“Whoever among you lives long after me will see much disagreement, so adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided Caliphs; hold fast to it and bite onto it with your molars. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.”

He also said, “The best speech is the Book of Allah, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad ﷺ, and the worst matters are those newly introduced; every innovation is misguidance.”

Accordingly, if we search for proof in the Book of Allah, in the Sunnah of His Messenger, in the practice of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his rightly guided Caliphs, or even in the deeds of the favored generations—the first three or four centuries after the Prophet ﷺ—that supports holding a celebration for the Prophet’s birthday, we will find none. Since there is no evidence from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, the practice of the rightly guided Caliphs, the Companions, or the early exemplary generations, it is undoubtedly an innovated practice, and every innovation (bidʿah) is misguidance.

Moreover, holding the Mawlid—or any celebration of the Prophet’s birthday ﷺ—is forbidden for another reason: it is an imitation of the Christians, who celebrate the birth of the Messiah. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Do not excessively praise me as the Christians excessively praised the son of Mary; I am only a servant, so say: the servant of Allah and His Messenger.” Celebrating the Mawlid opens the door to extravagant praise and excessive veneration of the Prophet ﷺ, and this is exactly what happens in reality, for most of these gatherings typically include—