On the 27th of the month of Rajab, in the year 610 AD corresponding to the 40th year of 'Aam-ul-Feel (the Year of the Elephant) the Great Prophet (peace be upon him) was busy in intimate prayer with his Lord in the cave of Hira when suddenly Jibraieel (as) the Trustworthy descended, and while giving you (the Prophet) the glad tidings of the beginning of the Prophet-hood, recited the first five verses of Surah al-Alaq:
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِى خَلَقَ*خَلَقَ الاِْنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَق*اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الاَْكْرَمُ*الَّذِى عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ*عَلَّمَ الاِْنسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ*
O Messenger (peace be upon him), Read! In the name of your Lord who created. He created man from a clot (of blood). Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous. Who taught by the pen.
Later, this day became famous among Muslims by the name of 'Eid-e-Maba's-e-Rasool' (peace be upon him) and certainly, it is a very great Eid because Allah, through His Grace and Mercy, sent His most beloved and greatest Prophet (peace be upon him) for the guidance of the people of the world; on this occasion, we present congratulations to all Muslims.
Here it is appropriate that we briefly point toward three important objectives of the appointment (Bay'sat) of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him):
The Holy Quran has described this objective of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in this way:
يا أيُّهَا النَّبِي إنّا أرسَلناكَ شاهِداً و مُبَشِّراً و نَذيراً و داعِياً إلَي اللَّهِ بِإذنِهِ و سِراجاً مُنيراً
O Prophet (peace be upon him)! We have sent you as a witness, a giver of glad tidings, a warner, and as an inviter toward Allah by His permission, and as a radiant lamp1
At the time when the Great Prophet (peace be upon him) was appointed to the Prophethood, the Arabian Peninsula was a victim of extreme intellectual decline; the situation had reached a point where humans, considering idols carved with their own hands as their Creator, would prostrate before them and worship them. The larger a tribe's idol was, the more dignified that tribe was considered; for this reason, three hundred and sixty idols were installed in the Kaaba. A tribe that did not have an idol was considered worthless. In such circumstances, the Great Prophet (peace be upon him), while forbidding idol worship, in contrast to it There is no god but Allah, (and) you will succeed2 raised the slogan (of Tawheed), the meaning of which was: 'O people of the world! Your salvation and exaltation do not lie in the worship of idols, but in bowing before the One, Subduing God. Thus, if you bow your head in submission before Him, then there will be no need to bow anywhere else.' As the poet says: 'That one prostration which you consider heavy, grants man deliverance from a thousand (other) prostrations
هُوَ الَّذِیْ بَعَثَ فِی الْاُمِّیّٖنَ رَسُوْلًا مِّنْهُمْ یَتْلُوْا عَلَیْهِمْ اٰیٰتِهٖ وَ یُزَكِّیْهِمْ وَ یُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتٰبَ وَ الْحِكْمَةَۗ-وَ اِنْ كَانُوْا مِنْ قَبْلُ لَفِیْ ضَلٰلٍ مُّبِیْنٍ
It is He who has sent among the unlettered a Messenger from among themselves, who recites His verses to them and purifies them and teaches them the Book and Wisdom, while before this they were in manifest error3
Thus, another objective of the Great Prophet's (peace be upon him) appointment is the education and training of the people, the evidence for which is also those initial verses of Surah al-Alaq which were revealed to you (peace be upon him) as the first revelation (Wahi); the subject matter of which is based on reading and writing. It is as if these verses of the first revelation are the Islamic Manifesto, through which the people of the world are being told that Islam has come to make education common; its weapons are the Book and the Pen. Now, if someone says that Islam spread by the power of the sword, they say something absolutely wrong and are ignorant of the spirit of Islam.
The next objective of the Prophet's (peace be upon him) appointment was the establishment of justice and equity in society. In a society where seizing the wealth of the weak was considered bravery and bloodshed was taken as a point of pride, the suppression of oppressors and providing justice to the oppressed was the objective of the Great Prophet (peace be upon him), which the Quran described in this way:
لَقَدْ أرسَلْنَا رُسُلَنا بِالبَیِّناتْ وَ أنْزَلْنا مَعَهُمُ الکِتابَ وَالمِیزانْ لِیَقُومَ النّاسُ بِالقِسْط
Certainly, We have sent Our Messengers with clear proofs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance (of right and wrong) so that people may establish justice4.
Although the objectives of the appointment (Bay'sat) are many, we have sufficed with three objectives in view of the brevity of the article. There are also some acts of worship (A'maal) for this great day, which are as follows:
In the end, it is a prayer to Allah the Almighty that, for the sake of His Beloved (peace be upon him), He grant haste in the reappearance of the Final Proof, the Imam of the Time (ajtf). Ameen
1Surah Al-Ahzab, Verses 45–46
2Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 16023
3Surah Al-Jumu'ah, Verse 2
4Surah Al-Hadid, Verse 25
5Mafatih al-Jinan, Acts of the Month of Rajab