There are many ways to mark the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This Rabi ul Awwal, we chose one that he (PBUH) practised himself: we laid out a Dastarkhwan, opened the doors, and fed whoever walked through them.
What is a Dastarkhwan?
A dastarkhwan is the cloth a family spreads on the floor before a meal, and the word has come to mean far more than the cloth itself. It means the gathering around it. It means that once food is placed down, rank disappears, the labourer and the shopkeeper and the elder all sit at the same level, eat the same food, and rise as guests of the same host.
That is why the Dastarkhwan has always been the heart of hospitality in our part of the world. And it is why, in the month we remember the mercy sent to all creation, it felt like exactly the right thing to spread.
Breakfast, served to whoever came
Our team set up a Milad Dastarkhwan and served a full breakfast of puri and halwa to the public, free, with no questions asked at the door, and no one turned away.
Women came. Elders came, some of them slowly, some of them helped to their seats. Young men came in from work. Children came with their fathers. The hall filled, emptied and filled again, and plates kept going out.
There was no register of who deserved it and who did not. That is the point of a Dastarkhwan. You do not audit a guest. You feed them, and you thank Allah that you were able to.
