love myself, and if theres anything i can do to help serve him and his message in this day, im going to do it, and its because of what i learned about him, thats how i learned to love the prophet, the greatest man the ever lived, definitely. I i can definitely relate to that too, to some degree as well, because i guess i uh came to islam in the same kind of way, i didnt grow up very religious and it was you know reading the consistency of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, you see uh, what i always attracted me was. Very pragmatic uh individual, somebody who knew the time that he lived in and uh was very open and aware and open to the people around him, so its definitely something that i can personally relate to and as well of course yourself sheikh, you are a convert to islam as well, you um somebody who has been a muslim for many decades now, a personal level again, from the kind i guess the the life of the Prophet Muhammad, were there any examples or was there Something Like has robert said that really. Stood out for you in his character that said, this is somebody i would like to follow. Well, i think it in a general sense, hes accessible, he was accessible to me, you know, if you look a lot of different religions, you would find that there uh, if one would call it this, the founding individuals, um, tend to be a, a sort of superhuman, you know, like for example, in hinduism, you have krishna, we as muslims would see it as see it as a. As a prophet, you know, but they see him as a god, you see, jesus christ, you know, um, uh, his teachings are good, but youd find in the new testament that um, being like jesus is kind of remote, because jesus is supposed to be the son of god, whereas the holy prophet sallall, you know, in the holy quran it says that you know, you say that, i a man just like you, you see, um, but some poets would add, yeah, like a gem is among stones, you see, so the holy prophet, that that that that um analogy is very good, you know, because a gem is a perfect stone really, you know, and a gem also has a certain translucent aspect to it, which means its um, its receptive towards the divine light, you see, um, and so we see this in the holy prophet sallallah, in the sense that we see him as an example and as a. Mode of um transcendence, you know where we could transcend our human state by um by following him. Now as molas celebrations got underway in london, we spoke to few local british muslims about the day and about Islamic Unity Initiatives. With the molids we remembering remembering the the holy prophet s, and thats a standing point, thats something. Similarity between all sects of islam, as after all he was the mercy of allah, he was given to us, so i feel like if we were to establish a connection through the holy prophet, that can grant us unity as an all together, as muslim. We have to be thankful, we have to think about him every day, to be grateful for him, cuz i mean everything that we know, everything um that we had learned is his lessons and allahs lessons of course because our prophet is allahs messenger, allah sent him down as a mercy to the world, so how can you not celebrate somebody who was sent down as a mercy to the world, and i think also the prophet has very unique um sort of personality in a sense that he was probably or has been written about by western writers as the most successful, probably religious and political leader leader, therefore, i think the attributes our prophet has has to be celebrated, how can we not . Special and without him we wouldnt know anything about islam and the quran and what to do like like women they need to stay away from men when they hijabi and you now and all those things we wouldnt know that i think we forget that islam wasnt necessarily always spread by sword he probably tried to spread it in many ways and one of them was mercy and calling out to people in a merciful way rather than with the sword, um, and i think theres a huge contradiction that islam was spread by sword, it wasnt, the prophet didnt spread islam by sword, he called out to islam, um, and i think his attributes as a person. Probably attracted people to islam um, you know, through his mercy, through his wisdom, his kindness and tolerance. Some events in London Community there. Now, i want to return to the conversation of course about unity between muslims, because um, at the time of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khumaini did pick the two dates, because uh, the sunni and the shia dates for the wilada separate by about a week, and so he took the opportunity to. That time and say between the two dates were going to have islamic unity week and try to increase that sense of brotherhood and bonding between i guess uh the muslim sects, the muslim groups, cultures, everyone to come together, especially in the face of uh oppression if you will from the outside colonial powers. Robert, i want to ask you, what do you think lay behind uh the thinking of Imam Khumaini at the time when he came with this Islamic Unity Initiative . Well, i think that, you know, the the region has always had issues with sectarianism, and uh, the one of the the the most successful tactics that nonmuslim imperialist powers have used in areas like uh, like asia and africa, is divide and rule, and i think that you know, muslims, especially scholars like komeini would have known very well about this uh, this this wound, this weakness, which is there in the muslim world, and it still exist till today, seen ituh cause terrible calamities in countries like iraq and lebanon for example, and key part of that is to bring muslims together, not just politically or militarily or whatever else, but