An Unhappy Day
By: Um Bilal
At the approximately same time that our beloved Prophet Muhummed (S) was ýborn in the Arabian peninsula, the island that we now call Great Britain was ruled by men ýlike King Cuthwulf of Wessex and King Theodoric. While the day of our dear Prophet's ýbirth came and went with few people acknowledging the wondrousness of the day, the ýbirthdays of these kings was celebrated with grand festivity. ý
Possibly the earliest recorded birthday comes to us in the following passage ýtranslated from Hebrew. It's found in the Old Testament of the Bible, in the book of ýGenesis; "And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made ýa feast unto all his servants."ý
We can see that Pharaoh clearly celebrated the day he was born, in exactly the ýsame way that many people do today. Perhaps you're thinking to yourself that this seems ýharmless; it's not something that involves your deen, your actual faith. Did you know that ýour beloved Prophet predicted that you would say something like that? He knew that a ýtime would come when the Muslims would love the things of this world much more they ýwould love to follow what he left behind for them? In this beautiful and amazing hadith ýwe're told about our current actions: Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported Allah's Messenger (S) ýsaying: You would tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch ýand step by step so much so that if they had entered into the hole of the lizard, you would ýfollow them in this also. We said: Allah's Messenger, do you mean Jews and Christians, ýby your words "those before you"? He said: Who else than those two religious groups? ý
There are arrogant Muslims who say that acts like celebrating birthdays is not at ýall similar t ...