Mumbai: As the Muslim community is set to start celebrations for the holy month of Rabi-ul-Awwal from Wednesday, a group of community members launched a 12-day ‘Prophet For All’ campaign on Tuesday. The campaign is an effort to dispel the falsehood being spread about the prophet and spread his message of peace, amity and brotherhood.
The holy month of Rabi-ul-Awwal in which Prophet Muhammed was born, is considered one of the most holy period for the community, which also observes the celebrations of Eid-e-Milad on the prophet’s birth anniversary. Starting from September 4 to Eid-e-Milad on September 16, the 12th day of Rabi-ul-Awwal, celebrations and special introductory programmes will be held all over Mumbai under the campaign of ‘Prophet For All’ with the intention of spreading the message of friendship, peace and brotherhood.
Yusuf Abrahani, one of the members in the campaign’s core committee, said, “The campaign’s aim is to clear the misconceptions in the minds of people from other faiths. We believe that it is our mistake that we could not present Islam and the Prophet in its true sense and therefore to undo our mistake, this is a kind and honest effort from our side as we are extending a hand of love, respect and brotherhood.”
On Tuesday, the core committee of the campaign officially launched the third year of the campaign at the Mumbai Press Club and declared the list of events planned under the campaign. The events will include promoting prophet’s life and his teachings through hoardings, meeting with teachers and principals of other faiths, masjid visit programs for people from other faiths, naatiya mushaira and a mega blood donation camp among others.
The mega blood donation camp organised on September 15, aims to create a world record by collecting 50,000 bottles of blood from across the country. These bottles will be sent to multiple blood banks to potentially benefit around 2 lakh needy people. The Naatiya Mushaira on September 14 will host non-Muslim poets who will recite special poems written in appreciation of Prophet Muhammed. The campaign also asked members of the community to invite non-Muslim people at their homes for dinner and clear misconceptions about prophet and the religion.
Following the recent controversy over Kankavali MLA Nitesh Rane’s threatening statement to Muslim community, Abrahani also said that he will invite Rane on dinner to solve his misconceptions. “We want to educate him that his statements will only fuel hatred among communities and will spoil the communal atmosphere of the country. Making such remarks only for personal political gains will do no good to him. The campaign is receiving good response from Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other states,” added Abrahani.