Ramadhan Karim or Ramadhan Mubarek?

Ramadhan is here, thanking Allah that we lived that long to enter this blessed month...so many people died just prior Ramadhan, so we should consider ourselves lucky to be alive and that we have been allowed by Allah to enter this month...

Several people you meet during this time greet you with "Ramadhan Karim"...well, I have read recently about this, and Ibn Uthaimeen says that it is incorrect to say this, it is rather recommended to say "Ramadhan Mubarek",

Q. When some people, for example, lie in Ramadan, or when he cheats or backbites, and others prohibit him saying to him, 'This is haraam (forbidden),' he says 'Ramadan kareem'. What is the ruling for that?

A. The ruling of that is that the statement 'Ramadan kareem' is not correct. Rather it should be said 'Ramadan Mubarak', or whatever is similar to it, because it is not Ramadan itself that gives so that it can be kareem (generous), in fact it is Allah who placed the grace in it, and made it a special month, and a time to perform one of the pillars of Islam.

It is as if the one saying this thinks that the sacredness of the time allows him to commit transgressions. This is turning around what the people of knowledge have said that bad deeds are greater at special times and places, the opposite of what the one saying this imagines. They say that it is obligatory to fear Allah - the honorable and majestic - at all times, and in all places, especially in special times and special places.