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alhamdulillah
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indeed all praise is due to Allah and as
such we should praise him we should seek
his help and seek refuge in Allah from
the evil which is within
ourselves and the evil which results
from our
Deeds for whomsoever Allah has guided
none can
misguide and whomsoever Allah has
allowed to go astray none can guide and
I bear witness that there's no God
worthy of worship but
Allah and that
Muhammad wasam is the last messenger of
Allah
indeed the most truthful form of speech
is the book of Allah and the best source
of guidance is the guidance brought by
Muhammad sallallah alaihi
wasallam and the worst of all Affairs
the worst of all human Affairs
are the
Innovations in
religion for every innovation in
religion
is a source of
misguidance and all
misguidance ultimately leads to the
Hellfire brothers and
sisters we
are within
range of a classical
example of innovation in
religion leading to misguiding
in 6 days
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time much of the
world will celebrate
Christmas a classical
example of
innovation leading to
misguidance
Christmas which
even in this land
Muslims are affected
by in
ignorance not knowing the significance
of the
rituals and the various components of
Christmas we even find
Muslims adopting some of the
symbols greeting their workmates their
friends their neighbors Merry Christmas
feeling that since the workmates will
tell us happy Eid Eid
Mubarak and they don't necessarily
believe in our
Eid why not also tell them Merry
Christmas Even though we don't really
believe in their
Christmas there are a number of issues
that we need to understand concerning
Christmas whereby
having understood
them it is possible for us to help guide
our colleagues our friends our neighbors
our schoolmates whatever to the truth
about
Christmas most Christians don't really
know the truth about
Christmas
so as we Muslims are
enjoined to seek knowledge as the
prophet wasallam had
said and we spoke about that in
previous in fact all of our various hbas
are expressions of seeking the knowledge
understanding the
religion whereas other religions people
are discouraged from seeking
knowledge they're told that knowledge
will confuse
them Satan will use this knowledge to to
weaken their faith so better they just
listen to the priest or the monk or the
whatever and follow blindly he will
guide
you down the correct
path but Islam says
no each individual is responsible to
know his or her
religion as thoroughly as is
possible that is the responsibility of
each and every individual but of of
course there are those who know
more so where do we seek knowledge of
the religion we don't seek it from our
ignorant uh compatriots our ignorant
colleagues were are in the same state of
ignorance as we are so it is the blind
leading the blind no we do seek it from
those who know as Allah
said ask those who know if you don't
know don't ask those who don't know like
yourself what do you think no we need to
seek knowledge from the sources from
those who have access to the
sources so considering Christmas christ
Mass
Christmas first and
foremost we should understand was not a
celebration taught by Prophet
Jesus nor was it done by his disciples
those who are around him the 12 and
others they never celebrated it and he
didn't teach it so in fact it is not
from the teachings of
Jesus in fact even if you look in the
books of the Christians today in the
gospels you will not find any mention of
Christmas there it was unknown not
celebrated even in spite of the
Innovations of Paul because
Christianity should more rightly be
called
paulan not associated with Christ but
associated with Paul because he is the
one who molded Christianity into what it
is
today a different interpretation of what
Jesus
taught an
innovation a series of Innovations which
he introduced but in spite of
that Christmas was not among
them the paulan Innovations did not
include
Christmas Christmas was not
celebrated in the Christian
World until more than 300 years after
the time of Christ
why why didn't they celebrate
it because fundamentally it was
known that the celebration of
birthdays was a pagan
custom that's what we have to understand
fundamentally why early Christianity did
not celebrate birthdays because of
course this has its own implic
on us celebrating our children's
birthdays so okay we understand
Christmas but what about the kids
birthday all his friends at school are
celebrating their birthdays he feels
left out the teacher when he goes to
school they get the the dates of birth
of all the children and they identify
whose birthday it is and they celebrate
and everybody but when it comes to my
son or my daughter theirs are not
celebrated they feel left out well we
have to say first and foremost brother
you you shouldn't have put your child in
that
school so don't compound your error by
now celebrating your child's
birthday so that he will be
happy you have put him in that
situation take him out if you want to
correct it you take him out don't
celebrate the
birthday you made a mistake
it's not too late recognize it for what
it is and correct
it so early Christians didn't celebrate
the
birthday of
anybody because the celebration of
birthdays was known to be a pagan
practice if you look at the Old
Testament and the New
Testament the only place that you find
celebration of birthdays was the
celebration of the birthdays of the
Pharaohs the Pagan rulers Herod of
Palestine this is only associated with
the pagans it was
known it was based on the
belief that the day on which one is
born one is
weakest this is the day
when one is weakest and most easily
affected by evil
spirits so they used to burn candles to
drive away the evil
spirits light in the darkness the evil
