Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Raheem

"Dhikra Mawlid Rasul Allah (s)" al-Hafiz Imaduddin Ibn Kathir

About Ibn Kathir's Book of Mawlid
We are currently in the process of translating the book Dhikr Mawlid Rasulullah sallallahu 'alayhi was-salam wa Rida'atihi li ibn Kathir. The book was written by Shaikh ul-Islam 'Imaduddin Ibn Kathir, a follower of ash-Shaikh Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiyya. The book consists of 31 pages. We obtained a copy from the Library of University of Princeton, between the many manuscripts there where it was kept in collection under number 4098. Collection 4098 has sixteen different important manuscripts, with "Dhikra Mawlid Rasulullah" being one of them. That book was written by Ibn Kathir who is a vey well-known scholar from the Salafi school and who was a student of the main Imam and founder of the Salafi school Shaikh ul-Islam, Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiyya. When he died, Shaikh Ibn Kathir was buried beside his shaikh, Ibn Taymiyya in the Sufi cemetery in Damascus (al-maqbirat is-sufiyya fi Dimashq). On the first page of the manuscript, Ibn Kathir says he wrote the book at the request of one of the muadhineen (adhan callers) in the mosque al-Muzaffari in Damascus, mosque of the Hanbalis, in the Salihiyya District --the mosque built by Muzaffar ad-Din Kawkaburi. It was known in Damascus as Jami'a al-Hanabila. At that time Ibn Kallikan, the historian, described the Mawlid of the Prophet (s) as a big celebration, which all scholars of the time used to take as a national holiday and a religious, holiday including Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathir. In that mosque was happening a big ceremony for the mawlid. Therefore the muadhins of that mosque, ash-Shaikh 'Imad ud-din Abi Bakr and the Shaikh Badruddin Hassan asked Ibn Kathir to write a book about the permissiblity of Mawlid in Islam. Being a talmeez (follower) to his shaikh, Ibn Kathir felt it necessary to ask his shaikh's permission for writing such a book. He asked Shaikh Ibn Taymiyya, if he had permssion to write it. Shaikh Ibn Taymiyya gave him permission and encouraged him to do that. This manuscript tells us that Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyya, the great scholars of Islam, were giving permission and authorizing reading of the remembrance of the Mawlid ashsharif. In order for the general public to understand, Ibn Kathir wrote it in a very easy language and he included in it what is good to be done in the remembrance of the Mawlid of the Prophet (s), specifically the poetry, the seerah and what is to be said.

Ibn Kathir says in this book, on page 19: "The Night of the Prophet's (s) birth is a magnificent, noble, blessed and holy night, a night of bliss for the Believers, pure, radiant with lights and of immeasurable price." --Shaikh Hisham Muhammad Kabbani