At the end of the Hajj (annu­al pil­grim­age to Mec­ca), Mus­lims through­out the world cel­e­brate the hol­i­day of Eid al-Adha (Fes­ti­val of Sac­ri­fice). In 2006, Eid al-Adha will begin on approx­i­mate­ly Decem­ber 31st, and will last for three days. Dur­ing the Hajj, Mus­lims remem­ber and com­mem­o­rate the tri­als and tri­umphs of the Prophet Abra­ham. One of Abra­ham’s main tri­als was to face the com­mand of Allah to kill his only son. Upon hear­ing this com­mand, he pre­pared to sub­mit to Allah’s will. When he was all pre­pared to do it, Allah revealed to him that his ​“sac­ri­fice” had already been ful­filled. He had shown that his love for his Lord super­seded all oth­ers, that he would lay down his own life or the lives of those dear to him in order to sub­mit to God.

Since the pagan fes­ti­val of Christ­mas, cel­e­brat­ed by the Trini­tar­i­an poly­the­ists, is fast approach­ing on the 25th of Decem­ber, we would like on this occas­sion present a fatawa (Islam­ic rul­ing) for the Mus­lims with regard to cel­e­brat­ing their fes­ti­val or even con­grat­u­lat­ing them. It should be not­ed that the Chris­tians believe that Jesus is lit­er­al­ly God, hence to par­tic­i­pate or even greet them is to agree with their doc­trine. There­fore Mus­lims should be aware of the bound­aries with regard to Christ­mas and how one should approach it.

Prayer (salat) is the first duty imposed by God Almighty upon mankind after that of the belief in tawhid and con­sti­tutes a pil­lar of the Islam­ic faith. The posi­tion of prayer is very impor­tant and unpar­al­leled by any act of oth­er wor­ship. Like the pole of a tent with­out which it can­not stand straight, Islam can­not stand with­out prayers. Prayers are also an act where­by it will be account­ed for on the Day of Judgment.

The Qur’an is the last revealed word of God and the basic source of Islam­ic teach­ings and laws. It deals with a vari­ety of sub­jects includ­ing the basic beliefs of Islam, moral­i­ty, wor­ship, knowl­edge, wis­dom, God and man’s rela­tion­ship, and rela­tions among human beings. Com­pre­hen­sive teach­ings on which sound sys­tems of social jus­tice, pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, leg­is­la­tion, jurispru­dence, law and inter­na­tion­al rela­tions can be built form an impor­tant part of the Holy Qur’an.

Although Prophet Muhammad(P) did not receive a for­mal edu­ca­tion, the Qur’an as soon as it was revealed to him in the spo­ken word, was com­mit­ted to writ­ing by his sec­re­taries. In this way every word was writ­ten down and pre­served dur­ing his life­time by his Com­pan­ions. The orig­i­nal and com­plete text of the Qur’an is in Ara­bic and trans­la­tions of its mean­ing in most known lan­guages are avail­able in major libraries and bookstores.

Islam, as we had ear­li­er explained before, con­sists of belief and Laws. We have pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned some pil­lars of the Laws. These pil­lars are the basis of Islam­ic Law. As for the Islam­ic ​‘Aqeedah (creed), its pil­lars are : Believ­ing in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Mes­sen­gers, the Last Day and the good or bad that Qadar (pre­des­ti­na­tion) brings.