Muslim Christmas

What Should Be The Mus­lim Reac­tion To Christmas ?

All praise be to Allah alone, for mak­ing us Mus­lims and bestow­ing us the deen of Islam to dis­tin­guish right and wrong. The hol­i­day sea­son is upon us again, and the ugly head of Satan is ris­ing again to inspire peo­ple to indulge in inno­va­tion and shirk. What pro­ceeds is an ana­lyt­i­cal view of Christ­mas and appro­pri­ate Mus­lim con­duct dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. More impor­tant­ly, what should be the Mus­lim reac­tion to Christmas ?

Quite a num­ber of Mus­lims today, espe­cial­ly those liv­ing in Chris­t­ian-dom­i­nat­ed coun­tries or those influ­enced to a large degree by west­ern cul­ture, have been led to con­sid­er that tak­ing part in the Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions of friends and rel­a­tives is, at very least, a harm­less past time if not a legit­i­mate source of plea­sure for chil­dren and adults alike.

In many instances, the pres­sure to con­form with the prac­tices of soci­ety is too great for those of weak resolve to with­stand. Par­ents are often tempt­ed to give in to the plead­ing of chil­dren who have been invit­ed to par­ties. They do not know a lot about why this hap­pens because the par­ents do not tell their kids about it.

Any belief sys­tem or rit­u­al (Christ­mas or oth­er­wise) in any reli­gion should sat­is­fy each of the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria to be labelled as authentic :

  1. It should have its evi­dence from the scrip­tures or from the authen­tic say­ings of the Messenger.
  2. The Mes­sen­ger him­self and his com­pan­ions should prac­tice and prop­a­gate it.
  3. The Scrip­ture or the Mes­sen­ger’s say­ings in which this belief sys­tem is present should be pre­served from alter­ations or perishment.

Was Jesus Born On Decem­ber 25th ?

Nei­ther the date 25th Decem­ber nor any oth­er date of Jesus’ birth is men­tioned in the Bible. Not until the year 530 C.E., that a monk, Diony­sus Exi­gus, fixed the date of the birth of Jesus on Dec. 25th. He wrong­ly dat­ed the birth of Christ accord­ing to the Roman sys­tem (i.e., 754 years after the found­ing of Rome) as Dec. 25, 753.“1This date was cho­sen per­haps in keep­ing with the hol­i­days already indoc­tri­nat­ed into the pagans.

Roman pagans cel­e­brat­ed Decem­ber 25th as the birth of their god” of light, Mithra.

In the 2nd-cen­tu­ry A..D., it [Mithraism] was more gen­er­al in the Roman Empire than Chris­tian­i­ty, to which it bore many sim­i­lar­i­ties.“2

The rea­son why Christ­mas came to be cel­e­brat­ed on Decem­ber 25 remains uncer­tain, but most prob­a­bly the rea­son is that ear­ly Chris­tians wished the date to coin­cide with the pagan Roman fes­ti­val mark­ing the birth­day of the uncon­quered sun” (natal­is solis invic­ti); this fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ed the win­ter sol­stice, when the days again begin to length­en and the sun begins to climb high­er in the sky.“1

Oth­er pagan gods” born on Decem­ber 25th are : Her­cules, the son of Zeus (Greeks); Bac­chus, god of wind (Romans); Ado­nis, god of Greeks ; Freyr the Greek-Roman god.

But What About San­ta Claus ?

The San­ta” char­ac­ter was fur­ther devel­oped in 1809 when an amus­ing but inac­cu­rate his­to­ry of Dutch tra­di­tions was writ­ten. Wash­ing­ton Irv­ing, influ­enced by north Euro­pean Christ­mas cus­toms, pic­tured St. Nicholas rid­ing in a wag­on mer­ri­ly over rooftops, drop­ping presents down chim­neys, the first time this had been sight­ed. Need­less to men­tion, the word San­ta Claus” appears nowhere in the Bible. How­ev­er, Saint Nicholas (San­ta Claus) was a real bish­op who was born some 300 years after Jesus(P). Accord­ing to leg­end he was extreme­ly kind and went out at night to dis­trib­ute presents to the needy.

