The birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was an event of the greatest magnitude in human history. "Allama Shibil Nu'mani of India (d. Nov 1914 C.E.) has described it in poetic prose that seems to flow from the very depths of a devoted soul. To do justice to the author I venture to render it into English that follows the original as closely and as faithfully as possible.... Translator.

More than once has this world of ours been visited by blooms of spring pregnant with new life; many a time has this abode of man been illuminated with a radiance that has dazzled the eyes. But now dawn the day, old hoary Time had long been awaiting, the day for which the anxious glimmer of the stars had long since looked out.

For thousands of years, days and nights had followed each other in quick and unending succession, angels had sped far and wide to enforce Divine decrees, the elements had intermingled into new forms, dead and living; the sun and the moon had coursed along their paths of light; the wind and the rain had covered the earth with their blessings; in short, Nature had been unrolling its varied panorama only to set the stage for the advent of the auspicious day.

Divine souls with their serene breath, Ibraheem with his belief in one Allah, Yusuf with his angelic beauty, Musa with his staggering miracles, Isa with his power to raise the dead had all lived and toiled to lay at the feet of the Last Messenger the fruits of their labours as tokens of homage.

Now dawn the day, the blessed day that heralds in an era of bliss and happy hopes. The biographers of the holy Prophet (peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) relate in their own limited way the miraculous omens witnessed during the preceding night; fourteen minarets of the royal palace of Chosroes of Iran are said to have fallen to the ground, the river Sawa ran dry and the sacred fire went out. Whatever the truth, who can doubt that the splendour of Iran, the brilliance of Byzantium, the glory of China, were soon to be laid low in dust!

The sacred fire may not have gone out; it is nevertheless, an historical truth that the fire of untruth and unbelief, the flames of paganism and the infernal furnace of misguided living, were shortly to find a cold grave. Magism was rent asunder. Christian doctrines dropped down lifeless like autumn leave and the great temples where idols reigned were deserted and turned into dreary ruins.

The air rang with the calf of the one Allah; virtue beamed fresh and lovely like a garden of roses; Divine guidance clothes the earth in a raiment of light; and morality put on a heavenly brilliance like polished glass, when the orphaned son of 'And Allah, the darling child of Amina, the lord of the Ka'ba, the uncrowned king of Arabia, in full glory and state descended from the heavenly abode of the holies to walk this earth of Time and Space.

"A sun-like pinnacle over the nine ferments
Wherein the seven planets lie,
The last of the prophets and messengers divine;
Like dust under his feet lay
Like prey by huntsman bagged the two worlds
Hung to his steed;
Unlettered through, in tongue eloquent he spake
of what Adam to Messiah had said;
Like lemon, the first fruit of the spring,
He brought in his wake beauty and bloom."
(May Allah perpetuate His choicest
blessings on his soul).