The Contested Eid

A column of 5000 men processing up the narrow streets was hard to miss. And in case we weren’t looking, there was sound of chanting blaring through loud speakers mounted on top of a car, not to mention a plane flying overhead trailing a banner reading ‘Muhammad a mercy to mankind.’ This was not happening in Pakistan, but on the terraced streets of a former industrial town in Lancashire.

This was my first experience of the Muslim Eid of Mawlid, the celebration of the birth of Muhammad. It comes around once a year, much as you might expect, but since the Islamic calendar is eleven days shorter than ours, the date is different each time. In 2021, it falls on 19th October. The processions are generally held on the closest convenient Sunday, Covid permitting, of course. This particular activity is the most visible part of the celebration, but special events are also held inside the mosques.

Some months later, I got to know the imam who leads this particular event and we became friends. He invited me to join him on the next Mawlid procession. I had been to events such as Iftar (the break of the fast during Ramadan) and I had attended community events in the mosque as a guest and observer. Joining in the celebration of Muhammad’s birth was a step I could not take, so I declined as politely I could. Now, one could argue that it is only a cultural event, a joyful celebration of Muslim community life and freedom of expression in this country; our MP may have seen it that way when he walked with the leaders of the procession one year, but, in all conscience, I did not feel I could.

There is another aspect to this particular Eid. It is bitterly contested within the Muslim community. It is openly denounced by the growing Salafi movement as a monstrous corruption of true Islam. Where different traditions are found side by side in the same locality, Muslims may be sharply divided over it. For some, it is a glorious expression of love for the prophet as required in the accepted saying “None of you will have faith till he loves me more than his father, his children and all mankind.” For other Muslims, it is a manifestation of wicked idolatry.

For many of our Muslim friends this is a live issue. They will have an opinion about it. How should we Christians interact with them about it? If they commend it, what might we say? If they condemn it, where do we go with that? If they say it is merely culture (“you know, like Christmas”), how do we answer? Mawlid is an opportunity to talk about faith and worship; can we use it to speak of our love for and faith in Jesus, before whom God said every knee will bow?

Ted Collins

See also The Other Islam, Ted Collins, p93.