Ver­i­ly, Allah for­gives not that part­ners should be set up with him in wor­ship, but He for­gives except that (any­thing else) to whom He pleas­es, and who­ev­er sets up part­ners with Allah in wor­ship, he has indeed invent­ed a tremen­dous sin.“3

Chris­t­ian belief states that the one God reveals him­self in the three per­sons of Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spir­it. These three per­sons are nev­er­the­less regard­ed as a uni­ty, shar­ing one sub­stance”. Prophet Jesus(P) is ele­vat­ed to divin­i­ty, sits on the right hand of God and judges the world. The Holy Spir­it, who in the Hebrew Bible is the means by which God exer­cis­es his cre­ative pow­er, in Chris­t­ian thought becomes a part of the God-head. Paul made the Holy Spir­it the alter ego of Christ, the guide and help of Chris­tians, first man­i­fest­ing itself on the day of Pentecost.

Con­se­quent­ly, Shirk in Ruboobeeyah occurs in the Chris­t­ian belief that Jesus(P) and the Holy Spir­it are God’s part­ners in all of His domin­ion, in their belief that Jesus(P) alone pro­nounces judge­ment on the world and in their belief that Chris­tians are helped and guid­ed by the Holy Spir­it. This form of Shirk occurs when any act of wor­ship is direct­ed to oth­er than Allah.

Indeed they do blas­pheme those who say that Allah is Jesus, the son of Mary, but Jesus said O chil­dren of Israel ! Wor­ship Allah, my Lord and your Lord”. Who­ev­er joins oth­er gods with Allah, Allah will for­bid him heav­en and the fire will be his abode.“4

Abdul­lâh ibn Mas’ud (may Allah be pleased with him) nar­rat­ed that Allâh’s Mes­sen­ger(P) said : Any­one who dies wor­ship­ping oth­ers along with Allah will def­i­nite­ly enter the Fire.” I said, Any­one who dies wor­ship­ping none along with Allâh will def­i­nite­ly enter Par­adise.“5

Mus­lim Reac­tion Towards Christmas

Being the cus­to­di­ans of Truth and the best Ummah cre­at­ed for mankind” and wit­ness­es unto mankind” (ummatan wasa­tan), we Mus­lims just can­not stay still as the soci­ety around us is entrapped by Satan. Enjoin­ing good and for­bid­ding evil should be our theme.

The fore­most thing to realise is that Christ­mas is a big inno­va­tion which is lead­ing a big part of human­i­ty to shirk (asso­ci­at­ing part­ners with God). Chris­tian­i­ty has trans­gressed the lim­its set by Allah ; there­fore show­ing hap­pi­ness and joy on Christ­mas, Hal­loween, East­er and Good Fri­day is like shak­ing hands with Satan and telling him to car­ry on the good work.

Remem­ber that Allah com­mand­ment for us in the Qur’an :

Help you one anoth­er in virtue and right­eous­ness, but do not help one anoth­er in sin and trans­gres­sion. And fear Allah, ver­i­ly Allah is severe in pun­ish­ment”.6

It is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed for all Mus­lims to car­ry brochures on Islam with them to pass on class­mates, co-work­ers, neigh­bours etc. after dis­cussing Islam. Thus the hearts and minds of non-Mus­lims should be exposed to the beau­ti­ful mes­sage of Islam.

Say : He is Allah, the One and only,
Allah, the Eter­nal, the Absolute,
He beget­teth not, nor is He begot­ten.
And there is none like unto Him.”

And ver­i­ly, only God knows best ! 

Cite this arti­cle as : Ibnu Juferi al-Amri­ki, What Should Be The Mus­lim Reac­tion To Christ­mas ?,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Decem­ber 25, 2007, last accessed March 28, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​i​s​l​a​m​/​m​u​s​l​i​m​-​r​e​a​c​t​i​o​n​-​t​o​-​c​h​r​i​s​t​m​as/
Endmark
  1. Ency­clo­pe­dia Bri­tan­ni­ca, 1998 ed.[][]
  2. The Con­cise Colum­bia Ency­clo­pe­dia, 1995 ed.[]
  3. Qur’an, 4:48[]
  4. Qur’an, 5:72[]
  5. Nar­rat­ed in Bukhari and Mus­lim.[]
  6. Quran, 5:2[]

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4 responses to “What Should Be The Mus­lim Reac­tion To Christmas ?”

