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Mawlid Al Nabi in 2015 will occur on Saturday, January 3.
Mawlid Al Nabi is an observance of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by most Muslims around the world.
It takes place on the 12th day of Rabi Al Awwal, the 3rd month in an Islamic year. Since Islam is ruled by a lunar calendar, this date shifts every year.
As a child growing up in Libya, I remember lighting candles, wearing new clothes and eating asida in the morning on this festive day. Asida is a breakfast dish made up of a cooked wheat flour lump of dough, with added butter on top plus heaping dishes of sugar and/or honey for dipping on the side. The rest of the day was spent visiting the local mosque for prayers and family members around town for treats.
The Prophet (pbuh) loved and treated his children and grandchildren with great kindness and directed them to do good deeds.
To honor the Prophet (pbuh), we wanted to make something cheery around our dinner table for his special day. We created this simple table birthday centerpiece.
Mawlid Al Nabi seemed like the ideal time for a reminder to do kind actions for others, especially other children.
We chose to place five candles on our centerpiece to stand for the 5 Pillars of Islam, but we also wanted our centerpiece to be a little interactive. Since we have 5 members in our family, we placed the centerpiece on our table so that everyone had a candle in front of them.
After we ate dinner, we laid all five candles flat. Then we went around the table and each said one good deed we did for someone else that day. After we shared our good deed, we got to lift up our candle to a standing position.
The girls loved sharing and seeing each candle go up.
It all went so well, I actually might pull it out again next week for another rendering of more good deeds!
We provided the steps below so you can make your own Mawlid Al Nabi centerpiece; however, you don’t need to make one to share a random act of kindness with someone else.
Supplies
3 Silver Glitter Pipe Cleaners
3 Blue Glitter Pipe Cleaners
3 Green Plain Pipe Cleaners
5 Yellow Buttons
Thick Pencil
Scissors
Pick put 3 green plain pipe cleaners and attach them end to end to make one long piece.
Start at one end of the green piece, wrap it around your pencil. Set it aside.
Take out one glittered silver pipe cleaner and one glittered blue pipe cleaner. Place the ends together and wrap them around each other.
Fold your combined piece in half and cut in the middle to make two shorter pieces. We ended up with six pieces total, but only used five.
Place a yellow button in the middle point of the five “candles” and fold the pipe cleaner in half. (Tip – Some buttons had tiny holes and we ended up reopening some of our wrapped pieces to accommodate them.)
Attach the candle to the twisted green pipe cleaner.
Once your candles are attached, make your green pipe cleaner into a circle. You are done!
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