On the Dangerous Topics of Islam and Days of Celebration

I just got this email from a relative:

Love in Islam is a daily affair, love of Allah and his messenger,family friends and the like.

VALENTINE: A pagan and Christian ritual

Abu Sa'eed al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him), narrated that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:

"You will certainly follow the ways of those who came before you, span by span, cubit by cubit, until even if they were to enter a lizard's hole, you would follow them." We said, "O Messenger of Allaah, (do you mean) the Jews and Christians?" He said, "Who else?!" (Bukhari: 8/151; Muslim: 4/ 2054)

What the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) spoke of; has indeed come to pass and has become widespread in recent times, in many of the Muslim countries. Many Muslims follow the enemies of Allah in most of their customs and behavior, and imitate them in some of their rituals and in celebrating their holidays. Valentine's day is one of them.

REALITY BEHIND VALENTINE

Pagan origins of Valentine's Day:

The first information about this day is found in pre-Christian Rome, when pagans would celebrate the "Feast of the Wolf" on February 15, also known as the "Feast of Lupercalius" in honour of Pastoral Gol Lupercalis (who had many love affairs with nymphs and goddesses), Februata Juno (the Roman goddess of women and marriage), and Pan (the Roman god of nature). On this day, young women would place their names in an urn, from which boys would randomly draw to discover their companion (without any moral restrictions) for the day, the year, and sometimes the rest of their lives. These partners exchanged gifts as a sign of affection and love for each other.

Likewise, virtually naked, arrow-shooting picture of Cupid on Valentine cards is a peculiar symbol of Valentine and according to Roman mythology, is the son of Venus (the goddess of love and beauty), who induces love in people by shooting his arrow at them.

Christian Influence:

When Christianity came onto the scene in Rome, it wanted to replace this feast with something more in line with its ethics and morality. A number of Christians decided to use February 14; a day on which the Italian Bishop St. Valentine was executed by the Roman Emperor Claudius II for conducting secret marriages of military men (forbidden to marry) in the year 270 CE. According to the details, during the time of the Roman Emperor Claudius II due to continuous infighting, Rome was the center point of wars. The declining figure of male fighters (as men would not want to leave their wives and go the battle front) in his army forced him to impose a ban on marriages. So that young men may be persuaded to go on the battlefront. St. Valentine started performing secret marriages at that time.

When his actions were revealed, Claudius threw him in jail and sentenced him to execution. In prison, he (St. Valentine) fell in love with the jailer's daughter, who would visit him, but this was a secret because according to Christian laws, priests and monks were forbidden to marry or fall in love. But he is still regarded highly by the Christians because of his steadfastness in adhering to Christianity when the emperor offered to pardon him if he renounced Christianity and worshipped the Roman gods. He also offered him to be his closest confidantes and he would make him his son-in-law. However, Valentine refused this offer and preferred Christianity. He was executed on 14 February 270 CE, the eve of February 15 on the festival of Lupercalis. Before he died, he wrote a letter to jailor's daughter and the closing of the letter read as, 'From your Valentine'. These very words are used on most of the Valentine's greeting cards in commemoration of the same incident.

There are at least three different Saint Valentines, all of whom are Christian martyrs of February 14. It was in the year 496 CE that Pope Gelasius officially changed the February 15 Lupercalia festival to the February 14 St. Valentine's Day to give Christian meaning to a pagan festival. Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery for young women during the pagan festival. Instead of the names of young women, the box would contain the names of saints, men and women were allowed to draw from the box, and whoever drew the name of the respective saint, he would copy his (saint's) ways for the rest of the year.

(Source: Britannica / Catholic Encyclopedia)

ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

1. In Islam, the festivals are clearly defined. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), while referring to Eid-ul-Fitr, said: "Every nation has its own Eid (festival) and this is our Eid" (Bukhari: 952, Muslim: 1892)

2. Celebrating Valentine's Day means resembling the pagan Romans and Christians. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Whoever imitates a people (nation), he is one of them." (Ahmad: 2/50, Abu Dawood: 4021)

3. The purpose of Valentine's Day in these times is to spread love between all people, believers and disbelievers alike, which is undoubtedly prohibited. Allah says: "You (O Muhammad) will not find any people who believe in Allah and the Last Day, making friendship with those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even though they were their fathers or their sons or their brothers or their kindred (people)." [al-Mujaadilah 58:22]

4. The love referred to in this festival ever since the Christians revived it is romantic love outside the bonding of marriage. Which results in spread of zinaa (fornication and adultery) and immorality. Allah says, "For those who like that indecency should spread among the believers, they deserve a painful punishment in this world and in the Hereafter." [an'Noor: 19]

5. The very foundation of the society established by the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was laid on the purity of bashfulness, in which not only the commission of adultery but the reasons leading to its propagation was also a crime. However, it seems that now the Muslim Ummah feels "overburdened" by carrying this weight. Hence they would do whatsoever they would feel like. A quotation of the holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) befits the situation: "If you do not show the bashfulness, you are free to do what ever you feel like." (Bukhari)

6. Furthermore flagrant disregard of Allah's commandments such as music, dance and drinking is the core of this tradition, which in no way has any role in Islam.

