Valentine Day In Islam - Must Read Article

[M.Tariq Malik]

Dr. Su`ad Ibrahim Salih is the head of the Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Department, Faculty of Islamic & Studies, Al-Azhar University.
She is a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the organizer of the Permanent Committee of Fiqh Professors at Al-Azhar Univ.
She has many works in the field of Shari`ah and Family such as: Ahkam `Ibadat Al-Mar'ah fi Ash-Shari`ah Al-Islamiyyah, Adwa' `ala Nizam Al-Usrah fi Al-Islam, Ahkam Tasarufat As-Saghir, Ahkam Tasarufat As-Safih, Adab Al-Khilaf wa Asbab Al-Ikhtilaf, and Hquq Al-Mar'ah fi Al-Islam.

PLEASE READ IT BEFORE CELEBRATING IT.

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

Dear questioner, thank you very much for having confidence in us, and we invoke Allah Almighty to enlighten our hearts all to accept the truth and to grant us success both in this world and on the Day of Judgement, Amen.

First of all, we’d like to shed light on the origin of this festival, known as "Valentine Day" or "Festival of Love":

The Festival of Love was one of the festivals of the pagan Romans, when paganism was the prevalent religion of the Romans more than seventeen centuries ago. In the pagan Roman concept, it was an expression of "spiritual love".

There were myths associated with this pagan festival of the Romans, which persisted with their Christian heirs. Among the most famous of these myths was the Roman belief that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was suckled one day by a she-wolf, which gave him strength and wisdom.

The Romans used to celebrate this event in mid-February each year with a big festival.

One of the rituals of this festival was the sacrifice of a women would welcome these blows, because they believed that they could prevent or cure infertility.

The connection between Saint Valentine and this festival:

Saint Valentine is a name which is given to two of the ancient "martyrs" of the Christian Church. It was said that there were two of them, or that there was only one, who died in Rome as the men who wanted to get married would be called, and each of them would pick a piece of paper. He would put himself at the service of the girl whose name he had drawn for one year, so that they could find out about one another. Then they would get married, or they would repeat the same process again on the day of the festival in the following year.

The Christian clergy reacted against this tradition, which they considered to have a corrupting influence on the morals of young men and women. It was abolished in Italy, where it had been well-known, then it was revived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when in some western countries there appeared shops which sold small books called “Valentine’s books”, which contained love poems, from which the one who wanted to send a make peace between your brethren and observe your duty to Allah that haply ye may obtain mercy.) (Al-Hujurat 49: 10)

Focusing more on the question in point, I can say that there are forms of expressing love that are religiously acceptable, while there are others that are not religiously acceptable. Among the forms of love that are religiously acceptable are those that include the love for Prophets and Messengers. It stands to reason that the love for Allah, and His Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) should have the top priority over all other forms of love.

Islam does recognize happy occasions that bring people closer to one another, and add spice to their lives. However, Islam goes against blindly imitating the West regarding a special occasion such as Valentine’s Day. Hence, commemorating that special day known as the Valentine’s Day is an innovation or bid`ah that has no religious backing. Every innovation of that kind is rejected, as far as Islam is concerned. Islam requires all Muslims to love one another all over the whole year, and reducing the whole year to a single day is totally rejected.

Hence, we Muslims ought not to follow in the footsteps of such innovations and superstitions that are common in what is known as the Valentine’s Day. No doubt that there are many irreligious practices that occur on that day, and those practices are capable of dissuading people from the true meanings of love and altruism to the extent that the celebration is reduced to a moral decline.

[Ayaz Khaskheli]

Nice Sharing.

[raheel abbasi]

JazakAllah....An eye opener for all of us

[hassan raza]

ok nahi manyen gye ab kush jnb

[Farhana Naz]

shame on those peoples who celebrate the west Days Specially valentine day... They are insulting our Prophet Muhammad SAW and we are promoting their culture.. 

[__SONO__(*_*)]

Same Here...

[Yasir Saleem]

Dear all,

with due respect to all the responces and the articles stated above. donot you think that we are taking Extreme steps on each and every thing and we are isolating our selves. Why do we link every thing with Islam, if thsi occasion has noting to do with Islam. I believe that we should respect others and their days and should expect the same from them on each and every occassion.

in one of the incident Prophet(PBUH) has given a good example, when he allowed the christians to do their parayers in the Mousque although their prayer was having a musical instruments. I personally believe that we can celebrate as said in the above article these days a whole year. so what is wrong on the valentines day, if it is giving you an oppertunity to get close to each other than celebrate it. but ofcorse the style that we adopt in celebrating should of our cultures and values.We should not compromise on that.

With Regards,

Yasir

[raheel abbasi]

SHOR HE HO GAE DUNYA SE MUSALMAN NABOOD

HAM YE KAHTE HEN KE THEY BHE KAHEN MUSLIM MOJOOD??

WAZAA MEN TUM HO NASARA TO TAMADUN MEN HANOOD

YE MUSLIMAN HEN JINHEN DEKH KE SHARMAEN YAHOOD ...... IQBAL

AIK Hadees pak ka mafhum he ke " JIS NE KISE AUR QUM KE SHBAHAT IKHTIYAR KI, WO QAYAMAT MEN UNHE KE SATH UTHAYA JAE GA"

Sahe aur galt Islam ne khul ke wazih kar diya he.. Ab ye ham per munhasir he ke ham use follow karen ya na karen..Jb Hazur Pak (SAW)  ke 100 times iman ki dawat ke bawajud, aur ap ke dunya men mojood hote hue bhe aur mojizat ko apne ankhon se dekhne ke baad bhe kae log phir bhe hidayat se mehroom rahe....To aj 14 sadyon bad aur is fitna angez dor men hamare pas hujjaten to be shumar hon ge!!!!!!