  1. Quazi Avatar

    Sala­mu Alaikum wa rah­mat­ul­lahi wa barakatuhu,

    I read the post and the replies of Lailah and Cj. One ques­tion may arise is what Prophet (peace be upon him) did dur­ing christ­mas etc.? Did he send wish­es to Chris­tians or he kept silent or he did some­thing else ? I also had prob­lems for keep­ing beard in office and also in soci­ety (even from my fam­i­ly).… but thanks to Allah rab­bul alamin… that He made it easy for me.… i did not have to go through hard times too much.…..all praise belongs to Allah.
    I know non-mus­lims look with weired way if they see me pray­ing Maghrib in the train sta­tion… but due to time restric­tions, i dont see any oth­er alter­na­tive.… Seen Mus­lims and Mus­limahs come and greet me after that.… again praise belongs to Allah.… feel stronger and bet­ter.…. we Mus­lims should back each oth­er up.….as Allah asked us not to divide among ourselves.…..
    About the Christ­mas issue, per­son­al­ly I dont go to any such par­ties after start­ed to fol­low Islam — because its full of wine/​beer, pork, gam­bling, semi-dressed girls, drunk boys — all goes against Islam.…. We Mus­lims should fear Allah much…as He said in the Quran.
    Anoth­er rea­son I dont go to such par­ties is because it affects my prayer timetable.….
    But for Lailah, not wear­ing hijab as she already lost 2 jobs.…. may Allah give her strength and give her some­thing out of His boun­ty so she can main­tain her hijab.…. we guys also need to main­tain our hijaab.…. wear­ing a skin-tight t‑shirt and roam­ing around in the shop­ping cen­ters… is not what Allah com­mand­ed the Mus­lim boys to do.…. rather it goes against Islam.….. not too many peo­ple talk about the hijab of a Mus­lim com­par­ing to the hijab of a Muslimah.….

    May Allah guide us all His pious ser­vants to Sir­at­ul Mus­ta­keem. Ameen
    Quazi

  2. Cj Avatar
    Cj

    I agree with Lailah.

    Regard­less,

    I did not seem to find any­where in the arti­cle why Mus­lims are not allowed to par­take in Christ­mas. I don’t see the harm in tak­ing part in the SECULAR part of the holiday.

  3. Lailah Avatar
    Lailah

    I strug­gled with this arti­cle pri­mar­i­ly because the author makes the com­mon mis­take of attempt­ing to say that Chris­tian­i­ty is doing wrong things accord­ing to mus­lim stan­dards. You can’t com­pare apples and oranges. Chris­tian­i­ty and its belief sys­tem is their belief. Now are they more respon­si­ble for evil because of their beliefs ? I don’t think so, Chris­tians are as var­ied in their lev­el of belief and orga­ni­za­tion as any­one else, so we can’t make them a mono­lith. Instead we should try to see the sep­a­ra­tion and be sup­port­ive of that sep­a­ra­tion. We do as we do, and they do as they do. Sim­ple isn’t it ? Why should a mus­lim site even dis­cuss Christ­mas and San­ta Claus ? San­ta Claus is an imag­i­nary fig­ure and all Chris­tians know this. Even when he was invent­ed” he was brought to Amer­i­ca from Europe where he is known as Father Christ­mas in Eng­land and Sin­ter Klaus in Dutch coun­tries. (I may have spelled that wrong). Either way how does that impact an intact and healthy mus­lim ? Well I guess the fear is the glitz of it, the glam­our of it is like an entrap­ment for those not strong in their deen. And per­haps some fear the loss of the younger mus­lims to this. I feel this way, if a per­son is drawn to some­thing it speaks of their con­vic­tion to their belief sys­tem, and to what degree ? There is an assump­tion that mus­lims are all from the same cloth, and all should be. Noth­ing is far­ther from the truth, even in the Mid­dle East and Africa and Per­sia how Islam is prac­ticed varies a great deal. We can say its cul­tur­al, and it is. I am not offend­ed by Christ­mas, as a for­mer Chris­t­ian I see it for what it is, no more than a show. Time off from work, and time to spend with loved one’s. Yes, peo­ple spend too much mon­ey, and they eat way too much, and also alco­hol flows in plen­ty yet again though I ask, what does this have to do with a mus­lim ? Noth­ing what so ever. If you want to dis­cuss social issues, keep it social, if you want reli­gious dis­cus­sion than even more so, this idea is dead. If a mus­lim has a Christ­mas tree what does that mean ? If a mus­lim has a Christ­mas tree than that per­son isn’t mus­lim, that is the answer I would expect to get. But there are mus­lims who see them­selves as pro­gres­sive, and mod­ern. Yet can we judge their hearts ? Per­haps that is to Sufi an idea for this site.
    At any rate I think that Christ­mas is a bac­canal for Chris­tians and we should nev­er step into the path of judg­ing oth­ers reli­gions by our guide­lines. We sim­ply can’t. it sounds and looks like either jeal­ousy or worse pick­ing a fight were none needs to be picked. If my niegh­bor is Chris­t­ian and has a tree, good for them. If my oth­er neigh­bor is jew­ish and has a Menor­rah good for them. I will cel­e­brate Eid. And when the day is done no one is hurt and none the wis­er. Does cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas bring evil to the world ? Of course not. Evil lies in the hearts and minds of men who most­ly are sec­u­lar. If a Chris­t­ian invites a mus­lim co-work­er to the office Christ­mas par­ty should they attend ? Well, a wise per­son will go, and do the pol­i­tics because cel­e­bra­tion is in the heart, and belief. Not to men­tion the words. Mer­ry Christ­mas” which is not reli­gious. I am a mus­limah in the work­force. I do not wear Hijab because I lost two jobs because of it, though the employ­ers were very care­ful to say oth­er things such as too many com­plaints about you. Well, was I too mus­lim for my most­ly Chris­t­ian clients ? I cer­tain­ly did­nt’ use any lan­guage to sug­gest such, but my cloth­ing told them, this is an odd­i­ty, and per­haps an evil, so we can’t keep her. In short I believe that the more we pour on the reli­gious rhetoric to prove points the worse we make it. We want to live peace­ful­ly with each oth­er, this is Amer­i­ca and it is, despite some Athe­ist beliefs, a Chris­t­ian coun­try. But it is a tol­er­ant coun­try and it can be more so. I believe we should as mus­lims be in the com­mu­ni­ty and not hid­den away in our cliques and sep­a­rate our­selves from every­day life. We should be obvi­ous in that we are polite, and well spo­ken, and clean, and that we keep to our” belief sys­tems. I don’t go to office Christ­mas par­ties but I do say to friends and co-work­ers, enjoy” there is no harm in that.