7. Valentine promotes the reasons to illicit infatuations, which keeps involved the brain and heart faculties of a human being unnecessarily. This not only becomes the reason of diversion from the Straight Path but also distances us from the teachings of our Deen.

8. Islam does not encourage flirting or suggestions of romantic relationships before marriage. Love between families, friends and married people does not need to be celebrated on a day with such un-Islamic origins. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) has advised us that if we love (excluding forbidden relations) somebody we should let him know (Abu Dawood). For that very purpose he instructed to spread "Salam", the Islamic greetings (Muslim).

Alas! Those who believe in so pure and eminent teachings of Islam take the western culture as their ideal and derive a sense of superiority in celebrating their traditions.

Hence, this tradition reflects on our insensitivity, indignity and ignorance of Deen.

STOP NOW!

For those who are doing it out of ignorance try to make them aware of it, lest we fall prey to the wrath of Allah and our future generations might not be celebrating these days as the days of mourning.

It's interesting how things are suddenly so much less clearcut once religion gets involved. The email was very interesting in the detail of the history of Valentine's Day, and I think not many people were aware of the actual myth behind it.

More relevantly, to steer this monologue in the right direction, is this history relevant to us? Of course. History is always relevant, as history tells us where we've been and what mistakes we've made. However, does this mean that celebrating Valentine's Day is wrong?

The argument is always contentious, depending on how stolid you are in what you believe and how you believe. In my personal interpretation of Islam, I have always believed that Islam is a religion of intentions. Islam has always taught that if you pray and your heart and mind are not praying with your body, then there's no point in praying. This teaching has always been what I based my beliefs on.

For example, let's take the comment of the 'naked Cupids' that grace Valentine's Day cards. The Cupids are cherubs, depictions of a sexless child who are sexless because of the fact that they are children. This isn't pornography, and isn't intended to be pornography by the same reasoning that those young children who you always see running around Malaysian swimming pools and beaches topless/bottomless/clotheless aren't flashing people or "outraging a person's decency" because they're just young kids.

It is on this basis that, also, I think most Muslims today who may celebrate Valentine's Day are not celebrating Valentine's Day for the purpose of honoring a Christian Saint or the pagan history behind it. I don't contest that the practice of choosing a partner as per the history is wrong. However, I do think that the Valentine's Day celebrated today is substantially different.

Take the following description from Wikipedia, for example:

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery.

It doesn't say that it is a celebration of the deaths of saint so-and-so, or that it is a day dedicated to a pagan tradition, but just a holiday celebrated to express love. In this respect, I infer that Valentine's Day has evolved to mean to us just a day where we express our affection for our loved ones, be it our lovers, our mothers or our friends. How can a day that is dedicated to love be wrong?

Valentine's Day today is much like Chinese New Year or Deepavali in Malaysia, where the holidays become a time to gather together and celebrate a solidarity between races and friends. In a multicultural country like Malaysia, Eid-il-fitri is celebrated by non-Muslims not as a Muslim religious holiday, but as a national holiday where everybody celebrates the holiday together by visiting and gathering, regardless of religion. To the non-Muslims, it is a time that means , "I will share these special moments with you because you are a loved one. Today, you're happy. Let's be happy together." At least that's what it means to me.

To say that Valentine's Day is a pagan celebration or a celebration of a Christian saint is to turn back the clock and live in the past. While it may not seem like there's anything wrong with that, let's think about it. If I believed that, I think that I'd have to believe that the world is flat, but I don't, simply because science has come that far and instead of saying, "But the world is flat!!!", I say, "We used to believe that the world was flat. Now we know better."

To tie it back to the idea of intention, there is no intention of celebrating a pagan celebration, or of worshipping a Christian saint. Certainly there is a history that is honored, but history is not the present. It is a story of where we came from, and a salute to how far we've come. Valentine's Day is a day where we can look back and say, "How pagan. It's a good thing we don't do things like that anymore (so to speak) because we've found religion and learned morals. Instead, let's express our affection, not our lust."