Muslims “celebrating Christmas”

[lastofallthebugs]

I follow a fair few Muslim footballers from the premier league on social media. Every year they post pictures of their children in front of Christmas trees, wish followers/fans a merry Christmas and seem to be enjoying the holiday for exactly what it is - time with family and friends. They always seem happy and grateful for the break.

And every year, without fail, they are attacked by a seemingly strange subset of people who think they shouldn’t be doing this at all and shouldn’t join in. The same seems to extend to other Muslim people I see online - they get hatred for having a big family dinner at Christmas time.

AIBU to think you can’t have it both ways? You can’t say you want people to integrate, but get angry when they do!

As a Christian I tend to think of Christmas as two separate things with some overlap - there's the religious festival Christians celebrate and there's the mid-winter food'n'tat fest, which can be plenty of fun but isn't exactly deep'n'meaningful. I don't see why Muslims couldn't celebrate the latter? I'd be interested to hear the reasoning of strictly non-celebrating Muslims.

Me neither. But some people find it infuriating.

It will be the same set of people who tell Christians what they do and don’t believe, and argue that if they don’t take every word literally then they can’t be Christian because, ’you can’t cherry pick which parts of your own holy book you follow’. Ditto Christians are all sexist homophobic bigots because of some stuff Paul said.

No nuance or subtlety at all. It’s their preferred outlook to be able to proclaim themselves superior and everyone else mere hypocrites.

Winter food and festival is pagan. That’s why my colleague at work doesn’t celebrate.

He’s a proper strict Muslim though!

Schrödinger's Muslims. Simultaneously banning Christmas and celebrating it. It must be so confusing for those desperate to hate them.

See also boat people who take all the jobs while claiming all the benefits (all while claiming asylum and not allowed to work or claim benefits).

I've learned from Muslim friends that there are many different "streams" within Islam and that some are stricter than others and can interpret things differently. Let those who can/want to celebrate.

What gets my goat is people changing the name of Christmas to avoid offending non Christians. It's no longer a solely Christian event so I think it's unnecessary.

I don’t think any non Christian’s get offended. It’s a load of nonsense

Accidently clicked youbare unreasonable. But i agree with you. Celebrate whatever you want.

That stuff mostly comes from & appeals to 'white British' Guardian reader types who are worked up about Christianity. I don't think anyone else cares

My workplace had a Winter Lunch and Winterfest this year instead of Christmas. Look, I know things change, maybe that's what we'll all call it in 500 years time, but for now it's still known as Christmas and it's both secular and religious, according to whatever you're having yourself. We happily celebrate Eid, Diwali, etc in work and we don't change those names so I'm quite frustrated at this change

Strangely I bet most of them aren't Irish but will still go out on st Patrick day

When I see Muslims posting about celebrating Christmas online, the people attacking them are always other Muslims who believe it’s haram. A lot of them anticipate and pre- empt these attacks from other Muslims, caveating their posts with addresses to the ‘haram police.’ It’s a tiny minority of deeply strange white British people who engage in that behaviour and I don’t think we do anyone any favours by playing that up to be bigger than it is.

I saw a reel from a Muslim influencer who was doing a collaboration with Morrisons and simply showing her take on a Christmas roast where she was using Asian spices on the roast chicken. The abuse in the comments was disgusting and came exclusively from white British people.

Hear, hear

I think this is akin to me "celebrating" Diwali. I'm not Hindu/Sikh/Jain but the city I live in does fairly big celebrations, and it's always a happy and uplifting affair. Campy, music, lights, food etc. What's not to like. I don't pretend to know enough about Islam to talk of haram etc but is it really sinful to partake in fun? Nah humbug to the naysayers.

Most of my friends are Jewish and as well as celebrating Chanukah, also have a low key family lunch at Christmas. Why not? It’s about family.

Although Muslims don't think Jesus is the son of God, he's an important prophet in Islam

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are Abrahamic faiths, they all believe in the teachings of the Old Testament. Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet not the son of God. So there is still a lot of respect for the role of Jesus. Finally most Christmas traditions are actually secular and have zero to do with Christianity- Xmas cards, Santa, trees, the food, presents are all a product of commercialism and are linked to the holidays but not religion.

so I don’t understand why anyone could complain this!!! 2021 census stated only 46.2% of people in the UK are Christian- although I don’t have statistics I doubt very much only that 46.2% of the population celebrate Christmas.

so again I don’t understand why people can judge others choice to celebrate!

Think it's pretty fair to get annoyed at people spouting non sensical hate

Christmas-celebrating Muslim here. We are pretty interesting, we Muslims; we simultaneously celebrate Christmas and also want all mention of it banned ;-)

So confusing 😉 I hope you and yours had a wonderful day

I think because it exposes that it’s all to do with racism

Yep. Totally agree. They’re just bloody racists.

My lovely Christian friend lives in Dubai and celebrates Eid because it is culturally relevant to her life and joyous.

Last night I went to my Jewish friend’s house for Christmas cocktails and it was bloody lovely.

Too many twats out there.

The reason strict Muslims don't celebrate Christmas is because they believe that by embracing it, you are accepting that Jesus is the son of God. Whereas in islam Jesus is believed to be the prophet of god and no more. Islam carries a fundamental belief that god has no offspring or partners.

More liberal Muslims, can distinguish the religious from the cultural aspects of Christmas. So, many will have the tree, the PJs, the tinsel, and the turkey and will enjoy that side of it, as many non Christians and Christians will. Naturally, they don't partake in mass or visiting the church.

Hope this helps.

My manager is Muslim and celebrates he gets a lot of hate from other Muslim colleagues