[Yasir Saleem]

Dear I respect your openion, but with respect want to say " Hum kise se suhbat ki batt hi nahi kar rahe" . I am just saying if you get an oppertunity to get close to each other use it. I just want to say that we have people in our world and for sure we love them not a single day but for whole life. You may use such oppertunities that brings you close to your friends, faimaly and your lovers.As I said before " but in the limits of our culture (which for true is Islam." and that should not be compromised.).  

[Khurram Shahzad]

“Some people set up equals to God, loving them as they should love God. But those who believe have greater love for God. If only you could see those who do wrong at the time when they see the punishment,and that truly all strength belongs to God, and that God is severe in punishment.” (Qur’an, 2:165)

What commercial and cultural propaganda presents as beautiful is rooted in ugly paganism but most blind followers do not know.

There is a group of practices that we can consider as the twin sister of bid’ah. Like bid’ah they flourish on the twin foundations of ignorance and outside influence. Like bid’ah they entail rituals. But unlike bid’ah the rituals have not been given an Islamic face. They are followed because they are considered an acceptable cultural practice or the hottest imported “in” thing.

Most of those who indulge in them do not know what they are doing. They are just blind followers of their equally blind cultural leaders. Little do they realize that what they consider as innocent fun may in fact be rooted in paganism. That the symbols they embrace may be symbols of unbelief. That the ideas they borrow may be products of superstition. That all of these may be a negation of what Islam stands for.

Consider Valentine’s Day, a day that after dying out a well deserved death in most of Europe (but surviving in Britain and United States) has suddenly started to emerge across a good swath of Muslim countries. Who was Valentine? Why is this day observed? Legends abound, as they do in all such cases, but this much is clear: Valentine’s Day began as a pagan ritual started by Romans in the 4th century BCE to honor the god Lupercus. The main attraction of this ritual was a lottery held to distribute young women to young men for “entertainment and pleasure”–until the next year’s lottery. Among other equally despicable practices associated with this day was the lashing of young women by two young men, clad only in a bit of goatskin and wielding goatskin thongs, who had been smeared with blood of sacrificial goats and dogs. A lash of the “sacred” thongs by these “holy men” was believed to make them better able to bear children.

As usual, Christianity tried, without success, to stop the evil celebration of Lupercalia. It first replaced the lottery of the names of women with a lottery of the names of the saints. The idea was that during the following year the young men would emulate the life of the saint whose name they had drawn. (The idea that you can preserve the appearance of a popular evil and yet somehow turn it to serve the purpose of virtue, has survived. Look at all those people who are still trying, helplessly, to use the formats of popular television entertainments to promote good. They might learn something from this bit of history. It failed miserably) Christianity ended up doing in Rome, and elsewhere, as the Romans did.

The only success it had was in changing the name from Lupercalia to St. Valentine’s Day. It was done in CE 496 by Pope Gelasius, in honor of some Saint Valentine. There are as many as 50 different Valentines in Christian legends. Two of them are more famous, although their lives and characters are also shrouded in mystery. According to one legend, and the one more in line with the true nature of this celebration, St. Valentine was a “lovers’” saint, who had himself fallen in love with his jailer’s daughter.

Due to serious troubles that accompanied such lottery, French government banned the practice in 1776. In Italy, Austria, Hungry, and Germany also the ritual vanished over the years. Earlier, it had been banned in England during the 17th century when the Puritans were strong. However in 1660 Charles II revived it. From there it also reached the New World, where enterprising Yankees spotted a good means of making money. Esther A. Howland, who produced one of the first commercial American Valentine’s Day cards called what else valentines, in the 1840s, sold $5,000 worth–when $5,000 was a lot of money–the first year. The valentine industry has been booming ever since.

How can anyone in his right mind think that Islam would be indifferent to practices seeped in anti-Islamic ideas and beliefs? Islam came to destroy paganism in all its forms and it cannot tolerate any trace of it in the lives of its followers.

Further, Islam is very sensitive about maintaining its purity and the unique identity of its followers. Islamic laws and teachings go to extra lengths to ensure it. Salat is forbidden at the precise times of sunrise, transition, and sunset to eliminate the possibility of confusion with the practice of sun worship. To the voluntary recommended fast on the tenth of Muharram, Muslims are required to add another day (9th or 11th) to differentiate it from the then prevalent Jewish practice. Muslims are forbidden to emulate the appearance of non-Muslims.

narrated by Abdullah Ibn Abbas RA that Allah HATES three people the most;

1. evil doers
2. who wants Jahalih (paganism) in Islam
3. kill with out right

[bukhari hadith No. 6882 also see Quraan surah 5:50]

A Muslim is a Muslim for life. During joys and sorrows, during celebrations and sufferings, we must follow the one straight path not many divergent paths. It is a great tragedy that under the constant barrage of commercial and cultural propaganda from the forces of globalization and the relentless media machine, Muslims have begun to embrace the Valentines and other days. Given our terrible and increasing surrender to paganism the only day we should be observing is a day of mourning. Better yet it should be a day of repentance that could liberate us from all these days.

courtesy: classicalislam.com

“To mankind the love of worldly appetites is painted in glowing colours: women and children, and heaped-up mounds of gold and silver, and horses with fine markings, and livestock and fertile farmland. All that is merely the enjoyment of the life of the world. The best homecoming is in the presence of God.” (Qur’an, 3:14)