The ruling on celebrating the Prophet's birthday and citing the verse (Say: By the grace of Allah and His mercy) as evidence for it

The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, a questioner says: In these days, there is a lot of talk on channels and media about the birth of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and the permissibility of celebrating it, claiming that this is a way of honoring and loving him (peace and blessings be upon him). The question is: Is it established that his birth (peace be upon him) was on the twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal?

The Shaykh:
Even if it were established, we do nothing for this occasion that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not prescribe. Even if it were established, we do not do anything except what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did or ordered. He did not order the establishment of the Mawlid, nor did he prescribe it for his Ummah. It is not found in the four preferred centuries. The four preferred centuries did not have the Mawlid; it only appeared after the preferred centuries when the Fatimids took over Egypt and the Hijaz, and they brought these matters with them, including the Mawlid.

The questioner:
He says, may Allah preserve you and protect you, and regarding what those people mention, that not celebrating it indicates that you do not love him, based on His saying: and that you do not rejoice. How do we respond to them?

The Shaykh:
By the grace of Allah, Islam, and by His mercy, the Qur'an. He said, "By the grace of Allah and His mercy," meaning by Islam and the Qur'an. The birth of the Messenger is not part of this. Birth is common to everyone; the believer and the disbeliever, the Arab and the non-Arab, are all born. There is nothing special about birth; it is part of the creation of Allah (Exalted and Majestic is He). Birth does not confer any merit. The merit lies in the sending of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and his mission. Why do they not mention the mission of the Messenger, what he commanded, and what he forbade? They only mention the birth. This is because they imitate the Christians in their celebration of the birth of Jesus. Their celebration of the birth of Jesus is a religious innovation (bid'ah) among the Christians that Jesus (peace be upon him) did not legislate.