coming in the darkness the light drives
away the darkness so that's why you see
all of the celebrations has this
principle of candles well now it's
Christmas tree lights those Christmas
tree lights were originally candles
which were placed on the Christmas
tree they became lights modern
technology and sometimes the lights are
even in the form of a little flame some
of them will flicker like a flame and
all these other kind of because that was
the origin of the
belief so early Christians didn't
celebrate
it 300 years
after the time of
Christ a
monk it said a scathan
monk
suggested that the date of birth of
Jesus was the 25th of
December how did he come to the 25th of
December no
evidence in fact historians looking at
the historical record according to the
gospels concluded that it couldn't have
been in Winter December was Winter
because of other issues that they talked
about in the gospels concerning the time
and what was happening at that time it
wasn't winter
time at any rate 25th of December was
chosen
chosen when Christianity now became
strongest where in
Rome it had left the Middle East it had
left
Jerusalem the
teachings of
Jesus were
overwhelmed in
Jerusalem Paul in southern turkey had
become the leader leader of
Christianity he is the one who called
the followers of Jesus Christians he's
the first one to use that name it was
never used before that Jesus never used
the term it was a paan term Christianity
Christians and from there it was taken
to Rome through Greece and onto Rome and
as it traveled through Greece and into
Rome it absorbed a variety of practices
which were
Pagan in order to win over the hearts of
the Pagan Greeks and the Pagan Romans
they adopted a variety of
teachings in
Greece they adopted the
idea of the Son of
God the Son of God the
logus and and in Rome it was developed
to the point where the day of worship
shifted from the
Sabbath from Saturday to
Sunday why because the most popular god
of the Romans at that time was
Apollo Apollo according to Roman
mythology was the son God s n God
who would drive his or ride his Chariot
across the sky carrying the sun behind
him furthermore he was also the son of
Zeus the son of the main god so he was
also the Son of God s o n as well as
being the son God s n and that's why the
day for his popular worship was called
Sunday
So when you say to somebody I'll meet
you on
Sunday you're saying I'll meet you on
the day that this the god the son God is
worshiped
so this change had taken
place and in this
context where so many Pagan ideas were
now being
introduced that the 25th of December was
pulled out of the
Hat why the 25th of December why not the
some other
day well if one goes back into the
history of
Christianity into
Christmas you will find another term
associated with Christmas is called the
saturnalia the
saturnalia what is the
saturnalia
saturnalia was the
day of
worship dedicated to
Saturn Saturn is not a planet yes
there's a planet called
Saturn named
after the Roman god of the Harvest
Saturn he was the god of the
Harvest so
when the fields were
harvested then rights of worship were
dedicated to
Saturn that series of worship rights
were called the
saturnalia and it involved giving of
gifts it
involved carrying
wreaths the Holly the little red uh
berries with a wreath of green leaves
which is commonly associated you'll see
with images of Christmas you'll see this
and they even sing about it deck the
halls with boughs of holly Etc the song
they sing in those it has to do this
Holly this
wreath this was directly associated with
the
satalia
and as time as Christianity spread into
Europe it absorbed other
symbols in
Scandinavia the Scandinavians believed
in tree gods that the gods inhabited the
trees they were inside
trees
so if you wanted
to talk to your God you would go to the
tree and knock on
it and then you would talk to
God
right and this is where the practice we
now called knock on wood comes
from when people says things are going
well knock on wood find me some wood to
knock
on that's what it goes back to the
Scandinavian practice of knocking on the
trees before talking to their
gods this is all
Pagan at any rate the Scandinavians
where they looked at the various
trees all the trees when winter came the
fall came they call it the fall why
because that's when the leaves of the
trees would fall fall
off as it start to get cold the leaves
turned in color and then they fell off
except for one
tree the tree we now called the
Christmas
tree this is the Evergreen it stays
green all year long so they felt it was
the symbol of everlasting life because a
God has got to be Everlasting you can't
be dying so they didn't choose the other
trees they chose this one the one we now
called the Christmas tree
and they brought small versions of it
into their homes to
worship and this is where the Christmas
tree came
from
so from
a
basic understanding of what is involved
in the rights of Christmas it is enough
to say as a Muslim it is not permissible
for us to celebrate this celebration in
any way shape or form with any of its
symbols not
acceptable
furthermore from a religious
perspective
purely
a mono monotheism our fundamental belief
concerning God being one and unique
unque one of his attributes is what
having no
beginning as well as having no end is
without
beginning he's not
born he doesn't give
birth nor is he
born neither does he give birth nor is
he himself
born so so on one hand he doesn't give
birth he can't have a son because once
you say son you're talking about a
father and a
son and the father and the son are not
the
same and if the father was a God then
the son has to be a God so now you have
two
Gods all kinds of problems come up with
that
furthermore
nor was he
born God is not
born because for one to be born one had
to First not
exist and if God didn't exist how would
he then come into
