I thought our mailbox here in Saudi, where we only get correspondence sent from the school, employee association and occassionally the company, would be free of junk mail. I was wrong. We received a letter last week from the Khobar Islamic Center that detailed how concerned Muslims should handle Valentine's Day. It was such a hoot that I had to share it with you.Here is the text in it's entirety (I'll refrain from making snarky comments as I go along):
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day is a jaahili Roman festival, which continued to be celebrated until after the Romans became Christian. This festival became connected with the saint known as Valentine who was sentence to death on 14 February 270 CE. The kuffaar still celebrate this festival, during which immorality and evil are practised widely.
Shaykh *** (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked:
In recent times the celebration of Valentine's Day has become widespread, especially among female students. It is a Christian festival where people dress completely in red, including clothes and shoes, and they exchange red flowers. We hope that you can explain the ruling on celebrating this festival, and what your advice is to Muslims with regard to such matters: may Allaah bless you and take care of you.
He replied:
Celebrating Valentine's Day is not permissible for a number of reasons.
1- It is an innovated festival for which there is no basis in Islam.
2- It promotes love and infatuation.
3- It calls for hearts to be preoccupied with foolish matters that are contrary to the way of the righteous salaf (may Allaah be pleased with them).
It is not permissible on this day to do any of the things that are characteristic of this festival, whether that has to do with food, drinks, clothing, exchanging gifts or anything else.
The Muslim should be proud of his religion and should not be a weak character who follows every Tom, Dick and Harry. I ask Allaah to protect the Muslims from all temptations, visible and invisible, and to protect us and guide us.
End quote from Shaykh ***
I seriously don't even know where to start. My favorite part is "during which immorality and evil are practiced widely." I better make sure to buy some red pants, socks and shoes to go with my red shirt so I can properly celebrate Valentine's Day next year.
(***I omitted the name of the Shaykh who wrote this.)
4 comments:
I wore everything red I owned and nothing evil or immoral happened...darn! I'll have to try harder next year. :)
It promotes love - hahahaha! How terrible!
HAHA! This is hilarious, I think we're in the same boat when it comes to the best part of the letter - "during which immorality and evil are practiced widely." Say whaaaat? Thanks for sharing! :)
This is pretty funny. But it also shows how easy it is to mischaracterize another religion. Do you think Christians characterization of Halloween might be just as funny to some other group?
I think this is a classic case of egocentric--He looked at valentines day through his own filter of Islam and made a sweeping judgment of what must be in the minds of all the infidels who would celebrate such an evil holiday. I suppose most of us have done the same at some point :-)
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