Tag Archives: parenting in Islam

Life, Parenting

Halloween and Islam

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Cute Picture From Jannah Steps Blog

I know that a lot of you may be tempted to dress yourself or your kids up for Halloween. However, the majority of scholars have said that Halloween in particular is a celebration that true followers of Islam should not celebrate.  I feel awful because even though I was always a practicing Muslim, I didn’t realize how harmful Halloween was until much later in life. So I decided to write this post to help more Muslims gain awareness about it.  While it may seem harmless to dress up and eat candy on Halloween, here is an excerpt from SuhaibWebb.com.

“The consensus of our scholars have prohibited taking part in the activities or selling the items specifically related to celebrating holidays representing religions other than Islam. This is due to the hadith we mentioned, ‘Whoever imitates or resembles a people is one of them’ (Bukhari)

Among these is Halloween which is an ancient polytheist pagan tradition of Europe that was switched to All Souls day once Roman Catholicism had spread throughout Europe. It gained back its pagan roots with the capitalist venture of profit in those polytheist rituals. The current practices are almost identical to those done by the Polytheist originators of this holiday. If you are truly a follower of the Qur’an and Sunnah – not someone who follows their desires, or someone who simply wishes to fit in even when it compromises their religion – then you will not partake in this holiday.

We must not take part in this celebration. Instead, we should try to organize mosque activities on this night, or try and go somewhere that doesn’t celebrate it, or at least just keep your lights off outside of your house.”

For those of you in the Bay Area, MCC East Bay is planning a nice event called November’s Eve Celebration at Sienna Ranch from 5:30pm-8:30pm. It will be a halal alternative to Halloween replete with s’mores, bon fire, face painting, and henna. Since this is NOT a Halloween event, please don’t come in costume iA.

I hope this post finds all of my East coast readers well and I hope this helps all Muslims decide to do the right thing today iA.

Parenting

Why Eid ul Adha Makes Me A Better Parent

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This post is a little bit late, but I wanted to share my thoughts about this past Eid last week.

Muslims celebrate two holidays. Eid ul Fitr which celebrates the end of Ramadan which is a month of devotion and fasting. And we celebrate Eid ul Adha which honors the sacrifice that Ibrahim (as) was prepared to make.

How many of us would have been willing to sacrifice a child?

In the Quran, Allah (swt) tests Ibrahim (as) by sending a command to sacrifice his son Ismail (as) in a dream. Ibrahim (as) was torn. He was convinced he had to do it, but look at the beauty of the verse in the Quran. In Surah 37 ayah 102:

And when he was old enough to go about and work with him, (one day) Abraham said to him: “My son, I see in my dream that I am slaughtering you. So consider (and tell me) what you think.”

He said: “Do as you are bidden. You will find me, if Allah so wills, among the steadfast.”

While most parents focus on the obedience part of Ismail (as), I noticed that Ibrahim (as) as a parent treated his son as an adult mA. He tells his son about his dream and doesn’t just order that he obeys Allah (swt)’s command, he asks his son “What do you think?”

As a parent, I find it easy to tell my daughter to do something, but it’s a bit more challenging to sit there and explain why.

But in the Quran, it clearly shows that these two Prophets shared a relationship of mutual admiration and trust.

I can only hope that I can aspire to a certain degree of this, but I do know that this particular Eid will always remind me that parenting is not just about ordering your child to do what’s best, but having a real relationship based on mutual trust and affection iA.

I hope you all had a lovely Eid! And please make dua for all of us. I pray that all the Hajjis making their way back have their accepted iA. Stay tuned for fashion tips for curvy hijabis coming soon iA!