existence it's
confusion so one of the most essential
character characteristics of God is that
he is without beginning meaning he was
never
born cannot be born somebody says to
you can't God do everything and
anything
in we say yes Allah is able to do all
things which are
befitting with him being God not
included in that are things which make
him no longer
God we don't include that that's
understood those are absurdities we
don't include that in the general
concept of Allah being able to do all
things so we don't go there couldn't God
make himself born
no so the idea that God was born on the
25th of
December because according to Christian
theology Jesus Is
God he is the Son of God and at the same
time he is
God that is
blasphemy Allah speaks about it in the
Quran saying that the the the the
heavens and the Earth about to be torn
apart because of this statement of human
beings
that God bore a
son that God was
born so when we celebrate Christmas
we're celebrating the day on which
according to Christians God was
born can a Muslim celebrate the Day on
which God was
born absolutely
not
absolutely
not so we have to be very clear on this
matter that for a
Muslim celebration of Christmas is
absolutely
forbidden however as a Muslim it is our
duty to understand what Christmas is
about what why Muslims don't celebrate
it and convey this information
to our friends or colleagues our
neighbors Etc who are in
ignorance they don't know and we try to
do so in the best way that we can we
convey that information to them after
that it is on them whether they accept
and believe and or not this is up to
them but it is our duty to do
so and part of the celebration of
Christmas is to say Merry
Christmas that is part of the
rituals the customs of
Christmas so don't say I'm not
celebrating meaning I didn't buy a
tree I don't subscribe to the LIE of
Santa Claus because Santa Claus is
a national
lie something which the whole nation
agrees on we're going to lie to our
children and tell them this fat man in
the red suit comes climbing down your
chimney and putting gifts in
your shoe your sock on Christmas it's a
national
lie and then people wonder
why they have a nation of
liars where the president lies he gets
caught in lies from time to time
and it's not a big deal a you shouldn't
have lied
but they accept it why because you're
taught to lie from the very beginning
you start by lying to the
children and eventually the child finds
out you hear people talking about it
that traumatic
morning when the child woke up early and
came downstairs and saw Mom and Dad
stuffing
the present inside of the
socks shocking
bringing kids to
tears
traumatic it's a big
lie
so besides
that because the fact that we don't
actually engage in that
practice saying Merry Christmas in
itself is a part of the rights of
Christmas so we're not even allowed to
to do that to say Merry
Christmas of course we might find it
difficult because our work makes they
come to us they say Merry Christmas uh
what do I say
now I'm not supposed to say Merry
Christmas back to them what did I say
you
know have a happy
holiday you could tell him that it's a
holiday have a happy holiday
find some other phrases to use which you
feel comfortable with which don't
include Merry
Christmas and those who say
well they say Eid
Mubarak they just finished telling usid
muak
for well we say it's there there's a
difference there's a huge
difference is celebrating something that
Christians believe
in Christians believe that prophet
Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his
son and God replaced that sacrifice with
a ram and he sacrificed
it so they're
saying in no way affects their belief
system in fact they should feel proud to
say whereas our saying Merry
Christmas that strikes at the very core
of our belief
system two different things
altoe furthermore if we actually get
into the root of it
the
celebration of
Christmas
is like the
celebration of Satan's
day there are people who are called
Satan
worshippers there's a Church of Satan in
America recognized by the
government there's the Satan's Bible the
whole system is there you can go on the
internet
Google Satan's Bible Satan worshippers
Wikipedia will give you their
history they're
recognized now if one of those Satan
worshippers said to you happy Satan's
birthday do you have any problems in not
saying
happy Satan's birthday to you also oh
you don't have any problem with
that that's
obvious reality is that
Christmas is a celebration of Satan's
birthday because if it's not from
God then it is from
Satan that's a general principle what
whatever is worshiped besides God is
Satan it's
satanic of course when we're explaining
to our Christian colleagues we don't
need to go
there right because that's going to
close ears nobody's going to hear you
after that hey you're celebrating
Satan's
birthday they're not going to be able to
understand that's a bit deep right and
this is just for your ears for you to
understand the roots of it why you
shouldn't feel shy about not celebrating
or saying Merry Christmas any more than
you would feel not feel shy about saying
marry Satan's birthday to a Satan
worshipper
so putting all this in
context I ask Allah tala to give us the
strength of Faith to handle this period
which is coming before us to renew our
faith in Allah and in his
Oneness and to guide our colleagues and
our friends and our neighbors to the
truth about
Allah to remind them of Allah's
Oneness and
about the fact that he had no son he has
no equal and he wasn't
born and to affirm that Faith ourselves
in allaha
and to fulfill whatever that requires of
us in our
lives I say that asking Allah to forgive
myself and yourselves and call on you to
turn to him seeking his forgiveness as
none can forgive sins except
him
alhamdulillah all Praises due to Allah
and may Allah's peace and blessings be
