Editorial
Eid-e-Miladunnabi
A time to reassert faith and its values
EID-e-Miladunnabi is that time of year when we go back to the values of life and faith as espoused by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). In a larger sense, we renew on this day the principles that came into the lives of all those who believe in the oneness of the Almighty, indeed in the majesty of His power to inspire us into a full flowering of our intelligence and intellect. And within such a flowering comes the fundamental premise that life on earth is but a shadow of the bigger reality awaiting us in the life hereafter. That reality is but the idea that here on earth we follow a path set for us by the Almighty, a path that has been explained to us in all its finer details by His messenger.
Today, we observe much more than the day of birth and the day of death of the Prophet of Islam. We celebrate today the essence of his teachings; and central to those teachings is the belief, as he espoused it, that all life must be lived in nobility and therefore away from any manner of temptation. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) instilled in us the lesson that faith is a calling higher than all other aspirations. Islam, he taught us, is much more than a matter of belief in the afterlife. In point of fact, it is a code of life which we are expected to follow in the everyday pursuit of life. While self-abnegation is a principle of faith, it is equally true that divorcing oneself from reality does not and cannot sustain faith. In the practice of his own life, the Holy Prophet left us a very large number of good instances from which to draw not only inspiration but sustenance as well. One of the cardinal teachings coming from him is that liberality of thought, in the sense that believing individuals must be tolerant in their attitudes, is what we need to rekindle in ourselves today.
Today it is the glow of faith, as lit up by the examples set by the Holy Prophet himself, that we seek to nurture anew in ourselves. Eid-e-Miladunnabi is a moment when we test the resolve in us to follow the course set for us by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
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