religiously as well, and so an entire week dedicated to islamic unity that really highlights how important they considered this initiative to be, they didnt just dedicate a day or here or there, no, an entire week, and even now iran has major conferences, islamic unity conference, i think its an annual event thats been going on every year, and they bring scholars from all over. The uma to push this issue and theyve still emphasized it to this day and unfortunately the fight still goes on sheikh ahmed uh in in the wake of everything that robert just said you know um iran has been trying to lead the way with the uh Islamic Unity Initiative sometimes it hasnt been uh received as much but then weve been seeing over the last few months iran making peace with its neighbors returning to the diplomatic ties especially you know with saudi arabia who many in the western media will always frame it as you know S Saudi Arabia versus shia iran, although im sure those two countries wouldnt see it specifically in sectarian terms, rather in maybe competing interests. How important do you think it is that on the political level these countries are coming together, theyre trying to get over their differences, can that tamp down on some of the sectarianism . Can that help us to bring about the period where muslims may say we may not agree with each other, but we can learn to live with each other . I think it can, um, and i think more and more muslims are realizing. Especially in these times that it becomes very important for us to make uh political and also economic really ties with each other, and i say especially in this time because we are now moving towards the beginning of the era of a multipolar world, and um, when we look at the muslims, you find that, we are very, very, strategically poised um to take advantage of of that, because um, you know, our religion is pretty much common among each other, you know, yes, we do have our differences, but we believe in allah, we believe in the holy prophet, and we believe in all of the other things that come from that, the things that he has taught, the things that the quran has taught, and also we believe that that is sunnah. Is uh basically normative among us, you see so we have all of these um uh uh commonalities between us, we um we sit a great vast amount of mineral wealth, you know um and and Market Opportunities and so forth, and so it becomes very pragmatic and very important for us to um come together, you know and established ties by which we can increase our power. In uh the world as it is, so basically i think you know for thinking muslims and muslims are pragmatic, this is becomes very, very important, and to realize that the fishers between us, the differences between between us are those differences that the enemies of muslims, the enemy of islam, or the enemies of competition to their domination would exploit and like to exploit these differences between us. She and very quickly on that, you know, we look at the you know the show. The focus of todays show is about the prophet as well, his life, what kind of examples can we look at practically from his life, where he encouraged unity, not just between muslims, but of course with other religions as well. Uh, how maybe he would have protected other religious minorities within his uh, within his islamic nation, what, what can we learn from the example of rasullah . Well, beginning with the nonmuslims, you know, you find that the holy prophet, even before islam, you know, he was quoted to have said, one of the things that he was most proud about in his youth was the hillful fudul, and hillful fudul is basically kind of. Group, i would want to call it a confederation, but a group of young non, a group of young people in the time of the jahil who uh used to witness the exploitation and oppression of traders who would come to mecca without any kind of tribal support, you know, and they decided to band together and for what i would call today vigilante group, you know to support these people who were unjustly treated and he said he he was most proud of that and why when you look at these at this story, this is in the jahiliya times so hes making a uh and hes joined this group so hes making an example of meeting up with people who themselves might be mushrikin you know but who want justice you see so this is one aspect the other one is the hellful fudul you know which i think is a is a is um is sort of a prod prototype of how muslims should relate to others who are not muslim, you know, but who uh live in the same community and um, you know, want justice and so forth, right, and in the the the constitution of of medina, you know, in the time of the holy prophet sallallah, in the beginning of his, his his stay there, um, there were jews, there were christians. They were um polytheists, okay, and he made a contract between them that they would fight for each other, that they would protect each other, that they would um create a place of stability and so on, i think that is a good um, indication for us, especially us living in multicultural environments, how we should relate with people, especially in a society where we we we have a common interest in having security. And prosperity and Mutual Respect in those countries. Thank you sheikh, robert i just want to finally uh pass over to you, we have a minute or so left, as somebody who uh, you know, is living in, as the sheik say we live in a multicultural society, and you are somebody who has come to the religion of islam, is there a message or is there something that you could take from the prophets life that you would say, maybe message to some of the people watching and say, this is something abou