on the last messenger of
Allah having understood
Christmas it is also important for us to
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understand the
Islamic or we shouldn't say Islamic let
us call it the Muslim
substitute
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Muslims seeing this fervor with which
Christians celebrated the day of
birth of Jesus Christ the supposed
day felt that since Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam in our belief
system he was a greater Prophet than
Jesus then shouldn't we celebrate his
birthday if the Christians are making
such a big show shouldn't we do more do
better so 400
years after the death of prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasall
am Muslims began to celebrate the
birthday of prophet Muhammad sallu alai
wasallam it began in
Egypt as a national
practice under the
fatimids the Shiite rulers of Egypt they
started
it and the day they chose was actually
the day historic Ally on which prophet
Muhammad s alai wasallam
died the day on which he was
born is actually not
known though people say no but we know
it is no
historians are not agreed on the day we
have
no concrete evidence regarding the
day on which prophet Muhammad mad Sall
Ali wasallam was
born the only concrete evidence we have
is the practice of prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam to fast on
Mondays and when he was asked about
fasting on Mondays one of the answers
that he gave was it was the day on which
I was
born he fasted on Mondays so the only
thing that we can say with certainty is
that he was born on a Monday which
Monday Allah alone knows as Allah hid
the day on which prophet Isa was born he
hid the day on which prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam was
born this was to
prevent what has
happened to make it difficult
to leave evidence to people that people
have gone astray in this
matter but the celebration of the
Prophet Sall alam's birthday has no
basis in Islamic
teachings Beyond fasting on
Monday
so as
Muslims this
Innovation which has become
widespread beginning from
Fatimid uh rulers in Egypt spreading
over the umah today till now you have
huge celebrations people going down the
streets Lights song dance you know the
whole nine yards as they say going on in
the Muslim world today huge celebration
the M people writing
poetry and Kali singing and music and
everything all the Forbidden
things have now been lumped together in
the
mid all Innovation is
misguidance that's what prophet mamm
wasallam said regardless of people's
intention say but that's not my
intention I don't intend to innovate I'm
just remembering Prophet Muhammad s
alaihi wasallam is it a bad
thing in the way that you're doing it is
a bad
thing it's not a bad thing to remember
Prophet muhammmad wasallam Allah tells
us in the
Quran calls on the
Believers to remember Prophet Muhammad
wasallam by doing what by celebrating
his birthday some people say yeah that's
what the verse is really saying
celebrate his
birthday that is not what was understood
by the early generation the early
generation that heard this verse that
recorded this verse they didn't
celebrate his birthday so obviously that
was not what was to be understood from
this
verse they understood as the verse
clearly states that we ask Allah's peace
and blessings to be on Prophet Muhammad
wasallam in our recognition for what he
has done for us guided us to the
straight
path we ask Allah to bless
him
not to celebrate his birthday with the
Fanfare that we do
today it being Innovation it is not
surprising that it caused
deviation so some of the Poetry that is
recited attributes to Prophet Muhammad s
alaihi wasallam the knowledge of
Allah they give the attributes of Allah
to Muhammad sallallahu alhi wasallam in
this poetry which they
recite regularly
religiously on his birthday and and on
other
occasions Innovation
misguidance calling people to the
worship of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wasallam
and so we have Muslims
today who call on
Muhammad we see it in the
masjids where they will put a plaque on
one side of the
M saying yaah Allah and on the other
side it will say yah
Muhammad what does that mean Ya Allah
yah Muhammad we understand Ya Allah oh
oh Allah answer my
prayers yeah
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
yes but yah
Muhammad oh Muhammad what we're calling
on him to do something for us people
believe that
today and that is
misguidance that is
shik Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
can do nothing for us in this
life
he did what he
did each and every one of us who has
accepted Islam he is rewarded for
because we are a product of his work so
he
benefits but he cannot benefit us
directly in that we can call on him and
he will answer our prayers and do things
for us that is Allah Allah
said call on me and I will answer your
prayers only Allah can answer our
prayers this is the true Islamic belief
and this is what we need to renew put
these practices back in their correct
context no renew our relationship with
allaha a relationship of
I of worship in the purest way
possible this is Islam worshiping Allah
as he deserves to be worshiped I ask
Allah to give us the blessing of
worshiping him as he deserves to be
worshiped ask Allah to remove from our
hearts the Innovations and the love of
misguidance that has entered upon us I
ask Allah to guide our families our
children our umah to the true worship of
Allah alone
and to bring everything else in
submission to it to return to this umah
its strength based on faith to return to
this umah its ascendancy and guidance to
the world based on faith I ask Allah to
forgive us to forgive us our misguiding
our misguidance our deviation and to
bring us back to the straight path and
to take us from this life Believers amen
Salah