So today is Halloween for some people... unfortunately many Muslims too... Check out this article (and video) about its dangers and what you can do in sha Allah. An old saying is the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing us that he didnt exist! Halloween and Muslim Personalities by Nadheer binNaseeb bismillah arRahmaan arRaheem I recall fun and excitement that drew near when Halloween approached when I was young. When I was 5 years old I wore a Superman costume and getting dressed up in costumes continued for years until I became a teenager, thats when the haunted houses interested me. The reason I wanted to mention that is because I used to have warm feelings about it despite the scary and evil origins. The origins never concerned me even though the Church and Christian school spoke against the Halloween holiday. Funny thing is that my school had a Halloween costume party every year for kids despite it being against the religion. I must say that there is trouble brewing for some Muslim parents and they have no clue how something as seemingly as small as celebrating or participating in Halloween activities can blow up in their faces. It really isnt hard to understand that Islam has two eids, Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha. The challenge comes when we purposely disobey Allah and follow the way of the non-Muslims and start participating in the customs of the Pagan holidays and rituals just like Christians. Christians adopted many of their holidays and dates like Christmas being December 25th and Hallows Eve or All Saints Day being October 31st. We as Muslims are warned against these simple yet effective tricks of Shaytan. They are simple and effective because it passes the blame on the children. Christian parents dont know the damage they do encouraging Santa Claus until their children recognize that their own parents lied and betrayed them with a myth. (I know I was hurt to learn that a morbidly obese white man didnt bring gifts) Heres the issue at hand: If your children go to school, they will inevitably run into some children that are Trick-or Treating or celebrating other Pagan non-Islamic holidays including Christmas and others. If they are homeschooled, they are still bombarded with Halloween messages online and on television. On top of that there are those parents that hold that since they are children theres no harm in it. As a CONFIDANT, we must be able to educate our children until they can confidently break the back of kufr ideas! When they are young and you give them the inside scoop on many Pagan holidays, that builds trust between you and your children and gives them ammunition to refute any attempt to be pulled close to the alien ideas. How do you educate yourself you ask? Well there are people like Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick who made a great video called Holiday Myths and digs into the origins of Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, Easter and others. You can also do a Google search and familiarize yourself with the ideas that bombard our children. Being prepared is important because if you allow your children to participate, when they come of age and you want them to do something Islamic or try to chastise them for doing something wrong, guess who they will point at for not being congruent? YOU. Yes, the will eventually know that this is not something Islamic and my parent(s) may have been bending or breaking the rules and if or when they come to that point, they usually feel that they have permission to break the rules also because you modeled that behavior. You may not have intended for it to be that deep, but it is. We must protect our family from the fire whose fuel is men and stones and we must be vigilant against kufr ideas in all their forms. We do that by educating our children about kufr and its ideas and we show the solution through the beauty of Islam and its God conscious celebrations of the two Eids. We did a video about Holidays and being congruent you can view HERE. Let us know what you think and May Allah make you successful in this life and most importantly the next!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 20:06:31 +0000