Be joining in celebrations, theres 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 ummah. بالجنون والسحر اولا بهما فلا تتبعوا الهوى عن غيره من الحيوانات ويبين له اسماعيل الاسلام السلام عليك يا رسول الله اهل الجنه الله اللهم jesus صل صل عليك اللهم صل وسلم سلام كل عاشق بالحبال 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 عسى انا لا لا community we have two esteemed guests representing the scholarly class, were lucky to have with us sheikh ahmed hanif, the muslim scholar and lecturar 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. Roberts is a convert to islam and his work focuses specifically on muslim world affairs. Brothers, Salam Alaikum and welcome to the show. Now if i could. Perhaps start first of with youna and the molud 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 mauloud, 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, you know, just like for example, when you love somebody, you commemorate things about them, you you celebrate their birthday, if they passed away, you commemorate their passing. Way and things like that, you remember them, i think you different muslim communities have evolved different ways by which you can um commemorate or celebrate maulood, youd find different app cations 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. 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 um, 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 mould, now um, just on that point, you said that you some muslims uh 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 um tends to be, excuse me, tends to be not only critical but sometimes um condemming of the. This is a 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 a in a purely literalistic aspect where the sunnah for example is something uh only seen in its literalistic aspect and not the implications and metaphor and so forth that would be implied in that you see. 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 hand 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 in. 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 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 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, how people commemorate that, you see is something islamicate, you know, so um, this group basically denies Islamic Culture persay, 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 the 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 sha, now robert, we we introduce 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 it 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 inevitable research. Well, it played a huge role. I mean, the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi wasallam 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. Introduced to islam as teenager by meeting and 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 free slaves, and provided slaves unique opportunities to become free and become important people even some of his great were former slaves like bilal, for example, and you know, it totally shattered all of these ideas that i had about muslims and islam, and it was because of the. That the prophet was, that was what broke it for me, 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 they ever lived, definitely. I i can definitely relate to that to, to some degree as well, because i guess i 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, that 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 sheik, you are a uh 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 as roberts said really stood out for you and his character that said, this is somebody i would like to follow, well i i think 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 um there, if one would call it this, the founding individuals um tend to be 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, christ, you know, um, uh, his teachings are good, you, 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, you know, whereas the holy prophet sallallah, 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. Um uh 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 mode of um, transcendence, you know, where we could transcend our human state. By um by following him. Now as moles celebrations got underway in london, we spoke to few local british muslims about the day and about Islamic Unity Initiatives. With the molid were remembering, remembering the the holy prophet, and thats a standing point, thats something a 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 uma 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 cuz our prophet is allahs messenger. Allah sent him down as a mercy to the world, so how can you not celeb . Brate 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 reader leader therefore i think the attributes our prophet has has to be celebrated how can we not is very special and without him we wouldnt know anything about islam and quran and what to do like like women they need to stay away from men when theyre hijaby and you know 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. And 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 divide 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 guess uh the muslim sects, the muslim groups, cultures, everyone to come together, especially in the face of uh oppression if you will, from uh the outside colonial uh 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 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 uh 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 weve seen ituh cause terrible calamities in countries like iraq and lebanon for example and key part of that is 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, 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 that 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 sunny 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 uh, i think uh, more and more muslims are realizing, especially in these times that it becomes very important for us to make 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 well strategically poised um, to take advantage of of that, because um, you know, our religion is pretty much common among each other, yes we do have our differences, but we believe in allah, we believe in the holy prophet sallallah, 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 these uh uh commonalities between us, we um we sit a vast amount of mineral wealth, you know, and 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 establish 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. Take it, 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. Shah, and very quickly on that, 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 uh unity, not just between muslims, but of course with other religions