  4. Lailah Avatar
    Lailah

    First of all Christ­mas is not a reli­gious” hol­i­day. It nev­er has been. Chris­tians who desire to cre­ate a theme or idea that it is the birth­day of Isa do it because they want to.
    Its the fail­ure of the Chris­t­ian church to redi­rect this prob­lem. Christ­mas basi­cal­ly is a sec­u­lar holdiay. As a Jew Isa cer­tain­ly would not have want­ed his day of birth mem­o­r­al­ized in this fash­ion. Lets not blame Isa or Chris­tian­i­ty for this de-evo­lu­tion. If a per­son who is Chris­t­ian desires to cel­e­brate the birth of Isa from a pure­ly spir­i­tu­al stand­point I find noth­ing wrong with it. What I dis­like is the fla­grant and often over­done spend­ing and dec­o­rat­ing and Euro­pean themes that per­me­ate Christ­mas. Should a Mus­lim cel­e­brate Christ­mas ? Well that depends, it a Mus­lim appre­ci­ates Isa, and his words, and his jour­ney and the fact that he was a prophet why not ? Mus­lims cel­e­brate Moham­mads birth­day (pbuh). I have seen big par­ties thrown for that par­tic­u­lar cel­e­bra­tion, with lights, food, and songs and so forth. Don’t get con­fused, Chris­tian­i­ty has alot of prob­lems and arche­ol­o­gy is help­ing with that. Many Chris­tians are fear­ful of not wor­ship­ping Isa” its built into the religon. Since the coun­cil of Nacea when the vote was tak­en, should Jesus be equat­ed with God or no ? It was a slim vote. But its gone that way ever since, direct­ed by MEN, not by God. No where in the New tes­ta­ment does Isa say wor­ship me. No was man­u­fac­tured by men for a pur­pose which has been lost to every­one who isn’t a the­ol­o­gist. So I don’t fault peo­ple for fol­low­ing blind­ly, should Mus­lims do what Chris­tians do ? No. They are mus­lims. How­ev­er to hon­or Isa isn’t wrong in my opin­ion, the Quran speaks high­ly of him and his moth­er Maryam.

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