Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
Your argument is that Halloween has roots in Christianity/Pagan, therefore absolutely wrong. However, birthdays also have roots in Christianity, they just like Halloween, started off as a religious event (birthdays were only observed to remember the religious figures) therefore celebrating them should also be classified as wrong?
Halloween isn’t a religious event, just like birthdays aren’t anymore. Birthdays became an individual thing just like Halloween has become a cultural activity. Both practices have been reformed over the centuries into something totally harmless and frankly speaking quite pointless also. So why celebrating one is okay but the other one isn’t? Shouldn’t Islamic teachings be applied on the whole instead of just picking, choosing and tweaking it to suits our own taste?
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
THIS. Let’s all focus on our five fundamentals first before getting hectic over these much smaller issues. I find so many people get worked up about these details that they forget the bigger picture is what you will be accountable for. My friends have kids around age 5 and 6 and they now have questions about Allah Mian and where he lives, can they see him, how do they know he’s there etc, and answering those from my own kid is far more of a thought process for me than letting him dress up as a pirate and get candy. Kids these days aren’t bewaqoof- they live in a world of options (whether as a parent you want to believe that or not) and they want explanations and have intelligent questions, and you can’t shortchange them with “because I said so”, and thank goodness they do and don’t just blindly follow without at least trying to understand. To me, that makes for a stronger foundation for their faith and belief in Allah, and something I want to invest much more time in vs. Celebrating birthdays or Halloween or even having a Christmas dinner with his dad’s family. And another thing, Islam also counsels us to be good to our friends and neighbours and to participate in their happiness- in the end, your Niyat is everything and Allah knows best what is in your heart. If you approach everything “they do” as a sin, good luck to you.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
And yes there is absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating mehndi acoording to teachings of Islam. It’s just another baseless extremist fatwa from mullah’s to frustrate the ummah and create fitna. There’s evidence that all typical Arab mehndi rasams were carried out at Hazrat Aisha RA’s wedding to Prophet Muhammad pbuh, it’s just we don’t really know whether she actually wore a peela or neela jora.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
Jolie, Birthday is not a religious event, nor is it a Christian specific occasion .. its very different from Halloween .. I guess we arent going anywhere with this discussion coz right now we are just going round and round in circles !
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
Many pre-religious festivals have been adopted into religion. Halloween is thought to have originated with harvest festivals, and was later influenced by Christianity. Celebrating the harvest is not unique and has been done by humans for thousands of years. It’s the changing of the season.
Similarly, Ramzan existed before Islam, and was incorporated as a Muslim practice. If one wishes to follow Islam and only be influenced by Arabic culture, that’s fine, but please don’t label everything as Christian when the reality is that many cultural festivals (Ramzan, Halloween) existed outside of religion, and to celebrate these occasions in a secular manner is not novel but rather, is probably more accurate.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
Disagree. While Islam as a whole is extremely important, its not for you and me to decide which issue is a bigger one , in someone’s life. If someone is trying to improve in as much as a little something in Islam , that should be extremely encouraged .
Why , you ask? because a person can be a completing all their fard elements and yet Allah can send them to hell fire for a litte something that ALlah didnt like .. while a person could be the biggest sinner in our eyes yet Allah might send them to Paradise because He liked something very little that the person did …
and yes Niyah is everything in Islam , but misusing the word Niyah is just plain wrong.. for example, a muslim woman wears a miniskirt at work out of peer pressure , says its not my Niyah to show myself off but I am doing it to gel into the rest of the workplace ethics .. it wont lessen the sin on her for dropping her parda. There is no point trying to find excuses to do something and then find its justification wrongly in Niyah ..
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
^ nope that’s not what I meant when I said Niyat is everything and I think I was pretty clear about the context. It’s one thing to participate in a Christmas dinner out of goodwill to your fellow man and entirely another to wear a miniskirt because of peer pressure. There is no comparison so let’s not get extreme here.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
I am sorry if I offended you but its what I see and just how I feel when people make Halloween a moral issue. Its not. Its candy and costumes and the bigger deal we make of it, the bigger deal it will be for our kids. I don’t think it deserves as much attention as we give it.
We have jahaiz, mehndis, mayoons, birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers, bridesmaids, dood pilai, ungli pakarke mornay vali rasam, joota churai, janay kya kya! The wedding forum is one of the highest traffic forums on this site. Oh and Eid meelad un nabi (extremely controversial issue in Muslims)…SO many things that have NO roots in Islam but we celebrate them with such fervor. No one brings up Islam there but as soon as Halloween comes around the threads start popping up everywhere as if the children are being attacked by goblins. I grew up with this stuff around me since day one and no…it hasn’t affected my faith. Halloween cannot threaten your Iman and we need to try not to be so emotional about this holiday. No need for the “haye haye”.
Its not that serious. And maybe this is wrong of me to say but if you’re doing your job as a parent, you won’t be threatened by a silly costume and some candy corn.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
Also, just to add, how many of you actually grew up with Halloween? Like Reha mentioned, I went trick or treating every year. I didn’t think once about Islam or what it meant, all I knew was that it was free candy. Same with Valentine’s day, just exchanging cards with your classmates. Christmas and Easter were a different matter, and I knew they were non-Islamic. Same with Hanukkah.
Kids aren’t stupid. They know when something is off limit and we shouldn’t make a big fuss over things that bear no merit.
Re: What to do if you don’t want your kids celebrating Halloween?
OP - Some local mosques have a tafseer info session on why halloween is haram in Islam and they give you the exact reasoning behind it. I know our local mosque does these info sessions around halloween time and I plan to attend next year.
I myself am on the fence about this. Pretty much almost all the muslims we know do celebrate it. They don’t make a super big deal about it but they do let their kids get dressed up and go trick or treating.
I know in my heart that it is wrong to celebrate it in Islam, but I am going to be honest and say that although I try, I am not the best practicing Muslim yet. I have very strong faith and always want to improve myself and practice more and I want so badly for my daughter to be a pious, humble and practicing muslim herself.
I have not entirely decided how we will approach the subject of halloween as she gets older (she’s only one). My personal inclination is to allow her NOT to celebrate it, however, there is so much more involved. I need to know the EXACT reasoning why it is not allowed (yes, I know it has to do with pagan roots) but I have so many more questions for the imams before I make my decision.
My daughter was born on halloween…which makes it all the more difficult. Inshallah may Allah help us guide our children to the right path…ameen.
