Fighting over the Prophet’s Birthday

Sunni Sufis have rejected Darul Uloom’s fatwa calling on Muslims to stop celebrating Prophet Muhammad’s birthday

A recently revived feud between Deobandis and Sunni Sufis only seems to get noisier by the day. Weeks after hitting out at Deoband’s Islamic seminary Darul Uloom for allegedly promoting Wahhabism, Sunni Sufi leaders have rejected a Deoband fatwa asking Muslims not to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (born: 570 CE).

“The whole world celebrates the birth of the Prophet—54 countries have national holidays on this auspicious day—except the current regime of Saudi Arabia,” says Syed Muhammad Ashraf Kichhouchhawi, general secretary of the All India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB), a representative body of heads of dargahs and other Sufi shrines, “The fatwa clears the air that Deoband would like to impose a foreign ideology, that of Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism. True Indian Muslims have always been celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammad by taking out Juloos-e-Muhammadi processions, lighting candles and thus observing Milaad.”

On 8 November, Darul Uloom of Deoband had issued a fatwa against celebrating birthdays in general, asserting that doing so would be against Sharia law. “Muslims should not follow the tradition of Western culture of celebrating birthdays, as it is against Sharia,” said the Islamic seminary’s Vice-chancellor Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani. He added that Deoband does not observe the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIUMB’s rejection of the fatwa comes close on the heels of Sunni Sufi leaders launching a scathing attack on Deoband for turning India susceptible to the “threat of Wahhabi terror” at the behest of Saudi Wahhabi ideologues. The charge, levelled at a Sufi Mahapanchayat on 16 October at Moradabad, had been vehemently contested by the Vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom, who denied all Wahhabi influence. The war of words between the two, however, continued.

The latest verbal scuffle is likely to complicate the theological debate between these two leading Indian sub-sects of Sunni Muslims, especially since it comes at a time when politics in Uttar Pradesh has started heating up ahead of the Assembly polls due next year.

The AIUMB claims—implausibly— that Israel and Saudi Arabia are the only two countries in the Middle East that do not mark the birthday of Prophet Muhammad as a national holiday. “Fifty-four countries worldwide officially recognise Mawlid (the Prophet’s birthday) as a public holiday. Some of them are not even Muslim-dominated, including India, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Guyana, Tanzania and Mali,” says Kichhouchhawi of the AIUMB.

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Dhirendra K Jha