veiled4allah: 'Happy bid'a day'?

Happy birthday to my brother in Islam Yaser. May Allah SWT bring him happiness on this day, and may this upcoming year be blessed and productive for him.

On SV, we've got into the way of saying "happy bid'a day". What does that mean, you ask? A bid'a is a religious innovation, adding something to the corpus of Islam that Allah SWT and His messenger (i.e. the Prophet sAas) did not establish. There's a lot of debate among Muslims about what constitutes a bid'a. Bid'as are generally in the area of acts of worship. Some people say that any kind of worship practice that was not done by the Prophet (sAas) or permitted by him is a bid'a and is therefore forbidden. Others say that it is only if the practice is treated as an obligation or people are led to think that it is a religious duty to do it, that it is a bid'a. The latter position is what I believe.

Since it is not known that the early Muslims (rAa) celebrated their own birthdays, some Muslims feel that celebrating birthdays is a bid'a. Other Muslims feel that it would only be if the birthday were invested with religious significance, or people felt that it was necessary to celebrate birthdays, that it would be a bid'a. Many Muslims prefer to err on the side of caution and therefore do little more for birthdays than to wish people well.

Getting back to the joke that I started with, the people at SV are trying to steer a middle course by giving birthday best wishes, but acknowledging the "innovation" issue. Hence, from "happy b-day" to "happy bid'a day".

P.S. My "bid'a day" was on May 17 and I turned 29. As I said, when you're this close to 30, you don't want to celebrate birthdays!